the Village Knittiot

Monday, in the mail, there was an envelope addressed to me from a dear friend back in Minneapolis. When I opened the envelope, I found two pages, apparantly cut out of my friend’s most recent issue of Cooking Light, and a hastily scribbled note on a recipe card (probably the first thing she could get her hands on) that said, “Ok, I don’t run or knit, but still managed to be offended by this bitch who appears to want to spit on me.” So, I looked at the pages. The first was an ad (click on it to enlarge):

In case you can’t read it, it says: “I guess I could take up knitting. People who knit seem happy. But then, I’m too competitive. It seems like highly competitive knitters are frowned upon.” The best part, though, is the smug look on her face.

The second page, which appeared in the magazine not more than a few pages later, I might add, was a little blurb about how knitters (and crocheters) are using there skills in charitable ways to benefit their communities and the world around them. Apparantly they had an article on knitting in the previous issue and this was the section where people write in and say they liked (or didn’t like) the article. This quote appeared at the top of the page:

Apparantly non-competitive knitting is okay — as long as it is charitable.

I have been a runner (had to stop because of knee troubles) and I am a knitter and I can honestly say that competition entered into the picture less for running than it does with knitting, and I wouldn’t classify myself as a competitive knitter by any means.

But what this really brought to mind for me were endless discussions I have had with various women from many backgrounds about this sense of competition and the role it plays in our relationships with one another. I’m sure this is a very clever ad. I am, after all, talking about it. And it did manage to make it’s way through the postal system from the Midwest to the East Coast and into cyberspace without the company having to do anything but piss somebody off. Still, it’s strange isn’t it?

I don’t like it, not only because it sounds condescending, but it seems to insinuate that wanting to be happy is a silly little game and that the real grown ups are out there in the rush of competition. I know it’s “just an ad,” but when our lives are inundated by ad upon ad upon marketing campaign upon ad, if we don’t time out every once in awhile and analyze the messages that are getting through, then those messages tend to get free reign in our little brains and do all sorts of interesting things. And if advertising is not only an influencer, but also a reflection of the worlds we live in, then it is worth analyzing the messages that catch our eye.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 31st, 2005 at 9:55 am and is filed under this Knittiot Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.