What People Really Care About Buying

American culture in 1950s and today have numerous similarities “In the 50s, cars were flashier and more luxurious than ever...and used as a symbol of status. Similarly, today, upscale vehicles are still flashy and sleek…and upper-class consumers use them to show the status of their wealth.” Depending on the income that people earn, cars that contain more features are of better quality and class. Secondly, in the 1950s, ads had begun to seek out the attention on marketing for children. The products sold have cartoon characters and bright colors. In the modern era, citizens use similar tactics, using bright colors that are put at eye level. Children appeal to bright colors and characters when a company advertises on T.V. or in stores. Next, huge department stores became popular due to middle class’ increased power on spending. Now, the large chain department stores of Dillard’s and Macy’s are still very popular. People enjoy going out and just spending their money on the inventories that each department store has. “Then in the 50s, fast food became a

One of the essay our group represents is “Freaks, Geeks, and Cool Kids”. The author of this essay is Miller Milner, professor of sociology at the University of Virginia and senior fellow of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. In his essay he showed how consumer culture has changed in United States. The social ideal becomes the person who both works hard and plays hard. Young people try to get a good education and work hard in order to attain a status that they become a lavish consumer. Most of these young people may or may not care about learning and ideas, but they concerned about getting decent grades to avoid be labeled as “looser” and in their adulthood to have a luxury life.

The phenomenon of consumerism is quiet powerful due to the impact on individual’s lives. Society has come to the point, happiness is associated with consumption. However, the way consumerism works, is if the items being purchased gives temporary happiness. There individuals are always buying the latest products to remain happy. In the text, “The Cult you’re in” Kalle Lasn, discusses a cult-like nature of consumer culture on Americans. Lasn uses the work ‘cult’ as a metaphor; he does not mean an actual cult but American consumers seem to be in a cult-like nature. The ideal example of Lasns argument is the text, “The man behind Abercrombie and Fitch”, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, goes in great depth of the life of the CEO, Mike Jeffries, of

The first advertising technique Schor examines is the idea of street-culture and the cool edginess inherent within. Street life, particularly in this article, describes the culture present in inner cities and is a lifestyle most commonly associated with poor blacks. Advertisers use the image of a hardened neighborhood affected by violence, drugs, and criminality to sell the cool feeling of faux danger to the middle class. Rap stars and athletes are often used to make products seem cool and “street”. While these people may have had past connections to true street life, they are now wealthy enough to live luxurious lifestyles,

These three values are shown throughout advertisements to lure people in to buy their products. Companies show that their restaurants hits the value of relationships by advertising their store as social, loud, fun, and perfect for get togethers and to eat with friends and family. Also technology manufacturers release new products, showing the latest technological aspects of their devices. Teens and adults have the impulse to buy it to show it off, and to stay up to date. These values all have one common ground: children, teenagers, and adults want to stay mainstream through their life.

Living the American dream was a part of the road to Suburbia. As soldiers were returning home from the wars, births were reaching record highs known as the baby boom. Just in the year 1957, a total of 4,308,000 babies were born.4 Desiring large families and great economic prosperity, the women’s role as mother and homemaker were built-up in movies and television and magazines. Ultimately, with additional “leisure time” at home, Americans bought televisions, nice record players, lawn mowers and other electronic products. Manufactures and advertising agencies jumped at the opportunity to profit on consumerism. “More and more, ad executives and designers turned to psychology to create new strategies for selling. Advertisers appealed to people’s desire for status and “belongingness” and strived to associate their products with those values.”5 The Baby Boomers that began the consumerism in the mid-1950’s socially altered the United States then and still do

The feel-good essence of a lot of commercial pop music has the outcome of concealing the reality of structural where a people may not be treated as equals around the world (McKay, 2000, p.2). Therefore, commercial pop music has the triple socialising effect of having listeners forget the environment that they live in, having them believe there is validity in commercial power, and of muting people by mass-producing blaring, fused type of pop music while censoring others. This is concerning since the increasing variety of media controlled by the same corporations. An argument to this is that this feel-good aspect can help consumers feel, that they have escaped the conditions they live in. (McKay, 2000,

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

The rapper Kanye West stated “She don`t believe in shooting stars but she believes in shoes and cars.” Malls, Outlets and online resources are the most common sources for shopping experiences for many people today. There are also the many food outlets and sales that encourage people to purchase items that may or may not be necessary. In her essay, “American Consumerism,” Jamie Bentley reflecting on Simon Benlow’s essay “An Apology to Future Generations” that expresses concern about consumers’ negative impact on the environment reveals this generation’s obsession with materialism, with the hope that people will learn to do more with less. The many options available to purchase items create a problem for individuals who desire to have what they

Reaching fame and winning awards in each one of these categories. He not one that has run in’s with the police. As a matter of fact, he is clean cut and squeaky clean. Making him a splendid role model for children and young adults, being that they hold him in high regard. He even performs a tremendous amount of charity work. Lyrically he has put success before decency, still with his success he performs a decent amount of charitable work. Furthermore, in the article, “Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool” by author Juliet B. Schor, she states, “While there is no doubt that the desire for social acceptance is a central theme of growing up, marketers have elevated it to the sine qua non of children’s psyches. The promotion of cool is a good example of how the practices marketing to teens, have filtered down to the children’s sphere.” These tie into each other, for the reason that big corporations are targeting the next generation with their products. Big corporations that include Patron, Hennessey, and Grey Goose will go as far as paying these musical artists for mentioning their products in their songs. For instance, big tobacco companies target children and young adults with their advertising. Even candy companies promote tobacco with items comparable to cigarettes, they are candy cigarettes. There is even a gum that comes in a pouch exactly like chewing tobacco, called

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

Simple beat, simple rhyme scheme, strong message. "Vans don't cost G's, real niggaz wear these – Vans," says a member of The Pack in the music video aptly titled "Vans." You may be asking yourself, "So, what's the big deal?" The big, highly lucrative deal is the marriage between big name corporations and their partnership with hip-hop. It's nothing new: Run-DMC had "My adiddas", LL Cool J wore Kangol hats, and even Jay-Z incorporated drinking Cristal into his lyrics for a long period of time. With that being said, the new hip-hop generation of today faces many adversities from years and years of subliminal marketing within their own sub-culture. The effects of hyper-commercialism are evident in American

First of all, celebrities are ideal mediators for a capitalist consumer culture by representing ordinary individuals with extraordinary fame. By humanizing commercial commodities, celebrities present the comforting and familiar face of the corporal state (Hedges, 2009: 37). The association of a product with a celebrity essentially promotes the product, similar to an advertisement. Initially, a new product without any bit of credibility makes consumers wary. By merging celebrities that consumers are likely to recognize with a product, consumers are more likely to purchase the product due to familiarity. For example, if a new cereal brand were to be released to the grocery store, shoppers would be suspicious of the safety of its consumption. Televising a short advertisment of Lady Gaga eating that cereal brand humanizes the product and comforts the shopper to buy the cereal. This economical use of celebrities may benefit the corporal business, but leaves into question of the state of the celebrity as well as the consumer. Celebrities, or the ‘human pseudo-event’, act as role models, or at least influential points of society, for the consumption of the public. Hedges states, “Commodities and celebrity culture define what it means to belong, how we recognize our place in society, and how we conduct our lives” (Hedges, 2009: 16). Ordinary people

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.