Three years ago, Greg Bruce became infatuated with a pair of shoes he saw online. He couldn’t afford them. He couldn’t afford not to have them. Something had to give.
The image appeared on my
Greg Bruce with the leather shoes that cost him $500. But did they make him happy? Photo / Jason Oxenham
Three years ago, Greg Bruce became infatuated with a pair of shoes he saw online. He couldn’t afford them. He couldn’t afford not to have them. Something had to give.
The image appeared on my screen via an algorithmically-generated social media ad, and the speed with which it travelled to the part of my brain responsible for shopping – bypassing the part that cares about my family’s wellbeing – says much about why humanity is in such a state.
I have no idea what it was about them that made my brain so dumb. Now I have owned them for three years, I can say decisively that they don’t look like the sort of thing that would inspire one to part with a large proportion of one’s disposable income. I guess this is the defining quality of successful consumerist marketing: its ability to make us stupid.
They are of a style known as “derby”, or – as a “friend” described them to me at the time – “school shoes”. I hated that style of shoes when I was 11, so what changed? What was it about the ones on the screen that generated such a rush of endorphins that I was no longer a rational actor capable of acting in my own best interest, but a gibbering mess?
I set about doing what I thought of as due diligence, but which I now understand to have been self-justification. The truth is that my purchasing decision had been made in a split second and all subsequent research was confirmation bias, useful only for manipulating my wife.
I emailed the ad for the shoes to New Zealand’s fashion tsar, Viva creative and fashion director Dan Ahwa. I started with Dan not just because he’s an enabler when it comes to this sort of thing, but because he knows more about clothes than anyone I know and because he’s a deep thinker.
He replied: “I’m probably the worst person to ask because I’m an enabler when it comes to this sort of thing. They look great and won’t date. You’ll wear them forever and with everything so you’ll get plenty of cost per wear out of these guys. Love the soles too. So I say if it makes you happy, f*** it and treat yourself to some nice shoes.”
He concluded with an apology to my wife, even though she had not been copied in.
Reflecting on his email now, it’s obvious the key line was: “If it makes you happy”, but if I read that line at all, it didn’t make it to the part of my brain responsible for rational thought – possibly because that part had gone on holiday, probably to a shoe shop. Of course the shoes would make me happy. If they weren’t going to make me happy, why did I feel so happy?
What Dan was saying was: “You should buy the shoes if and only if you believe they will deliver you at least $500 of benefit”. This is what economists call utility-maximisation. Unfortunately, my mind was too full of the sensuousness of luxurious, tumbled and stonewashed Italian leather to engage in anything as dull as economics.