Black Edition Is The New Extreme

Once upon a time in the mid-1980s, American Express came up with a special credit card for its most elite, high-profile cardmembers. They quietly introduced a very exclusive card called the "Centurion card" which was shrouded in secrecy during its earliest days.Rumors about this new credit card began circulating in the late 1980s, and a 1988 article by the Wall Street Journal finally cleared up the controversy. The card was discontinued afterwards, but consumer interest in the card was so strong that it was reintroduced in 1999.

To understand what all the fuss is about, I need to explain that the Centurion card is not just another credit card, it is *THE* credit card. Here are several ways in which the Centurion card is different from ordinary cards:

-It was originally not available to the general public. It was offered only to high-profile AmEx Platinum card members who met specific criteria and spending habits established by American Express. A few thousand cards were issued to high rollers such as Hollywood celebrities and Fortune 500 CEOs.

-The privilege of carrying a Centurion card came at an exorbitant annual fee of $1,000 per year (now $2,500).

-Third, the card included a 24-hour worldwide concierge service for its cardholders. The service helped wealthy cardholders make travel arrangements and other personal services including private shopping and dining.

To carry a Centurion Card was to be treated like royalty with special VIP lounges at airports and nightclubs. In addition to VIP treatment, it was rumored that the card simply did not have a credit limit at all. Customers have used Centurion cards for everything from charter jets to exotic car purchases.

When you take all of this into account, you can see that the Centurion card, or "Black Card" as it is commonly known, really is the ultimate credit card. But this isn't a rant about credit cards for people with excessively lavish lifestyles. It's about other companies borrowing from the mystique and the success of the Centurion card in an endless game of "me-too!"

In recent years, the number of consumer products being marketed with the moniker "Black" has exploded. Today, the word word "Black" comes with the implication that what you're buying is the absolute finest product the company makes; its halo product, its gleaming signature creation. This is a trend that transcends multiple industries and products. Take the following list of products for example:

Mercedes-Benz CLK-63 AMG Black Series (link)
Mercedes-Benz SL-65 AMG Black Series (link)
Audi A3 Black Edition (link)
Brabus Unimog U500 Black Edition (link)
MSI N260GTX Lightning Black Edition Video Card (link)
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Quad-Core Processor (link)
Western Digital Caviar Black Edition Hard Drive 1TB (link)
Need For Speed: Most Wanted: Black Edition (PC) (link)
Painkiller: Black Edition (PC) (link)
Nokia N96 Black Edition (link)

Ten years after its introduction, the original Centurion card is everywhere in popular culture thanks to celebrity interviews, rap music lyrics, and even magazine ads! A wealth of information about the Centurion card is now available online. Competing credit card companies have responsed with their own versions of the card, including Visa who actually calls theirs the "Black Card."

The elite status once required to attain a Centurion card has diminished, and in its place we have just another credit card with requirements easily met by many small businesses, entrepreneurs, executives, and celebrities. In its wake, we have a wide range of products in various industries seeking to capitalize on the success of the "Black Edition" name.

I think it's time we put this whole "Black Edition" trend to rest for good, but I know that somehow the replacement catchphrase will be even worse.

Nothing Is What It Seems

We are a society of synthetic human beings with our wigs, implants, face lifts, tummy tucks, teeth whitening strips, hair dye, and botox treatments.
We buy consumer products that have photomanipulated pictures on the box (see: Photoshop Disasters).
We read magazines with airbrushed models on the cover.
We watch television commercials that feature people doing outrageous things in impossible situations.
We are entertained by television shows with simulated laugh tracks from nonexistent studio audiences.
We watch movies with the most realistic special effects we've ever seen.
We give awards to actors who rely on stunt doubles and makeup artists to make them what they are.
We pay a premium price for bottled water that is really just filtered municipal water.
We eat pre-packaged foods that are loaded with preservatives, coloring, and sweeteners.
We buy "American" cars like Chevrolets that are actually assembled in Mexico, Canada, and South Korea.
We are discouraged from buying "foreign" cars that are assembled in Ohio, Tennessee, and California.
We drive cars with faux leather, simulated woodgrain, and dual tips off of a single exhaust.
We listen to songs on the radio that were not written by the artists performing them.
We sing along to auto-tuned vocals and cleverly engineered hit singles.
We work jobs we hate to buy shit we don't need (now a major motion picture!)
We elect politicians who give speeches they did not write so they can vote on bills they have not read.
We have cell phone towers "disguised" as 190-foot tall palm trees.
We have brick-patterned wallpaper over the stucco walls at Subway.
We live in stucco castles that have stone facades and imprinted concrete patterns.
We decorate our homes with reproduction art, silk indoor plants, and reproduction art.
We have digital cameras that play pre-recorded sounds to simulate the shutter of a traditional camera.

You never think about this kind of stuff when you are young. But the older I get, the more I realize that nothing is what it appears to be. The truth is that so many things in life are false, phony, rebranded, facetious, artificial, and just plain fake. The world is full of deception, both harmful and harmless. Nothing is what it seems.

Innocence Lost

One of the great things about children is how innocent they are. As a young child, I would have believed just about anything an adult told me. This is why parents get such a kick out of telling a young child about the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus - they know that children will believe them. Children have no reason to believe that something might not really be what it seems.
As I got older, I began to stop believing in the fantasy and start seeing the reality. Growing up is all about absorbing new experiences and new information about how the world really works. The downside of understanding how things really work is that the magic is gone.

Sometimes, I think I was happier before I learned the truth about some things. Each time I learn the truth about something, it's like a little bit of my childlike innocence about the world disappears. The older I get, the more I learn that nothing truly is what it seems.

It wasn't long before I learned that the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and Santa Claus were my parents all along. I was sad to learn that the cartoon characters at Disneyland were really just people in costumes. At some point during my childhood, I learned what pitifully small salaries teachers are paid compared to other professions.

As time went on, I learned that many fast food restaurants do not make food when you order it, but in fact use frozen beef or heat lamps to keep food hot and ready. I learned that almost every pre-packaged or instant food is loaded with preservatives, artificial flavors, and colors to make it brighter or sweeter than it should be. I learned that many of the baked goods for sale at the grocery store are not baked fresh, but are in fact delivered from another bakery in the middle of the night.

Upon entering the workforce, I learned a great deal about how the world of business really works. I learned that many "American" vehicles from Chevrolet and other car makers are actually produced in Mexico or South Korea. I learned that many recalled products such as contaminated toothpaste and pet food not only come from overseas, but that many different brands all come from the same factory. I learned about sweatshops and cheap foreign labor.

The truth is that warranties are always limited and that satisfaction is never guaranteed. I learned that when products on "sale," the MSRP was marked up to give the illusion of savings. I learned about market researchers and focus groups and how they target products and services to specific demographic groups. I learned about greeting card companies, diamond rings, and the greedy origins of their industries.

I learned about the stock market and people who make money on trades while contributing nothing to society. It was shocking to learn that there are people in the world who are actively trying to rip you off through investment schemes, multi-level marketing scams, phishing, identity theft, insurance fraud, telephone solicitation, spamming, and worse. Learning about the despicable things that some people will do for money robs you of more of that childhood innocence.

I lose a little bit of that childhood innocence every time I hear a news story about a respected public figure such as a minister or corporate CEO who gets caught embezzling money. It saddens me when public officials such as judges, politicians, and police officers are found guilty of bribery, or when celebrities are arrested on severe criminal charges. I lose a little bit of innocence every time I hear about a professional athlete or Olympic star who gets caught using performance enhancing drugs or steroids.

There was a day in my life when I discovered that many politicians do not write their own speeches, and that many popular singers and entertainers do not write their own songs. I learned that a singers and bands will alter their image to meet the favor of the public eye.

I learned that some musicians will change their style and their sound in order to land a record deal, fame, and fortune. I learned that many bands sound the way they do because of auto-tuned vocals and some very clever engineering in the studio. I learned that everything on the radio is pre-recorded and edited to sound real (including breathing).

More of my innocence about the world was lost when I learned that TV news anchors aren't actually reading those papers on their desk, but that they read a huge teleprompter off-camera. I learned that actors and actresses look the way they do on camera because they spend hours having makeup applied to alter their appearance. The same applies to almost every modern magazine cover, where models benefit from excessive amounts of airbrushing and photo-manipulation.

I learned that some celebrities are so shallow and vain that they will resort to extreme dieting, liposuction, makeup, plastic surgery, colored contact lenses, teeth whitening, implants, hair dye, and other tricks to appear more attractive than they really are. I learned that these role models create a false image of beauty that their fans aspire to but cannot ever achieve.

The little child I once was has grown up into a skeptical adult, having learned that so many, many things in this world are completely fake. Everything from consumer products to news headlines to television commercials and movies can be manufactured in a laboratory, factory, or studio for the purposes of deceiving me into seeing or believing something that's not real, not possible, or not genuinely there.

When you're young and innocent, you never think that what you're seeing is something artificial and made to deceive you. It just never occurs to children that magazine cover pictures have been altered, that store-bought juice is loaded with coloring, and that there is someone behind the scenes writing today's hit songs.

But the reality of life is that nothing is what it seems. The modern world is so full of replicas, imitations, and synthetics that it's getting harder and harder to tell truth from untruth. Growing up is more than just getting older, it is what happens when you lose your innocence about the world we live in.