Compulsive Consumption

In media

The media is one of the main pushers of the compulsive nature of consumption that currently exists in society. Media seems to almost glorify the idea that compulsive consumption of goods is something one should be proud of. Many people feel like it’s almost something to be proud of to blow all ones money on goods they can’t afford in order to “flex”. “flexing” is a when one wears or has objects that are unnecessarily expensive, this idea has increasingly been pushed in media lately. The form of media most guilty of this would appear to be the rap genre in music in which many rap artists talk about having Gucci products and wearing expensive watches. This seems to promote the idea one is only successful if they have these products which encourages people to go out and buy these things with money they don’t have

In film there are plenty of examples of movies focusing around all different aspects of compulsive consumption from alcoholism to shopping addictions. One of the best known films is Confessions of a Shopaholic which is a movie based around a woman who battles with shopaholicism as she spends money she doesn’t have on high fashion.  There are also many movies that tackle the dark side of compulsively consuming goods like alcohol and gambling such as ‘The Mighty Angel’ in 2014 which tackles alcoholism and ‘The Gambler’ of the same year which looks at gambling. Recently Netflix released ‘To The Bone’ a movie which sparked a lot of both discussion and controversy in the media.

Personal experience

Nowadays as consumers we are constantly exposed to stimuli that are designed to encourage compulsive consumption. Advertising, store sales, drink deals amongst other things are all ways in which companies try to get one to buy goods that we don’t need. At this time of year (Christmas season) society has conditioned us to feel like one has to buy goods in order to show how much we care about each other, this is compulsive consumption created by a combination of society and companies.