Hyper - Consumerism is the disease of the modern society.
It is a widespread, and a proven to be true, belief that today's society is a spending - oriented one. However, the belief that previous generations were far more modest and simple than we are is just a myth. The trend of having more and more was always present. Remember kingdoms and dukedoms. Remember kings and queens, their jewelry, land, slaves ... Wasn't that a huge competition and a display of possessions?
When did we become a Hyper-Consuming society
Consumer society, as a spending-oriented one, existed always, but the form and intensity of the urge to buy and spend has changed over time.
The change in attitude towards consumption, buying, selling and spending has many causes and can be observed from different perspectives. The fact that we are living in a hyper-consumerism era is self - evident and a matter that we all agree on. How it all began? When did we start equalizing happiness with the number of houses, cars, dresses? What is it that urges us to buy so much?
What is evident is the fact that the period after World War II is the one in which some great changes started taking place in the world economy. Already with the Industrial Revolution, mass production took place. Therefore it created the need for informing consumers on benefits of new and numerous products. It manifested itself through a communication known as advertising.
The main goal of advertising was to persuade consumers that they really needed all kinds of gadgets. In the post-war period, when things started coming back to normal, people felt the need to equip themselves with all that was possible to purchase. Far more important than this was the fact that people started becoming economically powerful enough to buy.
This is where advertising agencies come into picture. This is how we became flooded with a wide array of products and even wider array of advertisements. And this is how we forgot what we really need, even during the holidays such as Halloween, Christmas and Thanksigiving!!!
The consequences of Hyper-Consumerism
When we discuss about hyper - consumerism it is important to mention the consequences of the phenomenon.
That is what we are faced to every day. It is certain that hyper - consumerism affects every one of us. What is ambiguous is whether we are aware of the influence or not. On a very basic level, it affects the economy of our own households. More things require more assets. More assets require more work. Too much work makes us frustrated and alienated from the rest of the family. And even from the rest of the society, in more general terms. It changes the way we perceive true values in life. It even causes our moral decay by shifting the attention from genuine, real values and virtues.
People identify with the brands of clothes they wear and with the celebrities who advertise it, forgetting that the point is in being original and natural, in creating your own style.
Our main goal should be to be free rather than becoming slave to things and trends. Hyper – consumerism actually feeds our egoism and makes us forget that it is not only about which social class you belong to, but rather about what do you do to improve the status of all the other members of the society you live in.
Hyper-consumerism as such has had its adversaries from the very beginning. Every new day brings new trends. In fashion, food, supplies, houses, cars etc. Are we really going to fall in all these traps and behave like the society wants us to behave, or can we learn on how to control our thrive to spend too much money? It’s up to you. At the end we will just say what Mahatma Gandhi once said: „ There is enough on Earth for everybody's need, but not for everybody's greed. “
