The Wonderful Nightmares of Consumers

The average commercial seen on television features catchy music, perhaps a cartoon or interesting skit portraying the product being advertised, and finally, the voice: Buy it today! In stores today! Limited time only!

These three factors alone have "brainwashed" the minds of teenagers into thinking that they MUST buy the latest product in stores, one of those teenagers being me. Indeed, once the knowledge of something "new" is being sold, everyone hits the mall hoping to be the first ones to attain it; then, when I'm the only person who either didn't know about it or doesn't have it, I'm the outcast, and being an outcast because of some brand named clothing or a Wii or anything is quite ridiculous, but also quite influential. I guess you could call it peer pressure, or advertisements doing their job. Because of the intense need to fit into one's environment (especially for kids), companies target teens who are smart enough to understand pressure, but dumb enough to not see how much this "consumer craze" affects them.

Sure, we could simply avoid watching TV or looking through magazines and newspapers to evade the army of advertisements that charge after us - unfortunately, that's easier said than done. When they're not on TV, they're in the palms of people's hands, and then we're the "uncool" ones for not being like everyone else. Although not all my clothing are brand names, and my possessions were not bought yesterday, I do have some electronics and other items that are brand named, so I guess you could add me (and my family) to the list of crazy consumers. Now mentioning food, I've never really paid attention to food commercials, because usually they're just produce, meat, etc. from a grocery store the ad wants TV viewers to shop at, so I started looking out for them. My observations: companies don't use food for bait as much as they do with other items. Why? Probably because food is essential for survival, therefore stores don't have to stress over business since people buy food every day, unlike expensive products that isn't so necessary.

The point in all of this is that consumers need to be more aware of what they purchase, why, and (I know I didn't mention this in any part of my post yet) how the production of what people purchase affected the environment and those who made it.