Influence

There was an off-hand joke once made in The Simpsons where Lisa complained that she was too young that nobody listened to her, a sentiment echoed by Grandpa who said he was too old nobody listened to him either, with Homer chiming in at the end, saying he was a white middle aged man that everyone listened to him no matter how dumb his suggestions were. 

Over the years I have returned to that scene in my mind several times and considered how accurate it actually is in reflecting reality.  This isn't the first time The Simpsons have been prescient although as rival animator Seth MacFarlane once quipped in regards to the accuracy of some of the predictions made in Family Guy, when you keep throwing shit at the wall eventually some of it sticks.  The Simpsons created such a volume of content it was inevitable that it would be identifiable with people and their lives in the widest possible terms as a consequence of the magnitude.

To return to Homer's words however, the exact quote reads:

"I’m a white male, age 18-49, everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are” – Homer Simpson (The Simpsons S05 E14 'Lisa vs Malibu Stacy')

After which he holds up a can of 'Nuts And Gum' which to be honest just sounds like nougat and isn't that strange of a concept to me but that's beside the point here.  The point is that assertion he made at first seems quite apt but I'd like to narrow it down further because I'm not convinced it's as wide reaching as it first appears.

The first bit, white male, that I think is pretty much indisputable.  If you're male and white then by consequence you already have an advantage in society whether or not you have made any attempt or even succeeded in capitalising upon that advantage it still exists.  This is like being born into the UK or USA, by consequence of your birth you are within the top 1% of the entire world in terms of wealth that's before you earn a penny, even if you are at the very bottom in either of those countries you are still within the top 1% globally.  On a more provincial level within those countries themselves the top 1% of those populations are so far removed from the bottom it's unreal to imagine but that divergence is as extreme in magnitude from the rest of the world in comparison. 

People forget their place because they always look upward, they always see the magnitude of the wealth of those above them that they never realise just how much they themselves possess in comparison to those they would see if they looked downward instead.  If you have running water, electricity, food, and a roof above your head, then you are ahead of many people.  Taking water alone, if you can turn on a tap and use the water without the risk getting waterborne diseases like cholera then you are more advantaged than 25% of the world's population which is approximately 2 billion people.  Taking electricity approximately 13% of the world's population which is approximately 1 billion people do not have access to it.  Food and Housing are a lot more difficult to define as those come with the question of whether or not what exists is suitable.

The point we return to here is that wealth is not determined solely by money in the bank or assets owned, it is also determined by the intangible and I am not referring to the cloying sentimental definition of wealth here in terms of love and family and all that jazz, I'm referring to resources, whether you use them or not is irrelevant, if you have access to them then they are part of the wealth you have accumulated.

The episode of The Simpsons referenced above was broadcast in 1994 and at the time I think the age range of 18 to 49 was probably quite accurate but I am not convinced this is still the case.  Taking entertainment as an example and the media industry, the age range of 12 to 24 now seems to be what is considered prime.  If you're outside that age range then nobody in the industry cares what you think.  The idea of a universal age range however seems to have been largely abandoned.  Whilst 12 to 24 is optimal for the entertainment industry no-one is trying to sell diamond rings to a 14 year old.

As I have grown older and I have paid more attention to who and what tries to target me as a potential consumer I find what crops up in time to be intriguing, amusing, and in some cases bizarre.  Twitter for instance have a feature in account settings that lets you see which advertisers are targeting you, similarly Google offers you the ability to see the profile that AdSense has created if ad personalisation is enabled.  I have disabled this and used AdChoices to disable it for most advertising partners too in addition to using AdBlock Plus to block ads on most sites so the data they hold for me is minimal and inaccurate.

I still find the idea of whether or not your opinion is given any weight to be something that intrigues me but frustrates me at the same time.  I've contributed to consultations, participated in studies, sat on polling panels, taken surveys, attended advanced screenings, and reviewed products, among many other activities over the years some of which I was paid to do and some of which I did for free.  The question I now find myself asking is how much of that was a waste of time and how much of it actually had an impact?  I'll never know the answer to this question because most of these activities are unidirectional, feedback in general is submitted by the participant after which they are not involved in the process any further.

How then do you determine your impact on the world?  With a population approaching 8 billion people how many of those people actually have any influence over the world at all?  We like to think that those of us who live in democratic countries at least get a chance to influence the direction the world heads in but how true is that in practice, do elections actually influence the decisions politicians make or like those activities above is the act of voting simply providing feedback to be used in a process that we do not actually participate in.

Is there any point in having a vested interest in the planet as a whole then if you can't actually do anything of significance to solve the problems that you and others face?  The world is falling sick right now, we're being ravaged by Covid-19, the Coronavirus is spreading and the only things we can do as individuals now are to maintain hygiene, self-isolate, and use social distancing in an effort to stop the spread, but as for those that already have the virus there's nothing we as individuals can do now, their lives are in the hands of our healthcare systems and the governments that manage them and frankly I don't trust my government with my life or the lives of others.  I'm finding it very hard right now to remain optimistic and have any semblance of hope.  When you find yourself sitting watching things unfold at a computer screen with a news feed and about as much isolation as you can get, the feeling of powerlessness and a complete lack of influence over the world takes hold.