Mass-Produced Individuality

Many people used to make their own clothes and build their own furniture. The Industrial Revolution, with technological innovations like power looms and power lathes, and now today's far-flung supply chains, made it easier and more practical to buy ready-made apparel and housewares. Lately, however, mass production has been cast not so much as the best thing that ever happened to consumers but as an annoyance, even a problem. It stands in the way of our individuality. What can save us?

Of course the answer must be more technological innovation, and in the past several years there have been many attempts to tweak mass production (of everything from sneakers to M&M's) in ways that will deliver "mass customization" and "the one-to-one future," in which every single consumer gets unique treatment. One of the most intriguing experiments has been CafePress, a company that has been around since 1999 and allows anyone with rudimentary command of a computer the opportunity to, as the site says, "make your own stuff." That is, you can place your own designs or slogans or whatever onto a variety of commodities provided by CafePress: T-shirts, hats, teddy bears, coffee mugs, pillows, clocks, mouse pads and so on. According to the company, more than two million people or companies have used its services to create more than 18 million "unique items." CafePress has shipped 2.6 million orders (taking a cut, of course). Here is individuality on a mass scale.

The variety of products offered is sprawling, and aside from serving as a way for the consumer to make things, CafePress is often used is as a virtual gift shop for other Web sites. One top CafePress "shop" is connected to "This Old House," the television show. But most are not so well known. Another top shop is the Lactivist, a pro-breastfeeding Web site. Recent "hot designs" promoted on CafePress include items from the Bacon Ribbon Store (which offers products showing a strip of bacon twisted into a ribbon and a slogan about "obesity awareness") and Pedro '08 bumper stickers, for people who still enjoy humorous references to the film "Napoleon Dynamite." Stay Free!, a Brooklyn-based magazine that generally takes a dim view of American consumer culture, uses CafePress to sell T-shirts and mugs promoting the nonexistent parody drug Panexa ("Ask your doctor for a reason to take it"). Not surprisingly, a significant number of customized products are related to blogs - or as the search feature on the site puts it: "1,702 designs about 'blog' on 32,721 products."

The mass-versus-custom balancing act is actually a very old thing. More than a hundred years ago, Mme. Demorest's Emporium of Fashion in New York did a brisk business selling stylish dress patterns, allowing consumers to conform to the latest fashion but still requiring them to make the garment; even when 50,000 copies of one pattern sold, it was quite likely that no two dresses were exactly the same. The new version of mass customization does not seek to turn back the clock to that era: do-it-yourself publications like Make and ReadyMade have their constituencies, but most people who want, say, "unique" footwear do not actually want to learn how to manufacture a shoe. They want to pick out a color scheme on a sneaker made by a company with vast and sophisticated manufacturing capabilities. Alienation from the means of production is a selling point.




http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/11/magazine/11wwln_consumed.html

old, pre mass production textiles, I can say without hesitation that there is no way I'd give up the contents of my local fabric store for the hand loomed textiles of days gone by. Can you say "chafing?" My gawd, those coarse fabrics must have been incredibly hard on the human body. Mass produced textiles were an incredible improvement, especially the cotton and linen textiles. Handwoven woolens are still superior. What makes a vegetable fibre textile fine makes a woolen textile thin and sleazy.

While mass production has degraded many things, it's improved many more. Imagine a motor vehicle made from sand cast and individually machined parts. Imagine having it break down. See what I mean?

Still, this mass produced individuality thing has already been tried by companies making jeans. I'm not sure if it ever took off. I think most folks would be perfectly happy with jeans that sorta fit and don't advertise. In a culture where women have foot surgery to fit into mass produced Jimmy Choo shoes, I sincerely doubt having running shoes made to order will sell well.