3 thoughts on “History of Future Shopping (1952), D. Moctezuma”
Very interesting look at this topic. I like how in the beginning you touch immediately on class ideas about the history of shopping with tailors and butchers which focused on quality as oppose to mass production. It seems as if the history of shopping accelerated at a quick pace starting from Macy’s to catalog shopping. Very cool shift from jumping American consumerism and ideas of shopping in the future to Japan and how they achieved everything that America seemed to be envisioning at the time. You really touched on all areas of shopping ranging from clothing to “everything we need” like food and produce. There is clearly a lot of dense history behind this topic, and you did a great job of following a timeline with how ideas and products actually emerged to the public. Lastly, touching on you know what the point of all of this is which is fulfilling the “American dream” is something we have been circling around, yet have not fully discussed in class, so I enjoyed how to tied that in. There was a few times that it was hard to hear you and your narrative from some slides would follow into others, however, this is just a technical criticism which is easily correctable. Great job!
Great job! My first thought when I started watching your slidecast was how similar predictions about shopping from the past line up with our reality today. As you pointed out, the first slide is essentially online shopping. I liked how your focus was centered on the idea of creating technology that would make shopping faster and easier. The shift to a consumer culture in the mid-twentieth century not only drove technological innovation, but influenced visions of the future. You also discussed how class distinctions affected these predictions of the future, mostly favoring the middle and upper classes. I thought you did a good job of connecting consumerism and the classes that promoted this ideal. I liked that you concluded your presentation with how these visions of the future represent our desire to achieve the ever-elusive American dream, and that increasing consumerism corrupts the basic values of the dream. Seeing some of your images also made me think about gender roles. How did these depictions of the future reinforce and/or perpetuate gender biases? Aside from some very minor audio glitches, your presentation was very well done.
Before even watching it I was excited because the topic is something most people don’t think about as being a futuristic technology but it definitely has come to be a defining characteristic of our society. The first thing that caught my attention was how you explained all of these ideas and how they worked not just what they are, it really showed how much thought people gave to their predictions. The macy’s example was my favorite because it depicts how modern day companies are always looking for the next best idea, which is clearly at home shopping in this situation. I do think you could have talked a little more about the current method of at home shopping because in that sense we are living in the future. It’s something predicted in one of your earlier slides and could have helped bring it all together. The end, when you gave some cultural context about how our society functions around consumerism and the mass media, that was a good idea, it made the project stand out for me, great job overall.
Very interesting look at this topic. I like how in the beginning you touch immediately on class ideas about the history of shopping with tailors and butchers which focused on quality as oppose to mass production. It seems as if the history of shopping accelerated at a quick pace starting from Macy’s to catalog shopping. Very cool shift from jumping American consumerism and ideas of shopping in the future to Japan and how they achieved everything that America seemed to be envisioning at the time. You really touched on all areas of shopping ranging from clothing to “everything we need” like food and produce. There is clearly a lot of dense history behind this topic, and you did a great job of following a timeline with how ideas and products actually emerged to the public. Lastly, touching on you know what the point of all of this is which is fulfilling the “American dream” is something we have been circling around, yet have not fully discussed in class, so I enjoyed how to tied that in. There was a few times that it was hard to hear you and your narrative from some slides would follow into others, however, this is just a technical criticism which is easily correctable. Great job!
Dania,
Great job! My first thought when I started watching your slidecast was how similar predictions about shopping from the past line up with our reality today. As you pointed out, the first slide is essentially online shopping. I liked how your focus was centered on the idea of creating technology that would make shopping faster and easier. The shift to a consumer culture in the mid-twentieth century not only drove technological innovation, but influenced visions of the future. You also discussed how class distinctions affected these predictions of the future, mostly favoring the middle and upper classes. I thought you did a good job of connecting consumerism and the classes that promoted this ideal. I liked that you concluded your presentation with how these visions of the future represent our desire to achieve the ever-elusive American dream, and that increasing consumerism corrupts the basic values of the dream. Seeing some of your images also made me think about gender roles. How did these depictions of the future reinforce and/or perpetuate gender biases? Aside from some very minor audio glitches, your presentation was very well done.
Before even watching it I was excited because the topic is something most people don’t think about as being a futuristic technology but it definitely has come to be a defining characteristic of our society. The first thing that caught my attention was how you explained all of these ideas and how they worked not just what they are, it really showed how much thought people gave to their predictions. The macy’s example was my favorite because it depicts how modern day companies are always looking for the next best idea, which is clearly at home shopping in this situation. I do think you could have talked a little more about the current method of at home shopping because in that sense we are living in the future. It’s something predicted in one of your earlier slides and could have helped bring it all together. The end, when you gave some cultural context about how our society functions around consumerism and the mass media, that was a good idea, it made the project stand out for me, great job overall.