Name brands are a very important part of our society. On a daily basis, I can walk around North Carolina State’s campus and see evidence of this on many people’s clothing. People will pay a lot of money just to have a shirt with the right emblem on it. Another place where name brands have taken over is headphones.
Beats by Dre can also be seen all over campus. Many people walk to class wearing headphones, especially Beats, a name brand pair of headphones that are sponsored by the famous hip hop artists Dr. Dre. Beats are the first pair of headphones that I know of to be so popular. The company that makes them claims that artists spend many hours getting their music just right and Beats are the only headphones that give you the music that artists intend for you to hear. However, this might not be true. From what I have read and heard, all they do is really enhance the base of everything you listen to and cancel outside noise. Heavy base is not intended for every type of music, and therefore these headphones don’t seem to be a good pair of all around headphones. “In terms of sound performance, they are among the worst you can by”, says Tyll Hertsens, editor in chief of InnerFedelity.com.[1]
So why do people pay over $300 for a pair of bad headphones? It is hard to generalize why every different person who owns a pair of Beats has bought them, but I think there are some general themes. I believe that people think buying a pair of Beats means they take music seriously. People want others to think they are serious about their music. And more basically, people want to show others that they can throw around $300 for something like a pair of headphones. Having a pair of beats almost shows others a lifestyle choice that you have made. This is similar to the way Apple products come with an apple bumper sticker that you can put on your car. Apple is so popular that it is almost like a lifestyle (however I believe Apple actually makes better products than their competitors). There is a new add for a Samsung phone that plays off this, where an iphone user says that he could never get a Samsung phone because he is “creative”. This is just making fun of the idea that having a certain brand of a phone says things about you.
I think it is odd that name brands have taken over technology. No longer do people judge technologies by their performance, but they also judge what brand the technology is. I’m afraid that technology companies could start to spend more time and money on advertising, trying to make their product a popular lifestyle choice, than on the performance of their product. If this happens, everyone would suffer.
[1] “Headphones with Swagger (and Lots of Bass)” Andrew J. Martin, New York Times, November 19, 2011.
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