Skip to main content

Washing Feet and Brand Marketing

Almost could be a last name - Washingfeet...no I am refering to the act of literally using liquids ranging from water to honey to milk to a concoction of any of the above and other ingredients to taste..sorry, to rinse the hind hooves of a dude or dudette considered worthy of such service.

I see number of photos of so called modern day Mahatmas that have generated this sort of fan following.   The affected cult in this case, the washers, are seen tending to the feet of the washee.  Nothing wishy washy here.  They are all in.  As in true blue (or orange) believers.

What's the matter?  What's going on?  Where did this start?  These same people might have piles of dirty laundry at home but no matter - they give their all to literally scramble over other humans to get to the front of the line to wash the feet of their lord, their guide, their mentor, their advisor, their brand et al.

Affiliation is the name of this game.  Whether a hugging, walking, bearded or clean shaven saint, a music maestro, a ollywood star, or a star salesman of the ponzi kind, a politico of some ill or healthy repute there are innumerable cases of sycophants clamoring to be in the frame so to speak.

Something to be said about these washees here.  They have found the guilt button or the dependency gene or the way to pull at the washer heartstrings as it were.  Could that generate bubbles?  Not the sudsy kind... but cult bubbles... will all this result in a crash?  Would competing bubbles collide?

The original idea of a devotee believing himself to be worth less than the dust at the feet of the enlightened one is now turned upside down (literally in a manner of speaking) with the advent of phone cameras and facebook.  Today's so called devotees want their picture at the feet of a brand to gain traction in their social circles.  Did you notice how her Gucci gear kept interfering with the washing?

Comments

  1. Branded wash takes on a whole new meaning..but then, if you can wash everything in public including some linen, why not dirty feet? Maybe they should wash their own along with the celeb's.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

Peru, South America - Week well spent

Growing up in India the only Peru I knew of was a tropical fruit (Guava for those whose lingua is English).   Not until high school did I discover that it was also a country in the South American continent. So it was this early April week that we decided to hit up Peru - the land of the once glorious Inca people that lived 500 years ago.  Today Peru is the third largest country on that continent with a diverse geography that stretches from the drier Pacific coast plains to the high mountains of the Andes and the Amazon river valley to its east. Our trip was primarily a pilgrimage of sorts to visit the last remaining, lost (now found and documented), large scale, mostly undamaged, city of the Inca nobility, called Machu Picchu (MP).  The Inca were great architects and builders.  MP is a UNESCO world heritage site affording it high visibility to the tourism trade and therefore crowded year round.  Our timing was not quite high season allowing us...

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...