One of the things that I have been challenged on a lot of the last week is how susceptible I am to consumerism and marketing.
It really started last Thursday when I remarked that people as a collective are generally very stupid and I always shock myself by how susceptible I am to advertisements.
Take for example Old Spice…I can give you loads of reasons why I have Old spice products, such as memories of my Dad’s old aftershaves, hearing about how my grandpa would only settle for Old spice, being given some for Christmas [a better excuse I admit] However I really know it is because of the “old spice man adverts” that I first noticed about a year ago. Not long after this I needed to buy a new male product [I have experienced sensitive skin since I had some very bad spots suddenly emerge a couple of years ago] and when it came down to cheap own brand product and the Old Spice one…I choose the old spice one. Next I needed some shampoo and noticed one with some old spice deodorant for free. The shampoo wasn’t my favourite but free old spice deodorant! How could I resist…finally I received some at Christmas [after the two previous incidents].
Now I really like the smell of these products, but now I don’t know how genuine that is since I got my first sample purely because of the adverts and I still have no idea how the home brand products are! I was completely hooked by and an advert and it worked!
The next event I had was to start to read a couple of books about idols and how they both talked about Money as an idol. It made me realise that since I have been out here Money has probably been the biggest worry for me and as such is probably the biggest idol for me. When I added in the reflection on how long I spent thinking about spending money It was really a shocking experience.
To top it all of last night I was starting to read an old guitar magazine I had bought when returning from the UK to keep me entertained on the flight. I noticed that I was pausing and almost reflecting on the adverts that I saw.
I don’t need a new guitar! As it happens I actually have 3 now, 2 in the UK (an electric and a steel string acoustic) , 1 here in the Ukraine (a Nylon string) an amp and effects pedal in the UK. I can make pretty much any guitar sound I want with those different option [they won’t sound the exact same but really it is certainly good enough] and yet there I am, looking at things which could cost over a months salary, which could be used to literally allow someone to live for a month instead of die or even dramatically improve someone’s life.
It was at that moment that I closed the magazine and hid it from myself, I don’t need to have those adverts inflicted upon me.
It did get me to wonder though, have I actually been the one who suffers for getting different things for free of the internet by paying through adverts? Perhaps paying money to be free from adverts really is worth it?
