The new CEO of Land’s End, the flailing nineties outdoor brand, has an ambitious and deeply stupid plan: Make headlines by picking a fight with the ghost of Leon Leonwood Bean. As part of a new campaign, Land’s End now offers two of its side-pocketed totes – ostensibly an $80 value –  in exchange for any used tote and $1. And, sure, that works as a bit of confrontational stunt marketing. But it also demonstrates a weird naivete about taste, desire, and the tautological nature of demand for the classic Bean “Boat and Tote.” 

The Boat and Tote was introduced 80 years ago and quickly became a staple in New England, specifically among aristocratic, “old money”-types with rambling cottages and boats moored near L.L. Bean’s first outpost in Freeport, Maine. Because “old money”-types attach status to inherited rather than newly purchased goods – anyone can buy stuff – the sons and daughters of the original tote purchasers used the same bags, which held up and consequently became desirable to preppy people emulating the old-money aesthetic. That was in the ‘60s and ‘70s. Half a century later, nearly every outdoor brand and prestige publishing house[4] offers a product of comparable quality, but the Boat and Tote remains by far the most popular because it has become an object of “memetic desire.”

The French social critic Rene Girard defined memetic desire” as a desire to desire that leads consumers to borrow the desires of others when they lack specific desires of their own. Tote bags are a perfect example of this phenomenon because (*don’t hit me*) they are all basically the same. There is, in other words, no place to put discernment or individual desire and no practical reason to give a shit. But we do give a shit. We understand that Boat and Totes possess an intangible quality Land’s End bags do not even if we balk at the idea that the intangible quality is actually the class imprimatur of a bunch of dead Mayflower Society members and dying Boomers who didn’t want to look dumb carrying Steppenwolf albums into their Dartmouth dorm rooms circa 1969.

It sound ridiculous, but there is a massive difference between being a thing and being the thing. Boat and Totes sales are up 35% this year. 

Not content to simply lose money on $1 bags, Land’s End is also engaged in an influencer campaign focused on side pockets, which are apparently a big differentiator (ignore for a moment that you can actually buy a Boat and Tote with side pockets). This is an acknowledgement on some level that Land’s End can’t win on brand or mimesis, but it’s also an appeal to individual discernment. Girard, who famously described individualism as “a formidable lie,” would have laughed the marketing team out of the room and then taken a long, frustrated drag on his Gauloises. Why would anyone want what they want when they could want what everyone wants?