Consumerism: a look into self-deception and greed
Tan-colored 40 oz. Stanley tumbler against solid background (photo: Kevin Wei, The Puma Prensa)
By Kevin Wei, video editor
Take a look around your room. How many times have you bought clothes only for them to end up languishing in an unseen corner of your closet? How many times have you promised yourself to read those books you bought months ago that are still resting on your dusty shelf? Did you really need to upgrade from your iPhone 15 Pro to an iPhone 15 Pro Max?
How many times have you falsely convinced yourself that cute trinket behind the store window is the missing piece of your life? How many times have you lied to yourself before purchasing an item?
American society is permeated by consumerism: the idea that happiness is derived from material possessions, making it desirable to constantly and indefinitely increase the consumption and production of goods.
Ever since the Industrial Revolution, consumers have gradually shifted from homemade to factory-made goods. The surplus of commodities—such as clothes, food, and furniture—enabled the middle class to make purchases solely for entertainment. In the 1950s, consumer culture boomed after World War II and the Great Depression when the dark clouds of wartime rationing and economic deprivation cleared into sunny skies of commercial prosperity and technological advancement.
However, as humans shifted away from survival and bare necessities, they approached a new, dangerous threat: fashion and envy. William Leach’s 1993 book, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture sums it up well: “The cardinal features of this culture were acquisition and consumption as the means of achieving happiness; the cult of the new; the democratization of desire; and money value as the predominant measure of all value in society.” With consumerism the goal of the American Dream changed from social liberty and equal rights to greedy material gain. Americans focused more on “rags to riches” than “land of liberty.”
That greediness—the pursuit of money over liberty, hedonism over epistemic virtue—is a key issue with consumerism. It perpetuates self-deception and distracts from genuine self and societal fulfillment.
For example, the fashion industry often exploits our insecurities and attraction toward trends. According to a Mental Health Foundation report in 2019, 31% of teenagers felt ashamed and 35% of adults felt depressed because of their body image. Placing self-worth on beauty strongly impacts self-esteem, increasing anxiety across all age groups. But cosmetic companies hardly complain; the consumers’ anxiety powers the sales of makeup, perfume, skincare, and other products. Through beauty advertisements, companies can disseminate unrealistic standards across the air, commercializing attractiveness into a status symbol. Artificially institutionalized standards floating across American culture lead consumers to tell themselves they need cosmetic products to be happy.
Additionally, by mass-producing designs displayed on fashion runways, companies such as Zara and H&M can spread high fashion to retailers at an affordable price, enabling average consumers to wear the hot new style. But with the rapid changes in fashion trends, companies can continuously introduce new styles to the market. The result: fast fashion, a business model characterized by:
1) abusive exploitation of overseas workers,
2) cheap materials that quickly degrade, and
3) detriments to the environment from non-recyclable garments that pile over landfills.
The fashion industry, with its flashy runways and busy textile factories, can simultaneously fuel the demand for fast fashion and provide its mass supply, distracting consumers from the cruelly immoral business practices surrounding it.
Speaking of trends, the recent Stanley Cup craze has taken consumer media by storm. Looking around, you may notice the classic mug-like metal water bottle with a sturdy handle and sleek plastic straw. You may even own one. But how did the Stanley company’s annual revenue jump from $74 million in 2019 to $750 million (according to CNBC) in 2023? How did a simple tumbler end up in the hands of 10 million Americans?
The answer lies in a viral TikTok video from November 2023. A woman’s car was destroyed in a fire, and the only thing remaining was a brown Stanley tumbler with the ice still inside. The video has since garnered more than 90 million views, and the Stanley president capitalized on the opportunity with another viral video response. As of January 4, 2024, #Stanleycup received over 6 billion views on TikTok. The media attention that fell upon Stanley has since snowballed into millions upon millions of sales. As a ground-breaking trend, Stanley taps into our fear of missing out; social media marketing converted the humble tumbler into a symbol of wealth and trend awareness.
Another example of consumerism is found in the questionable morality of planned obsolescence. Tech giants such as Apple and Microsoft have been notably exposed for releasing software updates that purposefully downgrade the performance of older devices. For example, in 2017, Apple admitted to artificially slowing down phones from the iPhone 6 to the iPhone XS. As a consequence, according to Statista, more than 50 million tons of electronic waste are generated yearly, with only 17% documented to be properly collected and recycled.
By slowing down old phones and computers, tech companies materialize issues and differences that do not even exist, setting a precedent that old devices should be undesirable to new ones. Indeed, technology companies are not the only ones that participate in planned obsolescence: toys, fridges, furniture, and even textbooks are good examples too. They lean on a continuous business model that artificially upgrades itself, and consumers can end up comparing themselves with their peers who own newer, more “in-vogue” devices. With planned obsolescence, companies reap the benefits of customers who believe that new models result in happiness.
As a side note, planned obsolescence immediately seems like a direct deception. But I would argue that it subtly entices the consumer to participate in self-deception. Planned obsolescence spreads the artificial idea that newness is an inherent improvement from oldness (a fundamental concept of consumerism). It indirectly leads the consumer to convince themselves that they need a newer model. Consumerism, in the case of planned obsolescence, corrupts our conception of goodness, equating an endless pursuit of expensive novelty as the ultimate dream of America.
Of course, purchasing in excess is not always a problem. Many people hold healthy, valuable hobbies and collections. Beyond basic necessities such as food/shelter, entertainment is substantially necessary for the human condition. And it’s not like we could simply remove consumerism—it is a conception in America that, when removed, will likely cause our economy to collapse. It is so ingrained in our culture that it is difficult to imagine life without materialism and the theory of unlimited desire.
But next time you browse the store, try honestly answering the question, what do you truly want? With more active consumer choices, maybe you can save your consciousness—and your wallet—from the illusive grips of consumer culture.