Down with consumerism

You may have heard of consumerism, but I thought it’d be fun (and happily depressing)to take the time to describe what it means in your life. Starting off, the ever-useful Wikipedia has a useful definition of Consumerism.

You should understand that all advertising is based on a big lie — that you need the product. Here’s a simple truth: consumer goods of real value do not need to be advertised. Ever. Read Read Consumer Angst.

Consider the implications of your shopping urges at Psychopathy and Consumerism. Then glide into the edge of poetic description at Consumerism Consumes.

Consumerism addicts you and traps you between conflicting, fake “ideas”, so that, as the one “idea” hurts you, there’s another fake “idea” that appears to provide the solution. An easy example of this in action is found in television adverts.

You have adverts for rubbish fattening foods and drinks, which then require adverts for food sold to “relieve constipation” — because you’re eating such chemical rubbish that your body can’t even process it normally.

This also spawns anti-indigestion medicines to offset the pain from the rubbish being eaten — which, in turn, requires adverts for pills and gadgets to “make you thin” (because you ate the above foods, and ended up fat as a pig).

Welcome to one of the more obvious deliberate addiction cycles of consumerism in action. Now follow the links and do some reading at Overcoming Consumerism. For hardcore reading, try The Myth of Sustainable Growth. An interesting but fairly dense article is Consumerism and the New Capitalism.

In between the above adverts are more adverts, for expensive rubbish for which you’ll have to get into debt, such as cars and household appliances — all the expensive things they’ll try to tell you how “free” it will make you. And then you have adverts showing you how easy it is to get credit for the overpriced rubbish that will help make your life better (and free).

Open your mind to new ideas that the TV didn’t tell you about, and dip into Enough: The Anti-Consumerism Campaign.

Obviously, though, because you bought the expensive rubbish, this means you end up as a slave in an office, working just to pay for the stuff you bought to make yourself feel better for working in such a lousy job in the first place. Total madness, in other words.

While searching for related sites, Google threw up my own past ranting on the subject, so read ‘Credit’ and Being Kept as a Slave. Now take some time out to read What Does Overcoming Consumerism Accomplish?.

The next layer of adverts plays on your fears. Gee, you had better “insure” all your rubbish, in case it gets damaged, broken or stolen. Read The Problem with Insurance.

For a wide range of interesting and fun quotations on aspects of advertising, see who said what at Famous Advertising Quotes.

But you’re working even harder now, locked into a lousy lifestyle that can never give you the pleasure you seek. Then comes the next series of adverts — for the socially acceptable drug to drug yourself unconscious after hours.

The difference between drugs like cocaine and drugs like alcohol is that the potential (or recovering) coke addict isn’t faced with big billboards everywhere saying cocaine is cool. Start with ‘A Sweet Tooth’ and Behavioural Problems Tied to Alcoholism.

Look through the info and articles at the Centre for Alcohol Marketing and Youth. Still more info at Alcohol and Teens.

See any difference between hamsters in a cage, running on the spot forever and getting nowhere, and your current so-called “lifestyle”? Soak up some attitude changes at The Philosophy of Anti-Consumerism.

To get a sense of some of the campaigns unfolding, for instance to stop cellphone companies marketing their products to children (unless of course you like the idea of causing brain tumours in your child), pause by Commercial Alert.

Have a look at some scary statistics that give a glimpse of the dumbed-down mindless future awaiting humans, at All-Consuming Passion.

Just because you happened to think that Fight Club “rocked” in some way, it doesn’t mean that you’re part of any anti-consumerist club. Read the very thoughtful article titled The Rebel Sell.

What’s the ultimate answer? Maybe determining what you want and what you need and learning how to tell the difference between them. And perhaps just a little bit of self-awareness, in order to understand that your sense of self-worth, happiness and status has nothing to do with the buying of any product — regardless of how desperately advertisers may try to make it seem “true”. (If the only time you feel good in your life is when you buy something, I’d recommend finding a new career, life or therapy.)

There’s a growing global trend of simplicity evolving in society, for people looking for an “alt” operating method. Browse through the many links available at Voluntary Simplicity. And there’s more at Simply Living. For a wider range of sites, covering a bigger picture, try Sustainable Living.

Until the next time, if advertisers don’t get me.

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