The spam spoils of war
Bin Laden toilet paper! Cipro e-mail! In the great American tradition, an army of entrepreneurs is trying to make hay on horror.
By Damien Cave
Oct. 17, 2001 | Rubble from the World Trade Center. Piqatas in the shape of Osama bin Laden. Cipro pills to fight anthrax. "One of a kind patriotic lapel pins!" "Gas masks that are 100 percent certified by the Israeli Army." Mugs, T-shirts, hats, sweatshirts, posters -- all with bin Laden's face behind a target or under the label "Wanted: Dead or Alive."
Welcome to the "war on terrorism" shopping mall. Individual Americans may be feeling nearly paralyzed with anthrax paranoia, and unemployment is rising while industrial output continues to fall, but at least one sector of the entrepreneurial American machine is kicking itself back into gear. It's time to cash in on the crisis: Vendors that once focused on celebrity paraphernalia now do a swift business in bin Laden merchandise; volunteers who offered to remove World Trade Center debris now aim to sell it; and once-obscure companies selling security -- at home, in airports, online -- are suddenly flush with stock-market cash and fully ensconced in the mainstream mind.
The intimate relationship between crises and capitalism has its nausea-inducing moments. It's hard to admire the online scammers pushing the antibiotic ciproflaxicin as a vaccine (which is it not) and it's sickening to see the spate of products spewing hate for all Muslims.
But does that mean that wartime entrepreneurs are all snake oil salesmen? Or are they actually a vital part of the post-Sept. 11 mosaic, a clue to understanding our collective psyche? Every popup ad pushing American flags or e-mail spam offering an anthrax antidote is another piece of the picture. One could even argue that the rush to capitalize on terror's aftermath and the corresponding rush by consumers to purchase goods are quintessentially American: This is how we grieve, how we connect amid catastrophe.
"Analyzing the war-related market is the best way to read the American id," says Robert Thompson, a pop-culture professor at Syracuse University. "It's an entire culture lying down on a couch and spilling out reactions to a worldwide series of Rorschach tests."
The post-attacks market still isn't completely mature -- bin Laden T-shirts are everywhere, but few anti-war pieces of apparel can be found online or at places like Ralph Nader's recent rally in San Francisco. Of course, that in itself is one indication of where popular sympathies lie. But it is clear that the advent of the Internet, with its low barriers to entry, has made sampling the Zeitgeist quicker and easier than ever. Spam is the mirror of our consumer soul.