Visual Essay

"Consumerism"


Everyone needs to consume sometime.

Our society is very fashion concerned.

Everyone is worried about having the newest technology and not how much it cost.

No one is concerned with the dangers to the world just their selfish needs of consuming.

The whole world works around consumerism.

Everyone wants to have the latest, nicest, hair-do. No matter what the cost of money or respect.

Reality tv shows make alot of money, by appealing to the consumers' interest.

Even kids play a part in consumerism. They make their parents buy them the latest toys, and things that appeal to them.

Without consumerism, the world can not run itself.

The newest technology is a "necessity" for the consumer.

Advertisments are everywhere.

Not having new shoes could be a problem. Some are teased for not falling into the scheme of consuming.

Everyone has this idea that there is one type of beauty, and they go through many changes to reach that type of beauty.

The images I chose, showed what i thought consumerism was all about. They showed the basic wants of a person living in a consumer based enviornment. My pictures are so ridiculous, and they shed light on the ugly side of consuming obsessions. Most people dont know that with just about everything they do, they are consuming. I put a mirror up to the consumer, on how unnecessary all the material things are. They might even influence people to slow down on their consuming or at least be able to control their desires that the advertisments advertise.

Blog 2

The feeds are "waiting to make you want things. It's doing these demograohic studies that divide everyone up into a few personality types, and then you get ads based on what you're supposed to like. It trys to figure out who you are, and make you conform to one of their types for easier marketing". That sounds just like today's marketing strategy. Advertising companies try to appeal to a certain type of consumer based on what they think their interests are. If i had a feed, most likely i would receive alot of advertisment about shoes and clothes. My personality group would be fashion. If I had a "feed", I would chat every minute of everyday. I love to talk to my sister and boyfriend, so we would always be together if we could chat all the time. If everyone could chat, there would be less and less face to face communication in the world. There wouldn't be alot of privacy, and there would probably be lots of miscommunication.


"now that school is run by corporations, it's pretty brag, because it teaches us how the world can be used, like mainly how to use our feeds." The world today is just like that. We have classes in school like business; teaching us to spend money in a "smart" way. We also have classes that are cosmetology based; teaching us the skills to get money from consumers who are concerned about their apperance. Everyone has consumed something in their lifetime. Consumerism is the one thing that will never get old or "grow out of style". People are always going to need to buy things and have things. When companies teach people to consume, they are just setting theirselves up to get rich. It is dangerous for the consumers, because they never know how harmful the product they are buying is to them.

Blog 1

"we went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck." This quote lets readers know that this book will be taking place in the future and It will be a book about teenagers. Saying that the moon was visited for entertainment, proved to me that this book must take place in the future. The technology must be extremely advanced at this time to allow people to just visit whenever they pleased. Saying that the moo completely sucked, proved to me that the narrator was a teenager. "Sucked" is a slang word for teens today, so i assumed it was still a "teen word" in this story.

In my life, during spring break, I travel to break away from my natural element. I look for fun to accompany me during my time away from school. The characters in Feed went to the moon to go dancing. That reminds me of my friends and I. On our spring break we like to go to parties, and go to clubs on 16+ nights.I believe that Anderson was trying to show the common interest of now-a-day teens, and futuristic teens.