Hedonistic Consumerism in America

Does consumerism lead us to happiness? Can we figure out why we are in America with consumerism? How can we break free from the system of capital gains and enjoy our lives outside of these ticky-tacky boxes we love so much? A brief look into the hedonistic consumerism in the U.S. and why it is such a major impact on our health, happiness, and freedoms.

TRANSCRIPT

What does it mean to be alive? Breathing, acting on impulses to eat, to drink, to find a mate, expelling all your energy in order to survive? If this is what it means to be alive, how do we find our happiness? Does our ability to conquer these areas of survival make us happy? Our ability to farm food, clean our water, and build shelters our ancestors couldn’t even dream about. Then what? Where do we go from here? What is the next human step to happiness? I have been wondering about this for many years now.

A quick look around, American’s seem to find their happiness in their stuff. What stuff am I referring to? Everything!

Constantly being bombarded by images of new “things”, boxes as I like to call them, inspired by the mid-2000’s show weeds, these boxes of ticky-tacky all look the same are engineered to distract us, a false fulfillment of joy, that quickly fades away, only to be replaced by another ticky-tacky box.

I know all about this. I used to work in the industry, behind the scenes some would say. Working for he big companies to lure in new customers. Creating advertisements for products and businesses, I was enticing you, the consumer to step out of your “Big Box”, get into your “sport luxury box”, drive to my companies’ “box”, to just purchase these “little boxes” that might give you a temporary endorphin rush. I did this job for five years, conflicted in my moral dilemma of providing for my family through a job in which I lure people to purchase unnecessary boxes by triggering those impulse desires all creatures crave. But some would ask what’s the problem.

Consumerism in this country has hit an all-time high. With record-breaking seasons every year, more and more American’s participate in the hedonistic consumerism that drives this country. It is the rampant supply of “boxes” that is drowning our society and the foundation of our species. The constant supply of “boxes’’, never-ending, perpetual in style and abundance of variety, flood our ports from around the world, moving entire civilizations to work for the purpose of creating “happiness” for a few million in the US, to feed this sick and twisted habit we have developed in America.

This is called Hedonic Adaptation…Emanuele Faja writes,

‘The concept of Hedonic Adaptation is simple: no matter what happens, we will always return to our baseline level of inner happiness. So not only will you need to spend your entire life buying goods and services, but you will need to buy ever-increasing amounts of them and you still will eventually return to the same level of happiness as you had when you started this whole cycle. The problem is that eventually you either run out of money or health. It’s perfectly possible to “fry” your brain’s reward circuitry with too much stimulation and then you might find that nothing you can buy gives you that “hit” that you require to stay happy. This is exactly what happens to long-term drug addicts.’

The levels at which Americans spend their hard-earned dollars on consumerist behavior is staggering. Constantly bombarded, not only from big corporate advertising but also from our social and personal lives as well. Social media is perhaps the biggest influencer in many consumers’ lives as it has become the norm to see unboxing videos, popup advertisements, and even advertisements in your own feed. We have become desensitized to all the advertisements, but this isn’t actually true. Even those small ads on the sidebar, the ones in your feed, and perhaps a paid ad on a website like YouTube, these small interruptions in time, are still processed in our brains. The split-second ad seen as you scroll by still carries information to your brain. It has been proven that these nano-second glimpses of ads can be the difference in decision making later on, as recall of the product or message is much higher. The advertisers know the consumer is skipping or scrolling past these ads and look to create the most appealing ads possible in an attempt to hijack our brains. It is in this space where the real battle takes place.

But what is wrong with buying a few silly things we do not need?

One thing that is never in question is that consumerism is terrible for our planet. We mine, smelt, refine, and create millions of products every day. The toll on the planet can be seen around the world and is filling up our oceans with plastics, poisoning our air in the cities, and destroying the soil as well. The amount of damage a new phone or computer does to the planet is significant, where the consumer is blind to the effects on the environment or even to the thousands of workers in terrible conditions who are enslaved to work in factories in foreign countries. For what? A slightly better screen, faster processor, and maybe more space, even if your own device was adequate for all your needs. Your own decisions create these situations, one where the impacts of your consumerism entrench on the rights of another human being, contributes to the overall pollution of the planet, and in many cases, creates a spiraling debt.

Since the 1990s and through the financial crisis of 2008, many Americans were oblivious to the amount of careless spending in our economy. The frivolous spending on large SUVs, McMansions, and increasing borrowed money to keep up with the joneses, has created a new type of lifestyle in which Americans spend every last penny to stay above water. Diana Kendal explains in Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption…

“Many adults who hope to live the good life simply plunge further into debt. Many reports show that middle- and working-class American consumers are incurring massive consumer debts as they purchase larger houses, more expensive vehicles, and many other items beyond their means. Consequently, some people with average incomes who aspire to the lives of the luxury of the upper classes have instead found themselves spending their way into the poor house, joining members of the impoverished class.” (Framing Class, Vicarious Living, and Conspicuous Consumption, Diana Kendal)

A recent study by the Federal Reserve claims that nearly 40% of American adults wouldn’t be able to cover a $400 emergency with cash, savings, or a credit card charge that they could quickly pay off. A country that has the highest standards of living in the world, has close to half the population that is on the edge of financial collapse. If the 2008 housing collapse is an indication of what can happen in one of the richest countries in the world, these statistics are an indication of the loss of the literal roof over American’s heads. Yet another survival necessity that is threatened by out of control consumerism.

As big and grand as these problems are to the typical consumer there isn’t much they feel that they can do to contribute to the solution. But there is an area in which the consumer does have the ability to change and that’s in their own habits. The addiction of consumerism for the typical American plays in their mind in every facet of their lives. Down to the very choices of survival. Even in our basic needs to nourish ourselves, our eating habits paired with hedonistic consumerism have destroyed the way we think of food.

Our grocery stores are filled with processed foods, nearly 40,000 items in a typical grocery store, many of which are created for the fact to perpetuate an addiction to the food themselves. Hundreds of thousands of acres are used to grow corn, soy, and wheat in this country, subsidized by our own government, in order to make Twinkies, Fruity Pebbles, and Doritos. Our soil is dry and sterile, our people are fat and sick, and millions of dollars are pumped towards these practices. Since World War II, our country has increased the amount of production of food, mainly corn and soy, through the Green Revolution and new government policies that allowed for mega-farms to develop and overproduce without losing any money. This ushered in the new era of processed foods and a corn-based diet which many Americans are accustomed to in today’s times. The profit-seeking companies would create new items to fill markets that did not exist before, finding and searching for the items to mix together and make money on.

“The fact that over twelve thousand new products are introduced each year (most of which fail) suggests that the food industry is not responding to consumer demand but is rather blindly offering consumers sets of repackaged, reformulated, and re-engineered products in hopes that a few of them will turn out to boost corporate profits.” (Civic Agriculture, Thomas Lyson)

These so-called foods are responsible for yet another problem in America, obesity. The American diet has transformed in less than three generations from a multitude of seasonal crops to these Frankenfoods that encompass the majority of the supermarket shelves. Our very idea of food has changed based on our consumerist habits that purchase cheap low-nourishing, yet tasty foods that match the same endorphin rush much like buying a new box made of ticky-tacky. The CDC reports in 2017–2018 that the prevalence of obesity was 42.4%, with obesity-related conditions that include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and certain types of cancer that lead to premature death. The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the United States was $147 billion in 2008, and the medical cost for people who have obesity was nearly $1,500 higher than those of normal weight.

How does the American public respond to this horrible fact? Pills! The pharmaceutical industry, totaling one trillion dollars worldwide has seen nearly a five percent increase year over year. The uplift happened after 1997, where health companies were now able to advertise directly to consumers and have allowed a greater awareness of diseases and the magic pills that fix them. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) permitted drug companies to advertise their products directly to consumers via television ads and the internet. This one decision has had a major impact on how we now look at medicine today. It has become the norm on today’s television programs to have advertisements for just about anything. From obesity to migraines, to depression, heartburn, and everything in between, the American public has been bombarded by advertisements for just about any ailment.

America is facing a drug crisis, not in the streets from cartel shipments, not from terrorist funding through the poppy fields, but in the form of these little orange bottles that are full of promises that sound great but hide the fact that it is yet another addiction that Americans are exposed too.

Has anyone stepped back and asked why? Why do Americans live like this? Why do we continue to head down a road of pollution, poisoned food, and daily overdoses? Why do we ignore our needs to create a society that is destroying itself from the inside? Why hasn’t anyone in our public space taken the steps to correct this?

Clearly, I am not the first one, nor the only one asking for a reformation. How are we able to relieve ourselves from the system that continues to destroy our planet? How can we take the power back to the individual and create a new sustainable system that propels society in a clean, healthy manner? What steps are needed to break the chains that bind us to the debt of these corporations?

There are no clear answers, but for those who want to take control of their lives, there is still hope. The first step is understanding the problem. Hopefully, this video has opened your eyes to the many facets of consumerism. Take this into account and apply this to your own consumer habits. Understand where and who made your items. Ask yourself a few questions for every purchase, was this made humanely, what is the environmental impact, and perhaps the greatest question of all, do I really need this?

Starting from this point, we can look to broaden our views and tackle how we eat. Research local farms, ask about community share programs, in which you buy into a share of a farm in exchange for a set amount of food. Slowly change your eating habits to local, sustainable agriculture and leave behind the processed foods. For many, this will be the hardest to overcome, as food deserts still exist, but even more so, breaking that real addiction to sugar and corn-based products. Keeping to a local system helps to ensure the future use of small farms, but also provides the best possible foods. The nutritional value of fresh organically grown produce is much more than those of the genetically modified versions used by the larger corporations. In turn, the better food will help with ailments such as obesity which also encompasses over a dozen other ailments that are completely preventable with a better diet. This one simple act may tackle two major issues in America today regarding food and health.

Seemingly simple efforts on a personal and local scale that may have a big impact on the industry within the country, with enough Americans changing a few small habits in their lives, they would no longer be exploited for their weakness by a system that preys on those who are ignorant. The future of this country is hanging by a thread of consumerism that props our own economy, but it is this very economy that is taking our liberty to live a happy life.

So, what does it mean to be alive, to be happy? What are you going to do to find out the answer to this question?