Essay - Ellen
From Mod Mania
In this essay I am going to concentrate on the relation between mod and consumer society in general and also a bit of mod history, pros and contras of mod and its contribution. Here's just some of my thoughts. Help and comments are welcome :D Thanks
Mod can be described as a further step of a production done by the consumer. Basically the mod product is a new form of the original product that might have a different meaning and use depends on who do the modding.
"In the modern world the production of consumption becomes more important than the consumption of production". (John Lukaes) (Campbell, 2000)1
So, through modding, consumer could be the producer too. What distinguish this is ‘real’ producer (read: big companies) works professionally while the consumer who modify products only accept validation from a smaller group. Big companies work in a huge scale. They have large target market, massive production and management system. Their products are recognized. On the other hand, the ‘modders’ validate their works in a small group. So people with the same interest of modding something build their own community.
One of the reasons people do modding might be their dissatisfaction in consuming.
"The mystery is more fundamental than any of these and concerns the very essence of modern consumption itself – its character as an activity which involves an apparently endless pursuit of wants". (Campbell, 2000)2
Human is a creative creature. They have endless idea to make up something new. There is no way to keep people satisfied with what they have. Even more than buying something on the shop (which others can have it too), people like to own something unique or something that represents them. Consequently, the producers are always challenged to create new things. But the problem is, everything sells in the market could never satisfy people’s wants. Wants lead to personal satisfaction. It is more than a physical contentment if it is fulfilled yet recognition of personal existence in the society. This kind of wants apparently could not be thrilled through consumption.Hence, people try to find a way to get that acknowledgment and that would be: modding. Through modding, people could build their own community; speak up their thoughts in a way creating a modified version of existed things.
Addition, alteration, enhancement, replacement (even hacking) are some forms of modifying. Can be said that mod is one of the further result of DIY (Do It Yourself) culture movement. It first started as a political activism. It is kind of liberal form of accessing properties and leisure in the society (Wikipedia,2007)3. Until now, this movement is still developing in a different form, for example the crafting community who proclaim their existence through their manifesto:
People get satisfaction for being able to create/ craft things because they can see themselves in the object they make. This is not possible in purchased products. (Mutanen,2005)4
Basically the manifesto covers the reasons why people take pleasure in making things. Since now we live in a creative era, we keep recycling everything (including ideas). And those previous ideas are developed into new things through modding process.
The triumph of the mod happened in 1983; a fan of “Castle Wolfeinstein”: an arcade action game in Apple II, modified it into a Smurf version. He called it ”Castle Smurfeinstein”. He ‘simply’ replaced all the characters and text with Smurfs and Smurf related items. (Au James,2002)5. The result was great as he got self-satisfaction (by breaking up the system of the game) and people were very enthusiastic with his work and started to develop mod version for other games. On these days, there are lots of customized games where we could actually create our own character, our own world, our own skill and share it with friends. It could be categorized as simple modding process too.
So how far we can go on mod?
Producers create languages for their products. They designed and constructed in a way where there is limitation of use. For example, a mobile phone is used as a communication device not as a home decoration. Each product ‘tells’ us how to use or not to use them.
Another thing that control consumption is advertising. Producer creates an advertisement in certain way so that it redirects consumers’ desire. So when people see a clever and interesting advertisement, they tend to buy the product even though it is not their needs. Therefore, sometimes people unconsciously limit their creativity to do mod. They think inside producers’ boundary. Nevertheless, since technology has been developing, the access to build a mod community becomes easier. Forums, blogs, chat rooms are the place where people could ‘meet up’ virtually and work together as modders. They share ideas, give comments and suggestions or critique others’ work. Those activities are actually built a lot of different area in mod society.
By referring in Karl Marx’ idea of society control, we can define it into control the ‘Means of Production’ and control the‘Means of Consumption’.
Cited to Marx’ words, the one who control the means of the production controls society. He classified control the ‘Means of Production’ into control of factories and labours which are based on the ‘capitalism’ theory. All goes to money; all goes to the profit matter. He used the term ‘commodity’ instead of product as an object outside us that by its properties satisfies human wants of sort or another. He explained that the producer takes control of the labour in a way that the labour paid not as high as the value of the commodity they produce. (Marx, 1867)6 So the producers effectively put a certain value to their product that determines consumers’ perspective of it.
Furthermore, control ‘The Means of Consumption’ differentiates to control the structure and the labour of consumption. Control the structure of consumption basically includes pricing structure, shops, transportation, warehouses and also advertisement. Those essential aspects are run by the producers. They establish the price of their products, how the shop looks like, what system they have to use distributing the product and also how do they promote the product through advertisement or exhibition. Briefly, we can say that producers create languages for each product. The distinct example is the brand’s name. We all know that the brand’s name is the biggest contributor in a successful sale.
The concept of ‘brand’, summarize well the possibilities of a ‘language’ of consumption. (Baudrillard, Lee(ed),2000)7
Baudrillard illustrated how each product has a ‘worthy of the name’s concept that gives consumer a certain imagery and meaning. It is kind of ‘psychological label’ producer creates in people’s mind. This image is also significantly supported by the advertisement. Producers will advertise the product with side things that reinforce people’s desire to buy the product. The transference will attract people to see the ads and build the ‘image’ and ‘meaning’ of the product more clearly. For example, car power tool’s advertisement is usually has a sexy girl image on the side. If we think furthermore about it, the power tool actually has no relation with a hot sexy girl. Even though you buy that power tool and your car get enhanced, you rarely could get that sexy girl. Thus, the transference is only a way to redirect your imagination to buy a certain product.
There was one case about name matter early on this year, when an Indian entrepreneur was going to open a coffee shop called ‘Startrucks’. Obviously, you know who against her. She said that her concept is completely different with Starbucks and she would not give up the name. Yet Starbucks Company reported her to the India's Controller-General of Patents, Designs and Trademark in order to ban her company. Why did Starbucks so concern about an Indian coffee shop? We are pretty sure that ‘Startrucks’ will not influence Starbucks’ auction. It was just the matter of Starbucks’ ‘worthy name’. Hence, there was no further news about it but I guess we know what happened. Back to the nature’s theory, the stronger one is the winner. (Reuters,2007)8
So that, actually advertising highly influences the consumer’s behavior. It takes control of the consumer through ‘language’ they created. Thus, the consumer could be called as ‘social labour’ cause they consume (and pay) to produce culture and set trends that actually have been prepared by the producer. However, in excess of trends, people will get bored and move on into another thing. Or, instead of that, they will do mod.
This is when the free culture movement started its part in society when we found that the things we bought are not completely ours. This movement was influenced by Lawrence Lessig’s idea in his book ‘Free Culture’. Thus, we started to realize that producers with their great power take control of us, stalk us, and push us to do what benefits them through their product. Free culture is basically a social movement to break the producers’ culture creation and develop a free society through technology, as so as freedom to modify something.
We believe that culture should be a two-way affair, about participation, not merely consumption. We will not be content to sit passively at the end of a one-way media tube. With the Internet and other advances, the technology exists for a new paradigm of creation, one where anyone can be an artist, and anyone can succeed, based not on their industry connections, but on their merit. (Free Culture.org , 2007)9
to be continued-
REFERENCES
1 Campbell, C. ‘The Puzzle of Modern Consumerism’ in Lee M.J. (ed), The Consumer Society Reader, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000 : 48
2 Campbell, C. ‘The Puzzle of Modern Consumerism’ in Lee M.J. (ed), The Consumer Society Reader, UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000 : 49
3. ‘DIY Culture’ [updated 29 April 2007]. Wikipedia [online], http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIY_culture (2007), [Accessed 19 May 2007].
4 Mutanen, Ulla-Maaria [updated 25 March 2005]. ‘Draft Craft Manifesto’, Hobby Princess, [online] http://ullamaaria.typepad.com/hobbyprincess/2005/03/draft_craft_man.html (2005), [Accessed 13 May 2007].
5 Au James, Wagner [updated 16 April 2002]. ‘Triumph of the Mod’, Salon.com, [online] http://archive.salon.com/tech/feature/2002/04/16/modding/index.html , [Accessed 13 May 2007].
6 Marx, K. [updated 2007], ‘Summary and Analysis of Das Kapital by Karl Marx’, ARTICLE MYRIAD, [online] http://www.articlemyriad.com/75.htm (2007), [Accessed 19 May 2007])
7 Baudrillard, J. ‘A New Languages?’ in Lee, M. J. (ed). The Consumer Society Reader. UK: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 2000 : 236)
8 Reuters [updated 4 March 2007], ‘Starbucks steams at "Starstrucks" Indian coffee chain’ Reuters – Canada [online] http://ca.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=businessNews&storyID=2007-03-04T053149Z_01_BOM201784_RTRIDST_0_BUSINESS-STARBUCKS-STARSTRUCKS-COL.XML&archived=False [Accessed 22 May 2007]
9 Free Culture.org [updated 2007], Free Culture Manifesto, http://freeculture.org/manifesto.php [Accessed 20 May 2007]
