![\"\"](\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/aznshoppers.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Being both American-born as well as the gigantic hypocrite that I am, I believe I have the convenient luxury of cherry-picking when it\u2019s convenient to associate Asian traits to myself, or when I curl my upper lip, take a step back, and say \u201cwhoa, I was born in the States.<\/em>\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A little while back, I was way the hell up in Dawsonville at the outlet mall.\u00a0 Normally, going to an outlet mall in December, much less all the way up in Dawsonville is about as good of an idea as running blindfolded with scissors, but I was doing my best impression of being gracious and accommodating.<\/span><\/p>\n Dawsonville, for lack of a better term, is country as fuck.\u00a0 The population of the town is like 3,000 people, and it makes me believe that outlet malls are stuck in desolate country towns like Dawsonville, just so that it can stimulate the economies of both the town and the surrounding area.\u00a0 The most notable people to have ever come from Dawsonville are some former NASCAR driver \u201cAwesome Bill From Dawsonville<\/em>\u201d Wallace, and apparently former pro-wrestler, Bill Goldberg lived there for a spell.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n According to the omniscience of Wikipedia, Dawsonville\u2019s demographic is 97% white. * However, if anyone were ever to take a guess at what the primary demographic of Dawsonville were based on a single visit to the outlet mall, and I\u2019m pretty confident that they would take a guess that it was 97% Asian-slash-Pacific Islander.<\/span><\/p>\n *Back in 2010, but come on, how much could\u00a0<\/em>Dawsonville\u00a0really change in three years<\/em>?<\/span><\/p>\n Seriously, from the moment we parked, and began hopping from name brand store to name brand store, there were Asians everywhere.\u00a0 There may as well have been a gigantic red arch at the entrance and called the place a Chinatown or a Shinto shrine, and it would be believable.\u00a0 And it wasn\u2019t any one particular group either, I heard people speaking Korean, Cantonese and even Japanese, while we were there.<\/span><\/p>\n They were all there for the same purposes \u2013 to indulge in name brand products.<\/span><\/p>\n It didn\u2019t even seem so much like it was about pursuing the point of outlet malls; getting brand name goods at discounted cost, as much as it was seemingly amassing as much brand name material as they could afford.\u00a0 The more bags emblazoned with a Michael Kors logo, Nike swoosh, Calvin Klein or Kenneth Cole names printed on them, the more successful they would appear to other shoppers.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t really understand why Asian people in general are so materialistic and obsessed with brand names.\u00a0 I\u2019m not singling any one demographic out either in spite of how easily I could cherry pick, because frankly, I see similar behavior in my own family.\u00a0 They like Lexus cars, Polo apparel, and Burberry scarves as much as the next materialistic Asian does.<\/span><\/p>\n It was all really kind of fascinating and ironically amusing to me, watching people scuttle about from store to store, for almost no reason other than the name on the outside of it.\u00a0 I\u2019m not immune to this stigma entirely, as I like particular brands too, but usually it has to do with the fact that they make apparel that I find aesthetically pleasing, comfortable, somewhat cost-efficient (at times), and not necessarily just for nothing but the name they go by, and what that name means to others.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s no real secret (at least to most third\/fourth generation Asians) that lots of Asians love name brands and showing them off, it\u2019s just that I don\u2019t really understand the importance.\u00a0 If anything at all, I would rather other people NOT know if I happened to have expensive goods in my possession, because then I\u2019d be even more paranoid about people trying to break into my house and rob me.<\/span><\/p>\n I don\u2019t even think it\u2019s behavior that could even be justified in the old days and ancient times either.\u00a0\u00a0 Personally, I don\u2019t think flaunting any sort of materialism is a positive thing to ever do, regardless of the time or era it is, because it\u2019s an unattractive display of arrogance.\u00a0 It\u2019s even worse when it\u2019s false bravado, because I\u2019d have to imagine it\u2019s kind of humiliating if it turns out that you\u2019re not as affluent as you try to portray yourself, and people discover this.<\/span><\/p>\n Kudos on the properties and brands who hop aboard for recognizing this too.\u00a0 Frankly, I can\u2019t ever recall actually saving a buck by shopping at an outlet mall.\u00a0 All the stores appear to be exercising the age-old method of marking everything up three-fold, so they can slash their prices in half and boast 50% OFF savings, and because of the names attached to all the crap, people eat that shit up and spend boatloads.<\/span><\/p>\n This is a real inquiry though, why\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0Asians so materialistic?\u00a0 I simply just don\u2019t understand the importance of flaunting transparent status through possessions.<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe it\u2019s because I was born in the States.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Being both American-born as well as the gigantic hypocrite that I am, I believe I have the convenient luxury of cherry-picking when it\u2019s convenient to associate Asian traits to myself, or when I curl my upper lip, take a step back, and say \u201cwhoa, I was born in the States.\u201d A little while back, I … Continue reading Why are Asians so fixated on brand names?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,15],"class_list":["post-38047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-observations","tag-og"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38047"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38051,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38047\/revisions\/38051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}