Quotes About Consumerism

Asked whether they would rather eat an organic or a commercially grown apple, most people prefer the "all natural" one. Even after being informed that the two apples taste the same, have identical nutritional value, and are equally healthful, a majority still prefer the organic fruit. Even the producers of beer have found that they can increase sales by putting "All Natural" or "No Preservatives" on the label.

They added a cheap gift to the expensive product, and made the whole deal less attractive. Less is more in this case.

We expect the next car, the next house or the next promotion to make us happy even though the last ones didn't

By 'consumer society', I mean one in which commodities are increasingly used to express the core values of that society but also become the principal form through which people come to see, recognise and understand those values.

If you want to know what the English really think about consumption, ignore what they say, but look at what they do.

In giro per la città si trasforma nell'instancabile doppio della grande epistola pubblicitaria... FORD, BANCA POPOLARE, COCA-COLA, le parole gli cadono dal cielo, le loro sillabe colorate gli esplodono in bocca. Non una sola marca di detersivo resiste alla sua passione per la decifrazione. «'La-va-più-bian-co', cosa vuol dire 'lavapiùbianco?» Poiché è giunta l'ora delle domande cruciali.

We live in a culture where everything tastes good but nothing satisfies.

People who have car collections - I never understood that. I always thought that was unnecessary. It's not beautiful, it's not creative. It's just showing how much money you've got.

American consumers have no problem with carcinogens, but they will not purchase any product, including floor wax, that has fat in it.

Unless you live in Indonesia, there should be several malls within five miles of your home. It makes no difference whatsoever which one you go to: Under federal law, all malls in the United States must have the same 42 chain stores.

All the shopping malls and restaurants and airports are riddled with low-fidelity loudspeakers, which apparently have developed the ability to reproduce by themselves; these are all connected to a special programming service called Music That Nobody Really Likes, and you cannot get away from it.

Another possible source of guidance for teenagers is television, but television's message has always been that the need for truth, wisdom and world peace pales by comparison with the need for a toothpaste that offers whiter teeth *and* fresher breath.

Perhaps you are thinking: 'But a tank costs several million dollars, not including floor mats. I don't have that kind of money.' Don't be silly. You're a consumer, right? You have credit cards, right? Perhaps you are thinking: 'Yes, but how am I going to pay the credit-card company?' Don't be silly. You have a tank, right?

We buy things we don't need with money we don't have to impress people we don't like.

we buy things we don't need with money we don't have in order to impress people we don't like.

Debt has been sold to us so aggressively, so loudly, and so often that to imagine living without debt requires myth-busting.

The fact is, most people in our nation today believe that debt is NORMAL, and in most cases, NECESSARY. They can't imagine living a cash-and-carry life or a life in which all things they own are purchased outright with cash at the time of purchase— in other words, with no payment plan or use of credit cards.

People were running around buying things they couldn't afford with money they didn't have to impress people they didn't even like

Compramos cosas que no necesitamos con dinero que no tenemos a fin de impresionar a personas que no queremos.

typical millionaire lives in a middle-class home, drives a two-year-old or older paid-for car, and buys blue jeans at Wal-Mart.

overall, the populist orientation of Evangelical cultural production reflects the most kitschy expressions of consumerism

Four million people going around in aimless circles, going nowhere, getting nowhere. And they're all doing their jobs. And when they're not doing their jobs, all they're thinking of is gratifying their petty little needs; dressing up in weird clothes; going to weird parties; muddling their way through their weird little lives...

We're an air bag society that wants guarantees on everything that we buy. We want to be able to take everything back and get another one. We want a 401-k plan and Social Security.

Today, as we have seen, fascism and communism are discredited, but are replaced by a paraphilic consumer culture driven by fantasy, desperately in search of distractions and escalating sensations, and a fundamentalist culture wherein the rigors of a private journey are shunned in favor of an ideology that, at the expense of the paradoxes and complexities of truth, favors one-sided resolutions, black-and-white values, and a privileging of one's own complexes as the norm for others.