Konsumerisme is Killing Me

"This is a $4,000 sofa, upholstered in Italian silk. It is not just a couch."

"It's just a couch!"

-American Beauty

Consumerism, if you've had actually wikied the word, is defined as the equation of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions.

If we roll back the time and go back to the 40s and 50s, consumerism would probably be your regular necessities : clothes, food, transport maybe and whatnots. Pay for what they needed.

Now, we are living in an era with the luxury to choose instead of accept. A concept of modernism perhaps. Civilized? Or de-civilization?

If i could pick a point in history, then i have to choose Beatle-mania. It reformed the concept of advertising and the image of artists as tools to sell. Then it was Michael Jordan who became a machine in the sports' industry, establishing his own brand under Nike. Then David Beckham became the household with Adidas, with AC Milan and Real Madrid exposing his marketing abilities.

In the modern age, marketing targets our minds. Our Dreams. Our ambitions.

"Wear Jordan Apparel and You can play like MJ himself!"

Let's consider a spade, a spade. You could wear your t-shirt or shorts from Brand-X and you could still play like Michael Jordan.

Advertisements poison you. You're gonna see David Beckham wearing the latest Adidas jersey and you might realize you won't look half as good as he does but still you're going to buy the item because they've infected your brain. And people go to Thailand and try to find that fake three stripe item.

Consumerism is a cool n chic entity these days. And I'm included. I'm on the surfboard riding the waves of modern consumerism. Wish i could kick the habit away. Anything with Liverpool on the shirt and adidas would project this cool image in my conscious.

It's more aesthetic than substance. You're gonna find the same furniture in different shops but Ikea may be your choice since it's cool and trendy. "I just bought the Henrik Larsson living room set!". "No way! My husband got me this John Arne Riise master bed for our wedding anniversary!". They put labels and more labels to make their average furniture sound like mega cool.

The Daniel Agger 3-storeyed bookshelf.
Litmanen cutlery set, complete with Anna Kournikova rambo knives.
Johansson dining table.

Just because they have all these Danish/Finnish/Swedish/Scandinavian names, they sound cool to you. If you put the names of Malaysians, then it would sound uncool, you would probably puke.

Ali Samad table set.
Yap Ah Loy master bed.
Muthusamy kitchen model.

With all these hullabaloo, ask yourselves, is modern consumerism taking over your mind?

Let's hope not. Buy Malaysian. If not, then go buy Thailand made products.