Looking at consumerism from a different angle

We are surrounded by various ads, literally everywhere. Hailed by tempting offers. On the tube, on the Internet, on the streets. Chuck Palahniuk once famously wrote that we buy things we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we don’t like. Just like him many claim that it’s all so very bad and wrong that we are constantly being forced to buy things that we apparently don’t need, but let me disagree with it. We are all autonomous human beings, we have a power of free will. One has to admit that as consumers or audience we are not passive. Hypodermic needle theory is just no longer relevant for our generation. I also truly believe that as long as we are happy with the purchase, it’s good and it’s not useless since we satisfy our desire to buy it. Furthermore, Consumerism is good and ethically correct. It gives people jobs, makes other people happy, keeps the life going. It took me a while to come to such conclusions and even longer to admit that I am a commodity fetishist.

So here I am, sitting at this so-called ‘date’, being utterly bored and still utterly afraid to say that He is nothing like the guy from Tinder. He is trying his best to be all nice and romantic. My brain was not even functioning properly at this occasion, but then suddenly I heard: ‘I love your soft skin, I love how you smell, I love your beautiful lips’ and then it hit me. Great, so you actually love my Keihl’s body cream, Tom Ford perfume and Chanel lipstick. That’s not me, those are products. He does not love me, he loves them. I guess it would be fair to say that the only suitable place for me in this rather complicated love equation is to be a maneqien for them. Is love being reduced to commodity fetishism or is it really just what it is? Is consumerism actually that bad? We buy and consume daily, no matter what. Products, services and even people. That must be obvious, so why did ‘consumerism’ become almost a swearing word at this very day in age? Products are what makes us ‘us’. They help to construct out fragile identities and they make us happy. Certainly make me. They make people love each other. Commodity fetishism is no longer a perversion but simply a tool to manipulate peoples’ feelings and identities. Surely, I would love someone to love me for who I really am, for my intellect, wit and ridiculous sense of humor, but the problem here is that without ‘products’ such as deodorant or foundation I probably wouldn’t even get a chance to show them off simply because not many would dare talk to me. Beauty attracts (probably because sometimes life itself is quite ugly) and it is a fact that very few will honestly deny and since various products help us to achieve it, it’s alright to want to buy something.

And now time for a massive ‘coming-out’. A consumerist, that’s what I am, just like many other urban citizens.