One of the quirks of living in the Pacific Northwest is the large number of advertisements that directly pander to the cultural sensibilities (such as environmental sensitivity) that are known to the area. When one hears and sees constant pandering over and over again, it can be a bit tiresome. Clearly, companies are in the business of selling products and services to others, and so it is clear that they would feel it useful to pander to people in the aim of receiving their support and money. It would be entirely superfluous to criticize them for pandering—pandering is what people do when they want something from someone else, after all. What is worthy of question, though, is why the people of the Northwest are presumed to want to be pandered to.

I must admit that I’m not an entirely unbiased person here. I’m not someone who really enjoys being pandered to, personally. It tends to make me feel deeply uncomfortable, given that I tend to automatically suspect the motives of those who would wish to pander to me. Perhaps I do not have enough experience of people trying to pander to me to feel comfortable with it, but I strongly suspect that given the life experiences I have had, that I would be deeply suspicious to those who tried, and especially suspicious of those who were insufficiently aware of what I was looking for and disinclined to get to know me as a person.

After all, pandering is rarely done on an individual level. To appeal to someone who is an individual, it is necessary to get to know them and to uncover their wants. Only a few companies tend to do this, largely those with large customer databases. Amazon.com, for example, has an algorithm that is nearly occult when it comes to aggregating customer preference data to determine the likes of its customers. For example, just about every cd by an American Idol or every book about Latin American military history is on my “suggested for you” list at Amazon.com because of my buying history in those areas. Likewise, Target has been known at least anecdotally to send women pregnancy related items before the women even knew that they were pregnant, based on their own customer algorithms. When companies have taken the effort to know the sort of things that I like and to target their offerings to let me know how many more of those things that I already like that they have, I do not consider that pandering. I consider that intelligent marketing, and tend to reward it.

Pandering is most often done on a superficial scale based on a superficial quality. For example, companies and politicians regularly pander to people on the basis of gender, ethnicity, or some other group identity. For example, when Honda asks why they are a “Northwest thing” and touts money and fuel savings, they are pandering to a region, lumping everyone from that region together. I suppose as a newcomer that I am rather sensitive to such matters, but having always considered myself an outsider wherever I have gone, I have always resented being lumped in with everyone around me, especially given the fact that I have always felt a little bit anxious about not always being in step with those around me, or very accepted by others. Rather than appreciating pandering, I have always tended to need to be reassured about belonging at all, given that I do not take for granted that I tend to belong to labels very easily or often, except when I find that those labels fit me to a very wide and deep degree (like my Myers-Briggs personality type). Most of the time pandering is done to appeal to a wide variety of people without showing the depth of understanding to appreciate their diversity or the work to craft appeals on more than a superficial level.

It is clear that pandering is a sign of corruption on the part of the panderer. Those who flatter are definitely looking to gain something and often argue dishonestly in order to gain the support and endorsement of a target group that is judged as being worthy of attention. However, the corruption of pandering also effects those who are pandered to in a variety of ways. For one, those who are pandered to may seek to define their group identity in such a way as to be less inclusive in the expectation that the benefits of pandering may be kept to a controllable level. This may exacerbate tendencies to snobbery among privileged groups. Additionally, people who are pandered to may come to expect pandering and may be indisposed to handle or appreciate any other kind of treatment, a common byproduct of those whose sensibilities are spoiled and who never develop practice in receiving honest and open and blunt treatment.

Since I have little personal experience in being pandered to, since pandering tends to follow those who belong to groups with fairly high cohesion, rather than those who tend to be on the margins of groups, I was curious to know what people found immensely appealing about being pandered to by others. I do not mean by pandering politeness or even honest charm, for it is not difficult to see how everyone (even someone like myself) appreciates such matters, but pandering—undeserved flattery for the purposes of gain. To those who are pandered to, and often, what is good about it? And does anything bother those who are pandered to about the treatment? Send me your comments—I am curious to see what those who are on the inside feel about the subject of pandering, and whether they are as concerned about corruption as those on the outside.