Quotes About Consumerism

We live in a society and a culture and an economic model that tries to make everything look right.

What becomes fascinating is the way the culture industry doesn't deny it and doesn't try to mitigate it, but tries to sell its products as a way of liberating oneself.

Obviously the commercial news media tries to get you worked up and terrified so you'll buy products that they're advertising.

I'm someone that examines culture and tries to break down why things are the way that they are whether its hip-hop music, sex, race, or consumerism. I try to examine it and scrutinize it to the point where I can write a song.

I have dealings with a pension firm, an insurance company and a bank, and every day one of these institutions tries to worry me into buying something else. The bank wants to sell me a pension, the pension company wants to sell me insurance for my pension and the insurance company wants to insure my bank account.

I've had my run-ins with department stores, like Harrods, which stopped selling fur coats, but I found some there with fur trim, which is just as disgusting. Foie gras production is appalling - there's no excuse for selling it.

I gave up my fur coats years ago - what an ego trip, walking around wearing cut-up animals. Besides, fur coats don't last. I'd rather have diamonds.

An American of the present day reading his Sunday newspaper in a state of lazy collapse is one of the most perfect symbols of the triumph of quantity over quality that the world has yet seen.

The entire world of art has reached such a low level, it has been commercialized to such a degree that art and everything related to it has become one of the most trivial activities of our epoch.

There are plenty of good five cent cigars in the country. The trouble is they cost a quarter.

I'm a slave to the culture, so I see an Audi, a Denali, or an Escalade, my neighbor got the four-door Porsche. I have a really nice truck. But it's a Durango and I like frontin'! I like to ride by and show off.

I think it's wonderful that people in pickup trucks are buying two flats of dog food and a copy of 'Bastard.' I want my view of the world to be right up there next to gallon boxes of Tide.

Most Christian 'believers' tend to echo the cultural prejudices and worldviews of the dominant group in their country, with only a minority revealing any real transformation of attitudes or consciousness. It has been true of slavery and racism, classism and consumerism and issues of immigration and health care for the poor.

As handbags get ever more absurdly large, so they need to carry more stuff to validate the expense of this huge trunk with chains, buckles and padlocks on.

We are possessed by the things we possess. When I like an object, I always give it to someone. It isn't generosity-it's only because I want others to be enslaved by objects, not me.

Sameness is what marketers want us to want.

Industry prospers when it offers people articles which they want more than they want anything they now have. The fact is that people never buy what they need. They buy what they want.

Of course advertising creates wants. Of course it makes people discontented, dissatisfied. Satisfaction with things as they are would defeat the American Dream.

People want what they want. And I guess that is a reason we have this big credit card problem and a lot of these foreclosures.

Starbuck's is going to start selling instant coffee. This is for people who want the quality of Sanka, but want to pay the high Starbuck's price.

Television doesn't want to admit it has those dreadful roach ads on anyway.

America does not want change, except from the cash register at Wal-Mart.

Hollywood is a narcotic, not a stimulant. It wants to sell you something. Literature wants to tell you something.

However much we might deplore the profit motive, or consumerist values, if everyone just wants i-Pods we would probably be better off than if they wanted class revolution.