The book presented a disturbing look at a more than credible future where credit, style and youth are correlated and used to create continuous feedback to the ultra-connected to rank themselves against those in the immediate vicinity. While this bleak near-future scenario should be dominant in my mind time and again I found my thoughts drifting to the front cover. A lurid and unappealing selection of bright colours and reflective silver that even a child dosed up on Ritalin could not fail to get hyperactive from. While the subject matter, title nor blurb would have stood as a barrier, I would not have picked up this book were it not chosen for me by a book group. This leads me to the question: why?
Have I inherently become everything I despise, narrow-minded and ignorant, avoiding anything outside my own comfort zone or interests? Probably. In my mind, there is a reason why marketing exists. A whole range of individuals spend their days attempting to market items I would like, to me in a way that I will like. When I see a cardboard case for a cd that has delicate fold out booklets and intricate writings a part of me wants to congratulate the cold, corporate sell-out who decided the extra cost was worth it for the fact that consumers as foolish as me would fork out the extra cash, yet still sleep easy at night. Safe in knowing that we're better than the Joe Mc-Girls Aloud masses. They don't appreciate cardboard. They don't like intricate annotations. Or rough and ready sketches. Or incomplete poetic musings.
And marketing knows this. So why give the book such a horrible cover?
