Consumerism

This is one of my favorite social responsibility videos o’ mine. I go back to this a lot, because the culture of New York City is steeped in consumerism and having all the coolest toys. Everything in our capitalist society seems geared to owning crap. Buying stuff. Stimulating the economy by working really hard at a company that is selling something to someone, so you can earn money to buy the stuff that another company is making. This is really the premise of our consumerist popular culture. Ain’t it grand? Ain’t it spiritually awakened? I’m so tired of being made to feel like I need to buy something. Around every corner is another hawker with wares: across every medium, down every street, even your NEIGHBORS try to sell you stuff at the Tupperware parties. My willpower is getting stronger, and I’m generally buying a lot less stupid stuff like clothes and expensive makeup and whatnot (yes, I am a girlie girl, got a problem with that?). But seriously? I’m kind of glad the economy is tanking a bit. Because we don’t need to be making a bunch of crap we don’t need, polluting our environment and lives along the way. Oddly, our economic hardships just might lead to some much-needed political reform and give rise to some social movements. It’s time for us to get back to basics, for our own sakes and our planet’s sake. So it’s kind of nice that the economy is helping us along on cutting back. Know what I mean? That’s just my social responsibility commentary. What do you think?