NASCAR Publics

I recently came across an amusing discussion in a liberal blog that resonated with Warner's conception of 'subpublics.' If you remember, Warner has this to say about subpublics:

There are as many shades of difference among publics as there are in modes of address, style, and spaces of circulation. Many might be thought of as subpublics, or specialized publics, focused on particular interests, professions, or locales. The public of Field and Stream, to take an example well within the familiar range of print genres, does not take itself to be the national people, nor humanity in general; the magazine addresses only those with an interest in hunting and fishing, who in varying degrees participate in a (male) subculture of hunters and fishermen. Yet nothing in the mode of address or in the projected horizon of this subculture requires its participants to cease for a moment to think of themselves as members of the general public as well; indeed, they might well consider themselves its most representative members. [2002:84]

Warner goes on to suggest at the end of the essay that we tend to attribute agency to these publics, fetishizing them (my interjection) in ways not so different from the Marxian commodity fetish. That is, we know we're fetishizing--attributing agency to objects as we elide relationships between humans--but we're helpless to avoid it.

If it wasn't obvious, we're currently in the middle of an election cycle, and all sorts of voting blocs are now given agency and various sorts of characteristics are covertly associated with them. In 1984 election, for example, we had "Reagan Democrats," a term that's still used to describe certain publics. In the 1996 elections, it was "Soccer Moms" who turned the tide toward Bill. So one might reasonably ask, which public is it today? How about "NASCAR voters?"

But as the blog excerpt below will illustrate, this subpublic is fraught for Democrats. After a (real) description of a memo that recommended Democratic staffers get Hepatitis, Tetanus, and Diphtheria immunizations before visiting this imagined public in the faraway "deep South," the blogger goes on to point out the covert assumptions in play here:

Once again, the erroneous stereotype of NASCAR fans is being perpetuated as a rowdy mob of unwashed, unshaven, uncouth, uneducated, inbred, toothless, drunken, shirtless, Confederate flag tattooed, Chevy pickup drivin’, gun-totin’, tabakky-spittin’, beer-belly scratchin’ redneck hillbillies all yelling ‘show us yer tits’ at every woman who walks through the stands. Oh, and they all vote Republican, of course.
http://nthemouse.blogspot.com/2007/10/nascar-seen-from-left.html

I was particularly amused by this because I currently own a NASCAR branded laptop, which sports the NASCAR trademark on the exterior, as well as when it boots up (as it did in class yesterday). Now, we discussed the conception of the boundaries of publics in class yesterday, as well as the conception that the formation of a public merely requires one to pay attention, however briefly. So apparently, by owning this laptop, I'm now part of the NASCAR subpublic, insofar as I use my computer everyday, notwithstanding the fact that I purchased the laptop on the basis of its excellent reviews and specs on Newegg.com, not on the basis of it being the cheapest laptop for sale at Walmart (another public that one might imagine to articulate with the NASCAR voter--certainly corporate executives thought so!).

But this raises a troubling question. According to Warner, my belonging to a public is irrespective of my own self-identification. Does this mean that every time I happen to pick Pepsi in a restaurant because they've signed an exclusive contract with PepsiCo that I'm now part of a Pepsi public? Where does this end?