Programmed Obsolescence

I have had an orange t-shirt for years, I realized that it has been a long time since I touched such a thick and good fabric, it has been with me for easily 14 years, at least six of which it had intense use with many washings and drying in the sun on a clothesline and Despite that, the color is as vibrant as when I bought it and its composition is 100% cotton, how is it possible that a cheap product from 2009 remains as new including the collar, while the t-shirts that I bought a year ago are flying forever? toilet cloth because they are already transparent and not in a sexy way.

Clothing manufacturers are governed by three factors when designing, one is the function, that the garment does what it has to do with a certain degree of comfort, covering a certain part of the body or revealing it, protecting from the cold, protecting from the sun or from rain or be purely a style accessory, an ornament.

Another factor is the design, we could call it the asteric factor, which makes the garment attractive due to the aesthetic quality of the design. This is the artistic part that sometimes wins over function. If a garment looks incredible, sometimes it doesn't matter. If it doesn't fulfill its function, if it is uncomfortable or impractical, I think we have all bought uncomfortable shoes just because they looked good.

The third factor is the manufacturing, the materials and processes that the garment needs to produce a good product and this is not only limited to the clothing, it will have a balance between these three things, that it works, that it looks good and that it can be To make, a practical and beautiful garment but that is too complicated and therefore expensive to produce in large quantities will not be convenient for the manufacturer because its profit margin is reduced.

So there will have to be a compromise, a less complicated design or cheaper materials to be able to manufacture it, which is why sometimes brands look for extremely cheap labor with questionable practices, but in 1929 Earnest Elmo Calkins, an advertising pioneer who, among other things, He began using illustrations and graphic design for brand identity and advertising his products. He created a concept called consumer engineering where he basically invented planned obsolescence.

This concept is explained in a 1932 book called consumer engineering, a new technology for prosperity. Until then, the priority of companies had been to manufacture the best product, the only goal was to be better than the competition so that the people were going to buy your product instead of your rivals, this added one more factor that manufacturers had to take into account when designing their products: durability.

If your product was better built than the competition, stronger and more durable it would sell better, the result is items that would probably survive a nuclear bombing.

When Elmo invented consumer engineering or planned obsolescence, he didn't do it anymore to bother, he had a purpose, although it only benefited businessmen, in 1929 there was an economic crisis that began in New York and affected the rest of the world, many companies lost a lot of money and his employees their jobs, so it was not anyone's priority to go around buying new things, because of this the production of goods exceeded demand, slowing down the economy and Elmo's idea sought to convince people of needing new products. to keep them buying and ensure that companies continued to make profits even in an economic crisis.

They could do this through new designs, new styles, new functions, the manufacturers' priority was no longer to make resistant products but to release new models frequently, products that offered new advantages so that people could change the ones they had before arriving. at the end of its useful life.

In short, Mr. Helmo always assumed that you are an impulsive and irrational person and that manufacturers can convince you to buy things you don't need, from microtrends in fashion that fill the desert of Chile and Peru with garbage and all the bodies of water with microplastics, to electronic devices that we change too often.

Elmo has been right for a century, but now it is different, we know how planned obsolescence contaminates and deteriorates the planet and I want to think that we are no longer so wrong, the best gift you can give this Christmas is to share the knowledge that we must consume consciously and take care of things to extend their useful life.

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