Welcome To My Home
I have to confess that the name Brenda Dickson did not ring a bell. I clicked on the video because it looked like a fun viewing. And boy, was I right. The voice. The poise. The changing of attires. The spreads! EVERYTHING here screams eighties in the best (and worst) way possible. You have to see it to believe it, though. From her hair to her clothes, to the décor in her house, everything has a slight sheen of surreality.
I also think that she was also way, way ahead of her time:
An influencer is someone who has: the power to affect the purchasing decisions of others because of his or her authority, knowledge, position, or relationship with his or her audience. a following in a distinct niche, with whom he or she actively engages. The size of the following depends on the size of his/her topic of the niche.
We now cannot swing a cat without hitting some kind of influencers everywhere we look. They're everywhere, hawking from lipstick to clothes, to vacations in the Caribbean to mattresses. Brenda understood very well the incredible voyeuristic drive the garden variety person has towards what they consider 'famous' or 'rich'. The unattainable lifestyle of the 'rich and famous' has always been a powerful draw to many people. There has always been a very lucrative and enticing industry behind the selling of the right type of illusion to the right kind of people.
Nowadays we see it on Facehook or Instawhore or tiktok: millions click and scroll mindlessly through hundreds of thousands of images of things (and people) that may forever be out of their reach (they are even out of the reach of the people who post such curated, tweaked, photoshopped images, natch). But people feel that they can, for a moment, almost grasp the unattainable. It's the perfect business model: offer people what they can never have but will always want and make money off of it.
Brenda Dickson understood that and probably made money off of it, too. This looks like one of those motivational VHS tapes that were so popular at that time, or maybe an informercial? Remember those? They used to run at two in the morning on TV? There was always something to sell and there still is. So the next time you look at the chiseled physique of your favorite Insta god or at the perfectly curated photos of that house that some person posted on Facehook, think that Brenda already did that. More than forty years ago.
XOXO
P.S. Do you know what's even more fab? There's a Part Two!
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Some videos are like time machines!
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely!
DeleteThe whole thing is so completely 80's I can't stop watching it.
XOXO
I'm old enough to remember her, and don't. I do know there were a lot of copycats after Jane Fonda's exercise tapes became dancercise blockbusters.
ReplyDeleteRight!
DeleteEverybody and their cousin had a tape! I remember there was a lady with very short, bleached hair screaming about stopping the insanity!
XOXO
What a time travel! I’ve never been into daytime soaps, I’m not familiar with her. But the style is reminiscent of the original Dynasty.
ReplyDeleteXOXO 👨🏼❤️💋👨🏽
Totally daytime soap.
DeleteAnd totally Dynasty. Very Alexis Carrington Colby.
XOXO
Don't recognize the name, or the face. But, then again, I never watched the soaps. Oh, gosh...Infomercials! Those low-budget, droners.... 30-minute commercials. You're right, though. Influencers are nothing new - it's just a new name attached to an old thing. Back in the early days of TV, the stars major and minor hawked everything from cigarettes to soap. XOXO
ReplyDeleteInfomercials were hysterical!
DeleteAnd you are right. The 'famous' went on tv and sold anything and everything. The more things change...
XOXO
OMG. This is killing me. "Why, hello. Welcome to my living room..." This woman deserves a special OSCAR.
ReplyDeleteI have to hand it to you... thank you for unearthing these. I am going to be chuckling all day.
She's amazingly clueless and yes, everything you've written is so true of the times. It was such an empty age, void of substance or self examination. Acquiring things so much more important than saving the planet or feeding people. The wanna-be wealthy had this searing ambition which cut through all common sense. It was as frightening as it was potent.
Thank you for allowing us all to relive those memories.
Oh, and the production values. Those slide swipes. Oh, I do hope there is a star swipe, too.
Kizzes.
She's absolutely committed to it.
DeleteI could not stop watching her! And the eighties were known for that empty consumerism (which we have not shaken, just look at Insta!) that would allow people to try and sell almost anything. Especially a lifestyle.
XOXO
Your analysis of the vapid, vacuous emptiness of consumerist lifestyles is right on! No matter which era, yesterday or today.
ReplyDeleteIt's uncanny how much everything has stayed the same.
DeleteThe media has changed, the tools have changed, but everything is just... the same!
I have no idea how her life was, but she was totally into selling her best one.
XOXO
The higher the hair, the closer to heaven! God can just reach down and pull you up by your hair!
ReplyDeleteLOL
DeleteOh, god could just do that! There's enough AquaNet there to make a forest combust.
Did you check her attire for exercising?
XOXO
She sounds like one of those animatronic Disney-bots in Krystle Carrington's old drag.
ReplyDeleteShe does!
DeleteBut she sells it, right? It's her absolut and unwavering conviction that her life is much better than yours what shines through.
And those shoulder pads!
XOXO