Metrosexual response and other updates
Mark Simpson has a different take on last week’s Business Week article about the metrosexual. And as usual, he makes some excellent points. I said before, I was particularly content with the sentence “Oh yes, and he acquired the feminine persona we’ve become familiar with,” as I understand that he acquired this persona because of marketers such as Marian Salzman. Other readers might not have gotten the same point. Mark justly points out that “metrosexuality is only ‘feminine’ if you believe vanity’s name is (forever) Woman.”
Maybe I was content with too little. The one thing I was disappointed about was, even though I repeatedly mentioned it, that Nannette Byrnes never mentioned “mediated masculinity.” I mentioned this alongside “narcissism” and “consumerism” as I explained that the übersexual and retrosexual are really just more of the same.
Or as Mark puts it:
“Ironically, the final proof that men are now as self-conscious as women is the so-called retrosexual backlash against metrosexuality. As your figures for booming male consumerism show, it’s not really retrosexual at all. It’s faux-retrosexual. It’s Calvin Klein model Brad 6-pack Pitt leading the rebellion against consumerism in Fight Club all over again.”
“‘Regular guys’, whatever they are/were, are fast becoming just another annoying fad.”
In other updates: I have traced my paternal line back even further (hence no posts); two more generations. Married in 1680, they must have been born around 1650/1660. Around that same time: the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 and Benedictus de Spinoza finished his magnum opus Ethics in 1676. Amazing.
Another update: I am currently creating a new lay out of the blog. I’m sure you’ve noticed. I’m aligning it more with my main Web site.
Dutch native Marc van Bree is a well-rounded marketing communications professional with more than 7 years of experience strategically communicating—on and offline—in a rapidly changing media environment. 
