BigHappyHair.com . This falls into this category. This is the website for a commercial I saw tonight on cable tv, offering a gadget that gives flat hair an instant Lisa Marie lift a la Sara Palin. As though we have nothing else to worry our little heads about.
Just the utterance of the website name, sent me into a snide cackle. The absurdity of such a product isn't enough. It has to have a website name that accompanies it that implies a body part, that is actually made up of dead cells can feel emotion. This of course begs the question, what happens if our hair is sad? Now, some days, I do have bad hair, which is in fact sad for me, because my hair is short with a lot of wave, so when it's bad I tend to look like a Mexican Q-Tip.
Why would someone need Big Happy Hair? Maybe to hide increasing insecurities we recognize that this is not a drill. The economy really is in trouble. And despite multiple years of being coaxed into a fearful state by alerts in a rainbow of colors, we weren't entirely equipped for a real crisis. Because this is more than a financial crisis. This is a crisis on our national identity. Consumerism is more than an approach to economics, it's our culture. And, compulsive consumerism, which has been allowed to burgeon uninhibited became an accepted path to euphoric gratification. So go ahead and make your hair happy America!
Except, these quick fixes may not work anymore. I honestly hope they don't. I hope that a different norm wins out, that we decide what we do for our community and for others is more important than what we have. I hope we realize that our desire for things hasn't made us any bigger or happier than our hair could be. Because the reality is, that this happy hair devise is simply a ruse, designed to makes something you have look like more than it is. And in the same way, we have looked to the things we have to make us more than we are, or rather more than we choose to be.
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