Cybertypes, “Where do you want to go today?”

“It is part of the business of advertising to depict utopias: ideal depictions of being that correctively reenvision the world and prescribe a solution to its ills in the form of a commodity of some sort.” (98) This statement depicts Lisa Nakamura’s beliefs on how corporate America is altering beliefs of its customers for selfish gains.

The corporate slogans which depict multicultural awareness and a strive towards globalization through all cultures, are actually limited to the privileged and middle class America. The advertisements of new technologies claim to make individuals more aware and sympathetic of other cultures and eventually lead to one utopian culture where race, age and gender have no meaning. The content of one advertisement states, “the idea that getting online and becoming part of a global network will liberate the user from the body with its inconvenient and limiting attributes such as race, gender, disability, and age.” (88) These advertisements promise to deliver a world where abilities are limitless involving travel, networking and any expansion of the mind. However the commodity which these industries provide, such as travel and tourism, coherently define the privileged industrialized “first world” person. The images in which they invoke create a belief that these people of other cultures are not as adaptive to this commercialized way of thinking, when in fact they are just as literate as we are. “…IBM speak, the language of American corporate technology. The foreignness of the other is exploited here to remind the viewer who may fear that IBM-speak will make the world smaller in undesirable ways (for example, that they might compete for our jobs, move into our neighborhoods, go to our schools) that the other is still picturesque.” (95)

Nakamura argues that “the other” is portrayed this way to encourage us as Americans to preserve our privileged position in the world. She argues on the stance that corporations are defining race and personal identity along with shaping our way of thinking for the means of advertising and profits. She argues against “Anthems” slogan “Where do you want to go today?,” due to their focus on making the world a smaller place by limiting identity and location. She states, “…then where is there left to go? What is there left to see? What is the use of being asked where you want to go today if every place is just like here?” (92)

This article reinforces the viewpoint on the impact of corporate America on impressionable minds. The corporations know who and how to market certain areas. The fact that the corporations needs images of other races to sell a product and promote a utopian society, will never be able to fully create an awareness of other cultures without depicting images of “the other.”