Ikea: The Swedish Horse
Today I went to Ikea, looking for ideas for a new project and with the firm intention of not buying anything, really tough task by the way. And just at the entry, there it was. The statue of a horse four meters tall, decorated with the front cover of an Ikea catalogues.
Behind any sign, there is a symbol, and behind any symbol, an intention and in this case it was right there welcoming everybody. It was the modern version of the Trojan Horse, it was stylish, perfect and huge, and as everything stylish, perfect and huge in our days, nobody really stops to see it. Not too long ago to be forgotten, but old enough to think this cannot be applied anymore, the Odyssey tells the story of the end of the battle of Troy, when the Greeks came with a brilliant strategy agains the Trojans. Let’s give them a present, a huge horse (stuffed with our best soldiers), and see what happens. The rest of the story is well known, just when everybody was sleeping, the Greek soldiers came out of the belly of the horse and took over the city. And no, in the original version of the story Brad Pitt was not the picture.
In this case, I sincerely do not expect that inside the horse there are 30 Ikea’s associates ready to attack or one night you will find an Ikea costumer representative inside of your kitchen cabinet. This is more, much more sublte, this is a war of memes, and every object made by Ikea is full of them. Please do not miss understand me, I love Ikea, and as my family might be very aware, I’m really good at criticizing something I love. If by any chance a Martian comes to Earth, and it is up to me to be his tourist guide, I will certainly take him to Ikea. Human civilization is very likely to have this kind of flips, yesterday you where a fisherman town, today you three nuclear reactors powering half country, yesterday you where the american dream, today you occupy wall street. Ikea’s story could be seen as an event in history: When vikings became metrosexuals.
But also in Ikea you can see every realm of human of drama. The passive aggressive parent looking patiently to his kid while she cries with the mouth full of smash potatoes, the just married/my sex life is great/life will be perfect! couples smiling and discussing if the red anthropomorphic salt and pepper shakers will look good with the minimalistic stainless steel napkin holder, the retired couple downsizing their place because of medical bills and finding furniture to fit their new apartment (room in a elder residence), and the forty something, just divorced, dad telling her adolescent to choose really cool stuff for her room, the one she only going to use a couple of weekends during the month. And Ikea is there, in the middle of the story, armed with their cuteness, good prices, great design sense and even better marketing skills. I can see myself welcoming Mr. Martian just after he parked his UFO occupying six regular car spaces. There will be many ways to explain him human needs and behaviors, suddenly I will be distracted for something I always wanted by I was not aware I need it until I saw it, but I will recover my train of thoughts to explain Mr. Martian, how actually some rooms could be half the space and more crowded than the one it is on disply, but for that he would have to visit Europe.
He will leave the place with the impression of visiting a store of things that in 1000 years will be in a museum and a land fill at the same time, but above all he will leave with the Ikea’s horse in his mind, full of memes ready to attack. Now you live in a war of memes, your house is a battle place where companies like Ikea want to place their memes.
An object or furniture from Ikea, looks and tastes like Ikea, every bolt with the tiny thing to screw it, all 4 sets of cute coffee cups and cleverly design lamp has a figment of the Ikea DNA. The problem with the Ikea DNA will not be finding the right way to assembly the Ljusdal shelf, or even finding the way to pronounce it correctly, the problem is that once you put it in your room, it does not really fit with the rest of the things you have there. It works, it looks good, but does not really fit. That desk needs the complementing chair, the set of sofas look better with that flower patterned carpet, and the dozen porcelain plates need a bright and shinny counter top just like in the kitchen department. And suddenly it strikes, the memes go out of the Trojan horse, or this case that apparently innocent Ikea catalogue that just arrived to your mail box.
What is supposed to make your home complete is making it more incomplete, now you need more Ikea genetically modified stuffed to replace that loveseat that you now hate. Once you are back to the shop, the photo of Henrik, a young trendy Swedish designer of the many around the store, is watching you and smiling form his signed photography. This image salutes you, says thank you for shopping we will see you soon, just let the flower patterned carpet show you the way back home.
It is Ok, the Swedish Horse was right there at the door to tell you this before hand, it was a stylish, perfect and huge warning nobody stopped to see.