Pamelas

Fake flowers that did not look like real flowers did not sell at all. Too fake. Nowadays real flowers are cultivated to look perfect, to look like fake ones. Otherwise we would not buy them anymore. You can hear us say: “These flowers are beautiful, they look like fake ones.” 

We’ve started to compare real life with virtual reality. I hear it all the time: 

• “What a beatiful sky, it looks like a filmset.”
• “What a goal, you only see goals like these on the Playstation.”
• “Diving is fantastic, I really felt I was in Nemo.”
• “Did you see that accident, it was just like GTA”

I call quotes like these Pamelas, named after Pamela Anderson, a woman that rebuilt everything, and was named the most beatiful woman in the world after all that. There was a time when inflatable dolls were terrible, suddenly the prettiest woman in the world looked like one.

Real

The growing use of ‘Pamelas’ is caused by perfectionism that has become part of the habits of all of us. We don’t buy curved cucumbers, we make sure all cables in our houses are invisible, our kids don’t leave the house without their hair done, alle youngsters wear braces and our jobs are fun and inspiring. Our Pamela would sound like: “My job is just as good as in the ad.”

Opposite to this trend to perfection, is our appreciation of ‘the real’. Real has become a buzzword. A new friend is ‘just real’. we can eat ‘real food’ in a ‘real kitchen’ where we play ‘real music’.

The new real is fake

Is it an opposite trend? Forget it. The new real is only real, when it is perfect. The hipster doesn’t go outside when he does not look perfectly real. Indifferent beards are perfectly indifferent.

To strive for improvement, even for perfection is a good habit, as long as you don’t get unhappy or insecure when you are not in perfect circumstances or company. I work at Centric and am married with Astrid for more than 25 years. I work in a company with real real people that improve every day. I am married with a real real woman, that gets more real every day. I think that’s perfect.