Donating to the Label

Connecting White Noise to my Junior Theme topic -- philanthropy -- has been a challenge, but today I came across something really interesting.

One of the recurring themes in the book is the importance of a label. DeLillo often touches on the fact that everything we buy and everything we use is of a certain brand, and humans are drawn to specific brands that they tend to stay with for a long time. At the grocery store, there can be hundreds of the same product each with a different name. So this calls to question the idea of buying a label, or a name, instead of buying an actual product.

I find that this idea is very prevalent in the philanthropic world as well. Families or individuals often tie themselves to a certain foundation or charitable nonprofit and that organization is the one that gets all their money. It's all, in my opinion, a control issue. People, especially in this era, want to be able to control where their wealth goes and control how it is spent.

Foundations and charitable nonprofits often play upon this control issue. They sell their organizations to people the same way a brand of cereal would be sold -- through commercials and through ads in magazines or newspapers. As Babette says on page 252 about a sunscreen product, "It is all a corporate tie-in. The sunscreen, the marketing, the fear, the disease. You can't live one without the other."

Let's compare sunscreen to a foundation that, for example, aids homeless or sick animals. A sunscreen company advertises the fear of getting sunburned which has been proven to sometimes lead to skin cancer. When you use their sunscreen, you won't get a sunburn and therefore are less likely to get skin cancer. In addition to the absence of a sunburn, this sunscreen will also give you a shimmer so you look great in the sun. This company, through marketing, has sold a fear of a disease. You end up loving this product so much that you continue to buy it whenever you run out. The foundation that helps animals advertises sick puppies and kittens in pictures you find in magazines and commercials you see on TV. You feel sad. You call the number on the screen and donate $10. They send you a personalized -- or what appears to be personalized -- letter saying thank you along with a magnet that you put on your fridge. Now you donate a little more every month.


These companies and these foundations sell you a label. And that's not so bad...until you start buying and donating solely based upon loyalty. But when does this happen? At what point do you start buying from a company or donating to an organization because of it's name and not because of the cause?