Consumerism In 'TeenHaulers' Become A Fashion Force?

Media is everywhere, it became a part of our life. We are exposed to thousands of ad messages every day and it's hard to imagine how it would feel to live without them constantly surrounding us. Today we see ads in print publications, TV commercials, emails, on different products, massively scattered in sport venues, and it’s even spreading into public spaces. In his documentary, Morgan Spurlock delivered a fascinating satire of the process of placing products into movies and tried to delve into the nature of advertising in our society.

Every kid wants to be cool, and advertisers know that. This is the main idea explored by Juliet Schor in her article “Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool”. This article originally appeared in Schor’s 2004 book Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer. The author is an expert on the topic of behavior in humans and the economy, as she has taught sociology and economics at multiple universities. In her article, Schor explains to the reader how companies market to children, specifically through the lens of cool. Marketers achieve “cool” by various means, three of which are examined by Schor. In her article, Schor examines the ideas of street-culture, an anti-adult bias, and age compression and how they are perceived as cool in the world of advertising to children.

The average United States Citizen views about 5000 advertisements a day (Johnson). Advertising is everywhere. Billboards on the way to work, ads on the internet, and paper products such as magazines or newspapers display a sale or a promotion of a good or service. Usually, the ad will give a brand or company name, and uses the product’s merits to draw the consumer closer. This has grown exponentially as advertisements in media in 1970 were estimated to be 500 a day, a ten percent increase in the last 48 years. (Johnson). This is due to the rise of technology, as the computer has become a household gadget within the new millenium. These advertisements are meant to give a synopsis of the product or service’s purpose, quality, and efficiency. If a consumer views 5000 advertisements in a single day and assuming the commercials do not repeat, 5000 goods or services are introduced. With more options to choose from in such little time, the consumer has a harder time differentiating the quality and perhaps necessity of the product. The marketers rely on the quick, impulsive decision making of consumers. With the misleading nature of many infomercials or radio broadcasts, the people of American society are bombarded with constant propaganda, thus making seemingly harmless promotions more potent to filling industries’ pockets and lessening the common population’s

“There are over 250 billion advertisements released to the public every year with the average person seeing over 3000 ads every single day” (Kilbourne). This is an astronomical amount of information for anyone to process in a week let alone in one day. This is a prime example of Capitalism at it’s finest. Controlling the consumer in every aspect of their lives. Jean Kilbourne also talks about how “Only 8 percent of an advertisement is actually processed by the conscious mind, with the other 92 percent being soaked up by the subconscious” (Kilbourne). Thinking about those numbers really brings into perspective how much we are truly influenced by media

Instead of promoting the usual conformed replicated lifestyle they promoted individualism. Advertisers reassured consumers that they would surely find the self-expression they were in search of within their products. This is evident within the “Forever Young” Pepsi commercial where present advertisers are promoting individualism through the image of rock n roll legend, Bob Dylan. In his essay, Frank states, “We consume not to fit in, but to prove, on the surface at least, that we are rock ‘n’ roll rebels, each one of us as rule-breaking and hierarchy-defying as our heroes of the 60’s, who now pitch cars, shoes, and beer” (Frank 153). During the 1960’s Bob Dylan revolutionized what it meant to be an individual. Through his music many people started to express what they were feeling and how it was affecting them and rebelled against the pressures of society. Pepsi using Bob Dylan as the protagonist of the commercial symbolizes the desire for people to explore what it means to be a carefree rock ‘n’ roll legend that lives life on a spectrum outside of the guidelines that society already has set in place. Bob Dylan’s purpose in the Pepsi commercial is to directly represent rebellion and individualism. This advertisement pushes the concept that consumers too have the potential to be as inspiring as said legend if they continue to take apart in whatever is being sold. Pepsi’s commercial expresses that conformity is no longer

There are many things that are part of our daily lives that we have come to accept as normal, because they have been part of our society for so long that we no longer question their presence. If you look at our society from an outside perspective, you begin to see some things that appear to be very strange had you not grown up with it. Alternative rapper “Macklemore” often tackles subjects like these to give listeners a look at the world from a different point of view, and start conversations. One of his most heavy-hitting songs, “Wing$” takes on the complex topic of consumerism through a telling of his life experience with brands and the after-effects of their power. With this Rhetorical Analysis, I hope to address the message of the

With more jobs being offered without much college education, it becomes apparent that one would not need to go to school for a minimum wage job. The young generation of adults also have feasible access to expensive brands that it is almost like going to the supermarket to buy a Coach purse. Having such easy access can be a benefit to those who have never been able to get name brands, but it is also a downfall. Vina states that not living beyond the service of retail is becoming a problem to the gold-collared generation in terms of identity. All over social media people show off their name branded gifts as if they are they life-long achievements. In reality, the same people are most likely struggling with school and other nuisances of life, That is not to say they do not deserve it, but the constant want of such things is a problem.

Do we want basic cereal or the fancy kind that athletes promote, or can we live with a plain shirt or do we want the one with a guy riding a horse emblem? These want that stray away from our basic needs are all driven by advertisement. No one is born wanting a Gucci shirt, they are taught and conditioned to want one. The Frontline documentary, “The Persuaders”, delves into the world of advertisement in order to explore different aspects of the industry that drives our desire.

From IPhones to new cars to discounted food, advertisements and the desire for the newest or cheapest items surround humans every day. Socially we are held responsible to not only “keep up with the Joneses” anymore, but also the Kardashians, Gates, and Walton families. Today’s society has proven that the desire to have the newest items for the most affordable prices stands more important than our true happiness. Joseph Turow provides in his article, The Daily You: How the New Advertising Industry Is Defining Your Identity and Worth, which the advertising industry has greatly affected your consumption habits and the prices you look for. James A. Roberts grows on that idea, in that with the help of these advertising firms, you continue to run

In addition, advertising feeds from mob mentality, convincing people a product will change their lives by deeming it fashionable or sophisticated. It bypasses logical thinking to take control of how people view themselves and their “need for esteem. People want and need to be respected and we need to feel good about ourselves. And this is where much advertising lives, often because we are selling products that people really do not need. L’Oreal’s ‘Because you’re worth it’ is the perfect example” (Madigan 83). For this reason, expectations of a person are manipulated to fit the wants of the industry to sell products. These people are affected since they feel as if they have no choice in what to wear, how their body should appear to others, and which brands they buy. It all comes down to the need to be apart of something bigger, instead of sticking out from the crowd.

There is an undoubtedly enormous influence on the world by consumerism. Consumerism and capitalism shape the nation that we live in today. Everyone knows this because they see advertisements all day long on television, on the radio, on billboards and through hundreds of other mediums. Unfortunately, what the world is not exposed to is what goes on behind the marketing and the ultimate final sale. There is a dark side to capitalism created not only by shady merchants, but the worldwide multi-national companies as well. What both of these excerpts portray is the idea that there is more to the products we buy than we are told, or unfortunately, that we bother to ask about. Through the use of interviewing, traveling, and criticism, these

Imagine sitting down on a Saturday night to relax and watch your favorite show. As you turn to your show you begin notice that the whole thing is full of ads, everything from the billboards in the back ground, to the logo on the coffee cup that the main character is drinking out of. This is exactly the kind of thing you can expect to see in the future. In his article Damian Ward Hey argues that it is in the best interest of the television and advertising industries to keep the balance between appropriate advertising and content. He uses evidence and examples of virtual advertising that relate to the audience as well as his well-educated tone of voice to make his claim, and

During this very typical, day in the life, I never realized how much effort it would take to process the copious amounts of advertising that is present in my surroundings. This effort that includes: noticing an ad, processing the ad in my brain, and taking note of its existence was, at some moments, very hard to keep up. Not to mention, while I was conducting this ethnography I had the constant debate of, “does this count as an ad?” For instance, when I was riding public transportation, if a person was wearing a Nike sweatshirt, I initially questioned, “does that count as a form of advertising?” Furthermore, during my crowded commute on public transportation, I felt that even when I was merely looking out the window, the influx of advertisements

Teens and smartphones are killing teen-fashion retailers by using social media to make fashions popular or unpopular. In the article “How teens and smartphones are killing teen-fashion retailers” by Suzette Parmley, a reporter philadelphia inquirer, emphasizes that teen that are on social media who are killing fashion retailer. Parmley states that according to Garrick Brown, the vice president of Cushman & Wakefield “this generation ( the first to have grown up completely on smartphones) are poised to put growth to shame” (par 9). She is basically saying that before this generation they didn't have smartphone that did things they do today, phones now a day have a lot of control and every kid uses a phone and social media is running a lot of

In her analysis of Fight Club, Renee Lockwood identifies the defining role that consumerism plays in establishing modern identity asserting that “modern consumers able to choose from a vast range of identities through products and labels” (Lockwood, 2008, p. 329.). Explicit examples of society’s dependency on consumerism is constantly portrayed through makeovers, where an individual gains a plethora of confidence and social acceptance through the modification of their sense of dress. Thus, we live in a world defined almost entirely by what we own hence the propensity for people to change their identity from time to time.