Affluenza - Home

It's no doubt that consumerism plays a huge part in North American culture. Everyday, we are bombarded with hundreds of ads trying to convince us to spend our money on products and services. Many of these ads will send the message that we need these things to be happy, or that they will improve our lives in some way, shape or form. With all these ads constantly telling us to buy this and to buy that, we begin to think that we do actually need all this stuff, and most of it is just needless shit.

I have worked various customer service jobs in the past, and I have personally observed people following this very behaviour; they come into a store thinking they need a particular product, yet they don't even know why they need it. In some cases they don't even know what it will do for them. They just think they need it because the almighty television said so. Believe me, I have seen it happen a few times.

So, what is the big problem anyway? Well, simply thinking that we need things that we don't really need beings a whole chain of issues. First of all, it leads to needless spending; wasting our money. What's wrong with that though? Most of us have every right to spend our money anyway we choose. This is very true, but in the grand sceme of things we will begin to see a problem. North America consists of about 5% of the worlds population, however, it has been recorded that we consume 35% of the worlds resources. That's like trying to share a pie with a bunch of people, but one person takes over 1/3 of the pie for them self. This is only the beginning of the problem.

With all this consuming, the stuff we consume has to come from somewhere. Then it has to go somewhere when we are done with it.