How to celebrate the festival, who says?

On December 26, 2021, local time, London, England, Boxing Day arrived, and a large number of people took to the streets to shop. (Courtesy of Visual China)

The author | Yang Jie

Editor| Chen Zhuo

The New Year is approaching, and everywhere is the peace and joy of buying New Year goods. The main color of the supermarket has been changed to red, and various foods have introduced large-scale family sharing outfits, ready to cater to the festival.

The app of the e-commerce platform is dyed red and purple by the merchants' bloodletting - super spike festival, snapping up brand day... It feels like you can't have a good year without buying something.

We are the top people who like to celebrate the festival, dragon and lion dances, lively and lively, new customs and old customs are all dancing, especially can not forget to buy and buy.

I don't know when it started, the festival and consumption are deeply bound. In addition to eating dumplings and dumplings, you always have to buy something to have a sense of ceremony. For this reason, how many straight men want to break their brains and hate the holidays.

The concentrated consumption of festivals can be seen in the Early Days of the Southern and Northern Dynasties Zong Shu's "Records of the Jingchu Years", which records that the Yuan Day is obscure to the moon, and the diet is gathered for the Sake. Ladies and gentlemen go boating, or feast on the water. Throughout the first month, families make hearty dishes and party to eat and drink. Young men and women ride boats or set up feasts and frolics by the water's edge. Although the consumption of the ancients was not as rich as today, the new year's celebration was not reduced at all.

The chain between festivals and consumption cannot be escaped anywhere. Foreign festivals are also prone to emptying their pocketbooks. On The "Black Friday" before Thanksgiving, people grab the "full year-end price" at a speed of 100 meters; Christmas promotions are always accompanied by the sound of "ding-dong" to remind you not to forget to buy a Christmas sweater.

In fact, many festival traditions are made by merchants. In foreign countries, Santa Claus is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, have you found that the red robe, white beard, smiling kind fat old man color is very similar to Coca-Cola? Yes, Santa Claus, who almost unifies aesthetics at the moment, is the spokesperson for Coca-Cola's creation.

Before the 1930s, Santa Claus was green, brown, tall, fat, and thin, some with a bare belly, some wearing mink coats, not always smiling and giggling, and occasionally frowning to punish bad guys.

In 1931, in order to stop the decline in winter performance, the Coca-Cola Company pondered how to borrow the power of Christmas and anti-seasonal marketing to make people love to drink Coke in winter. They brought in the American artist Haydn Sambu and asked him to draw a people-friendly Santa Claus, which was the result of the company's elements, which gave birth to the classic of the moment.

At that time, Coca-Cola launched a promotional poster for Santa Claus every year, and it is said that once santa's wedding ring disappeared, fans immediately wrote to ask Santa's wife to be okay. Haydn Sambu said he always looked in the mirror and painted his belt backwards, bombarded by letters from fans.

After years and years of hard work by the Coca-Cola Company, the image of Santa Claus in red robes and white beards has finally spread around the world, and Coca-Cola has become a drink regardless of season.

For the Japanese, in addition to Santa Claus, Christmas also eats fried chicken. This tradition, which is completely different from Western Christmas cuisine, is also the marketing triumph of KFC. According to the BBC in the United Kingdom, in the days around Christmas, the turnover of KFC in Japan is 10 times that of usual, and many people have to make an appointment a month or two in advance, and if there is a queue on the spot, they may have to wait more than 2 hours.

The new custom of eating fried chicken has only been around for more than 40 years. In 1974, KFC implanted this habit into the hearts of the Japanese people with a brainwashing advertisement that said "Christmas is for KFC".

At home, the popular food of Christmas has become apples, and the Chinese tradition of sending apples on Christmas Eve has even spread abroad and spread backwards. At least 10 years ago, young people with total organic intelligence wholesaled a box of apples, wrapped in colored paper and small lamps, sold for 20 times the high price, and made a small fortune in one night. Now the apple is printed with Fulu Shouxi, and the Chinese people take a bite and happily taste the forbidden fruit.

Ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, the most enthusiastic about the festival seems to be the merchants. They couldn't find a festival, so they made one on the spot.

Flipping through the calendar of an e-commerce platform in 2021, there are more than 100 marketing festivals. January New Year Goods Festival, March Running Festival, May Spring Tea Festival, But also Smart Toilet Festival, Super Daddy Festival... There is only the unthinkable, and there is nothing that cannot be passed.

I don't know what these new holidays are celebrating, perhaps to celebrate the fact that my wallet is getting worse and my credit card debt is getting higher. The masterpiece of the festival-making movement, "Double 11", a festival that originally symbolized singleness, was suddenly full of price fights, as if to say, don't fall in love, concentrate on making money.

Although merchants are good at making festivals, we consumers are not stupid, and the more festivals, the easier it is to desensitize. Marketing is mistaken by marketing, consumers want to buy something, hesitate to start, afraid of the next holiday more preferential treatment. This year's "Double 11" and "Double 12" seem to be much calmer than usual.

Zhang Hailan, a doctor of folklore at East China Normal University, said in the article that the festivals with cultural connotations were commercially hyped, resulting in the old traditions being thrown away, and the new cultural traditions could not be constructed, and if the "invented traditions" such as "Double 11" could not form cultural cohesion, as the consumer's consumer psychology returned to rationality, it would eventually die.

Losing its cultural connotation, the new festival full of money flavor does not know how far it can go, I am afraid that in the end, only the merchants are left to hi.

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Produced by China Youth Daily and China Youth Network