Someone once told me that "status" is "buying things you don't need to impress people you don't know."
American society is focused on status. We want to impress not only our friends, but everyone else, including a lot of people we don't know.
The Great Marketing Machine has brainwashed us into thinking that owning certain stuff will give us status. For example, we are told that we have status, that we're "cool" if we:
- Drive a Lexus, BMW, or Mercedes.
- Golf.
- Wear "Sean Jean" clothes.
- Go trekking in Nepal.
- Exercise by doing Pilates.
- Live in a 3,500+ square foot home.
- Eat at the "right" restaurants.
- Shop at the "right" stores.
- Own a plasma TV.
- Listen to "50 Cent."
(Note that by the time you read this, "Sean Jean" clothes may be out-of-fashion, "50 Cent" may no longer have a best-selling CD, Nepal may no longer be the "hot" vacation spot, and Pilates may have gone the way of "Jazzercise". That's how transient "fashion" is.)
How many people wear "leg-warmers" today? Or "Members Only" jackets? When was the last time you saw someone wearing "Gloria Vanderbilt" jeans? Or sporting a haircut like those guys in "Flock of Seagulls?" All of these things were fashionable once. Today, they're fodder for jokes.
The Great Marketing Machine defines what is fashionable and what is not. Its ubiquitous advertising and marketing affects how we think and what we buy—if we allow it. The music and clothing industries must continually offer new products and convince us to buy them. Ironically, they do this by telling us that what they convinced us to buy yesterday is no longer "in." We are constantly bombarded with lists telling us what's "in" and what's "out."
The Great Marketing Machines wants you to spend your hard-earned money on its overpriced junk. Then it wants you to throw away yesterday's overpriced junk so you can spend your hard-earned money on today's overpriced junk.
Why fall into their trap? Don't be a chump.
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