Essays on Consumerist

Voluntary Simplicity Meets Modern Consumerism

INTRODUCTION When people look at the modern world today the first thing they recognize is the evidence of humanity’s development of the world, how they harvested the needed environment for energy and rejoice in the modern technological advances that allow for a fantastic amount of convenience to many people’s everyday lives. However, many of these same human beings fail to consider the consequences, on many levels, that all of these developments and advances may lead to. Many argue that these advances and conveniences have led to an unhealthy kind of consumerism; ideologies that place a great deal ...

Media Consumption and Materialism/Consumerism

Globally, consumption and materialism have become a fundamental component of the prevailing culture. Humans consume a myriad of products and resources that extend beyond their basic necessities to include technological innovations and luxuries aimed at improving efficiency and quality of life. Throughout history, consumption beyond basic needs has served as a method of boosting human happiness. Hence, excessive consumption does not necessarily pose harm to human life (Shah). Increasingly, however, important issues regarding media consumption and materialism have emerged in recent decades. As such, this study examines the neuroscience of human emotions, the use of recreational substances, and the ...

Fahrenheit 451 – A World Close to Home?

Can a fictional society from a story that was written in the past substantially reflect the modern United States that people know today? Perhaps it can. Although the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 is fictional, its contents can be seen to parallel, perhaps to a lesser extent, some societies today. Looking at the current state of the United States and the world presented in the book, it is evident that there are a variety of similarities: think about specific areas, such as war, technology, social interaction, censorship, communication, family lifestyles, work lifestyles, authority, power, government propaganda, freedom, education, the concept ...

Gossip Girl explores the world of upper class society through fashion and consumerist taste of young affluent women. Jennifer craik argues that fashion has the ability to convey disparate messages about society and economics. It has a message about cultural identity and distinctiveness. It also is an integral part of local inflections, shared knowledge, cultural sophistications, traditions and societal revolutions. Most of all, fashion sends messages about an individual’s social or economic wellbeing. One is able to easily discern that an individual works in a corporate or entertainment world by how they dress together with other cues like ...

Although the dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 is fictional, in many ways its contents can be seen to parallel, perhaps to a lesser extent, some societies today. The similarities of the events depicted in the book and modern circumstances is hard to ignore. In addressing the book and its relationship with the modern United States, it will be possible to compare the similarities between the fictional, future world of Fahrenheit 451 and the current reality of the country. Looking at the current state of the United States and the world presented in the book it is evident that there are ...

During the 19th and 20th centuries, production grew rapidly and supply far exceeded the consumer demand. As a result, scarcity of goods was replaced by surpluses causing the markets in America to reach a point of saturation. In such a scenario, the business community and the economists opined that the problem of excess production could be effectively countered by boosting public consumption, which in turn would help the economy to grow (Beder 2). With an aim to increasing business profits and maintaining work ethics, businessmen and economists promoted consumerism by enlisting the working class along with the existing consumers ...

Question one

Identify two passages from the essay where the author uses description effectively. For each passage, explain the impact or effect of this description. “My son is almost fifteen years old, the size of a grown man, and when he bursts into room glassware rattles and the cat on your lap grabs on to your knees and leaps from the starting block.”

This passage not only presents to the reader the physical qualities of the son, but also effectively describes to the audience the behavior and the personality of the son. It through the description of how the son ...

What You Can Learn from Starbucks http://www.inc.com/resources/marketing/articles/20050401/starbucks.html

Starbucks is an experienced company that serves good quality coffee, and besides this it delivers great customer service, from which managers have only but to learn, as Adam Hanft, the writer of the article “What Can You Learn from Starbucks” observes after analyzing the setting and the environment that Starbuck creates for its clients. The author of this article provides some useful customer service related advices based on his own Starbucks experience and he encourages managers to use them or to go visit the nearest Starbucks whenever they need to ...

Abstract

JC Penney is one of the largest retail stores in the world. It has a century long history of success. JC Penney has seen many big changes over the last 100 years in its product portfolio. However, the last effort to change it brand image went horribly wrong. It lost almost 33% of its customer base within a year, biggest in the history of retail industry. However, it has now realized that it needs to stick to its tried and tested brand image and also the operational tactics that have succeeded for the last 4 decades. Once those are in place, ...

“For Marxism, literature does not exist in some timeless, aesthetic realm as an object to be passively contemplated. Rather, like all cultural manifestations, it is a product of the socioeconomic and hence ideological conditions of the time and the place in which it was written, whether or not the author intended it so. Because human beings are themselves products of their socioeconomic and ideological environment, it is assumed that authors cannot help but create works that embody ideology in some form.” -Tyson, Critical Theory Today. War of the Worlds, the novel about the Martian invasion on earth is ...

Thesis: Advertisement of unhealthy food products undermines the role of public health and the government in fighting obesity and is one of the major suspects for the apparent rise in obesity prevalence. Introduction: This paper will reveal how childhood obesity is an epidemic and a serious public health issue that is incontrovertibly one of the health challenges of the 21st century. The modern lifestyles that are inclines to fast foods have made the problem even more severe. Obesity exposes children to a myriad of health problems both in short and long time. In the short term, obesity affects the normal ...

A consumerist culture can be defined as one where the society is defined by consumerism. In economic terms a consumerist culture is one in which there are policies that place much emphasis on goods and the buying and selling of it. There are also people who claim that a consumerist culture is all about free choices where the consumers and producers can determine the economic course of a country. Consumerism, Consumerist culture and consumer society are all topics that have been under much scrutiny these days and about which there are heated debates around the world. Opponents of a consumerist culture call for a ...

English

1. What is your chosen topic, and how did you come across it? Why is it interesting to you? What do you personally hope to gain or accomplish by writing about this topic? In this section, define your topic and explain where you first heard about it (i.e. local newspaper, website, etc.). Reflect on how or why your background, motivations, needs, or interest sparked your interest on this topic and relate to your overall goals for writing The topic, Breakdown on Hipster, explains the context of the emergence of Hipsters as a subculture that breaks away from the mainstream ...

Consumerism is the bane of the modern society. We buy faster cars, bigger televisions, and sleeker phones and aspire for even more technological new editions. It seems like a constant chase proving ourselves smarter by these kinds of shopping sprees. In our day to day lives there is disconnect between what we need and what we crave. We are driven by brand names – Audi or Mercedes car, Iphone for cell phone, Nike or Adidas for shoes etc. In social circles there are discussions on the brands we use. Adults and children alike are influenced by advertisements which portray life styles ...

Introduction

Art and design discipline is struggling to bring together the role of design as a catalyst in a consumer driven economy and its position in planning and implementing lifestyle-sustaining businesses. Designers have a potential to produce products and offer services for social good. However, a gap exists between this potential and callous consumerism. , asserts that consumerist communities devote nearly all of their time, energy, and resources to ‘consuming’, which according to the business men and women is seen as something good. (Cross 2001, pp. 49-55) defined cconsumerism as a personal belief that one’s wellbeing and pleasure depends significantly on the level of ...

Consumerism is the bane of the modern society. We buy faster cars, bigger televisions, and sleeker phones and aspire for even more technological new editions. It seems like a constant chase proving ourselves smarter by these kinds of shopping sprees. In our day to day lives there is disconnect between what we need and what we crave. We are driven by brand names – Audi or Mercedes car, Iphone for cell phone, Nike or Adidas for shoes etc. In social circles there are discussions on the brands we use. Adults and children alike are influenced by advertisements which portray life styles ...

This paper entails an anthology of three poems. These poems include Langston Hughes’s Poem As I grew older, Shakespeare’s Sonnet #4, and Emily Dickinson’s "Nature" is what we see. These three poems are crafted by poets with great experience about life and nature. The overarching message that is presented in these three poems is that life is difficult and has numerous challenges. Every opportunity that comes our ways should be exploited to its fullest. Our lives should be simple so that we can sustainably protect resources for future generations. The rationale of this anthology is ...

Consumerism has been one of the fastest growing cultures in America. Many Americans have found them purchasing for goods and services that are not necessary and which they can live without. Despite the knowledge of the idea that people do not need these goods and items, many Americans have found it difficult to separate themselves from the culture of consumerism. Many people for example continue to purchasing clothing yet their closets are full of clothes that still have price tags on them. This paper seeks to look at American values and behaviors using consumerism as the key focus. ...

Every American is more or less familiar with the concept of the American Dream, yet today, probably none of them agree on what the American Dream really is. Nonetheless, the theme of the American Dream has always been fundamental to the American society. Traditionally, it was the media that introduced the American people to this belief that as long as they worked hard, they were free to pursue prosperity and success, a better life for themselves and their families. For generations, the media has been powering the aspirations and hopes of the American people by present this dream. Initially, the ...

In Brosh Liora,” Consuming Women: The Representation of Women in the 1940 Adaptation of Pride and Prejudice” article the role of women is expounded. The Liora Brosh review dwells on the way the film, Price and Prejudice presents the psychological damage on both genders of the Great Depression. According to the writer, the film celebrates or enhances the theme of consumerism through the depiction of a world full of lush materials. This, however, could not be separated to the fact that women of that time had consumerist desires that were petty and wasteful. The women in the adaptation interests in ...

Abstract

Ethics in advertising is of big concern to consumers and businesses alike. While many companies advertise ethically, there are a number of ways in which unethical advertising proliferates, including advertising to children, ads by pharmaceutical companies, and Internet advertisement, to name a few.

Unethical Advertisement

Advertising is everywhere: it is on the television, Internet web pages, E-mail, newspapers, magazines, billboards, at doctors’ offices, on the radio, and in movies. Some companies use unethical advertisement to sell their products and services. They may feel they have a legitimate reason to push the boundaries of ethics, for instance, believing they will have an advantage over competitors ...

In Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, a dystopian future is described that is meant to directly comment on our own consumerist culture. The World State keeps the citizens of the world under control by enforcing social classes and brainwashing them to value consumption above all else. In today's society, our need for material goods, and our deeply held beliefs about the 'haves' and 'have-nots' match Huxley's world, but our world allows resistance to those ideas.

The World State is dependent heavily upon a world in which consumerism is king - products are revered, and Henry Ford's principle of the assembly line ...

Introduction

China is among countries that have a large demand for fast foods. Subway is a US fast food chain which overtook McDonalds Corporation internationally. Subway aims at expanding to double its figure in China over the next five years. Currently, the sandwich maker has over 73 stores in Beijing and two hundred and twenty in china. Compared to other fast food agents, subway has a smaller market share and thus slow growth and the fact that there is high demand for fast food in China gives the company an opportunity to expand.

Retarding and Promotion

In Beijing, the sales grew with more than 40 percent ...

INTRODUCTION

In the film The Joneses, David Duchovny and Demi Moore play the heads of a household who move in to a very nice Stepford-y suburb. They bring with them their aesthetically perfect and perfectly pleasant children, as well as their house full of nice Ethan Allen furniture and amenities. They ingratiate themselves firmly with their neighbors and the rest of the community, but they have a secret – they are not a family at all, but a team of marketers sent to impersonate the perfect family. They are the quintessential Joneses - that perfect group of people down the street with the new car, the ...