Narrative Introduction
My Project's Development and Process
Welcome to my ePortfolio! The focus of this project was inspired by a lecture in an Environmental Politics class I took this semester about National Parks, especially those in the Global South, which are commonly privately owned by the descendants of colonizers or the ultrawealthy, and displace hundreds or thousands of Indigenous People from their land. Here, the environment is advertised as a pristine, “untouched” landscape. The United States invented this industry with our own National Parks system, which last year alone, grossed over $50 billion in park revenues. While most would argue in favor of national parks, it could be said that they serve as a microcosm of capitalist exploitation and dysfunction, reframing displacement as conservation. Identifying national parks as a counterintuitive example of capitalistic perversion of nature encouraged me to consider how corporations often reframe environmental degradation in favor of the market. Later that day, I was struck by the profound irony of houseplants. Houseplants are my bread and butter, and I have over 20 scattered around my room. The origin piece off of which I built this project stands as three words next to my door, "I love plants," which I wrote as a Resident Advisor for my "About Me Bulletin Board." Houseplants, as great as they may be, demonstrate this relationship perfectly–one can obtain "close proximity to nature" by capturing some essence of it. It need not be said that putting living things in plastic containers next to translucent barriers to environments in which they would likely thrive is counterintuitive. In thinking about this relationship, I considered the best way to draw out this dynamic to an audience and landed on exaggeration. The principles that make house plants appealing: convenience, accessibility, aesthetic, and impact on our living conditions, make plastic plants more appealing to a desensitized consumer. This is evident by the fact that plastic plants and trees are already very much a thing. This is satire itself! Plastic plants contribute to air and soil pollution through oil refining processes and combustion, all to make objects that imitate organisms that filter and make clean air. I began to further explore this relationship in my First Experiment
However, I quickly realized that my framing for the project was misguided. Originally, I had framed FabNature and its product line as a response to symptoms brought about by industrialization. Namely, a disconnect from the environment, pollution, and overproduction and consumption. However, in focusing on industrialization, I completely missed my own point. While we may interact with industry everyday, I found that I was discovering the relationship between the consumer and producer in late-stage capitalism. Besides, a distorted view of nature is only a symptom of industrialization by association to capitalism. In Part One of Jason W. Moore’s two-part essay highlighting capitalism’s role in the current planetary crisis, he rejects the Industrial Revolution as the origin for ecological crises, which ignores the impacts of commerce on landscapes in the earliest civilizations. Thus, it is capitalism to blame here. In order to highlight the manipulation of the narrative in this system, I shifted focus and took on the role of the producer.
I began to develop my own narrative, as a CEO, for a company having some growing pains but on an upward trajectory. I found it much harder than I had anticipated to effectively implement subtle satire. It felt like either you had to be in my brain to get it, or it was so obvious that it was hardly fun. Throughout the many stages of working on my experiments and final project, however, I developed two separate conceptual audiences for my work as a solution for my struggle to find the right voice–one that is fictional and one that is real. For each, I assigned a set of assumptions that enabled me to frame my writing effectively. For the fictional audience, I could assume that there were millions already on my side, that most were less than intelligent, and that all were prospective or past customers. No skeptics in my house! This gave me the confidence to write and make design choices that were appropriate but less than subtle at times. My assumption of intelligence among my real audience members lended itself to positive reception of the little things and amusement when my satire is blunt. Overall, however, I found that separating the two was crucial. Satire needs a butt of the joke, and in this case, the “butt” is the fictional consumer, the fictional investors, the fictional employees, and me, CEO and Founder Henry Barron. Since this company is an example of fake environmentalism in late-stage capitalism, anyone who has bought into it is ultimately being clowned.
Interestingly, when looking through my past experiments at my reflections and analysis, I am deeply focused on making sure I get the mode “right.” I put unrelenting emphasis on being true to form: making the radio ad sound like a radio ad, making my instagram bio seem legitimate, even making my billboard ads seem like one could find them next to the highway. My goal was to allow my message to form independently in the brains of my audience using only a light helping of sarcasm and exaggeration. Needless to say, I became frustrated creating this way because in some cases, I got so focused on the execution that I lost the message myself. There were times when I walked away from my project feeling like I had become a phony. I was so focused on keeping my fictional audience’s attention for the sake of buying my product that I forgot what my real audience could be taking away for the sake of my message. If that isn’t ironic, I don’t know what is. Ultimately, however, by emulating the formulas laid out in content sources like Pepsi’s instagram or Calvin Klein’s online store, I was able to find new ways of making space for my voice. I discovered that following a form closely is an effective way to inspire creativity, and I surprised myself with the ways that I was able to create windows for myself to peer out and wave to the real audience. At its heart, these openings are where the satire shines. Throughout all the modes and genres, I was able to practice the level of satire I wanted to present FabNature with, but it is continuously variable. In the variation of tone and levels of satire throughout my project, it has become clear to me that different modes have different boundaries associated with them. Oftentimes, tone and message have to be massaged to fit within the bounds of a particular mode or genre. On the FabNature Instagram, I could be very obnoxious and explicit with my sarcasm, and for the website, I sacrificed some satire and exaggeration. At the end of the day, it was worth it because the website allowed me to more fully commit to the product itself, which makes helps define the entire message in my opinion.
Explore the Website
Check it out for yourself! There is a lot to see. As you go, I encourage you not to use the navigation at the top of the website, but instead with the buttons you will find throughout. If you click the "More Info" button in green at the bottom of each page, it will take you to the next chronological page.