An Admission of Programmed Consumer Behavior

Not sure I want to be, but I am.. in a perpetual state of rejecting. I blame the content heavy world we were born into.

I'm constantly saying no, and for the most part I just don't care what I'm saying no to.

No to guru, no to coach, no to this once in a life-time special, just no.

Every offer, every ad, all this content just doesn't feel right. So no to every thing somebody built and put in front of me.

I reject it all.

Except, there are times when I still buy and become the consumer I assure myself I am not.

An idea appears in my head, and I'm not certain it originated there organically.

Meaning, in more than one way it feels installed.

But even though I know this, I open Amazon, or Google, or insert ecom app and into their products I go. Searching, and searching with intent.

By the time I get here, I'm not thinking about why I'm here, because I'm more than determined to find the right product.

It feels too much like a game, and I can't say it's not, in some regard, a rush.

Trying to match it against other prices, reading the first 2 reviews, although again I stop to feel that these reviews are in many ways fabricated too.

I come from the marketing world, so I do know about reviews and are reviews actually reviews or more installed programming? I'm sure it depends.

But I'm still convinced, because I've now compared the product I like to its rivals, and this one has 4.5 stars and 1033 reviews, so even tho I didn't read them all I know this seems like the reasonable purchase.

Then I do something else. I'll add it to cart and close the app, so I can perform this process a few more times.

And honestly I'm not even thinking about if I need this item anymore. Because at this point I do. I need it.

I'm wondering when it will arrive, how long will it take me to assemble it, and whether it will be the exact product I'm imagining in the cart.

So why don't I buy things? Bc I hate consumerism.

And, why do I buy things? Bc of programming, and I obviously need the things I buy.

The point of this?

So I'm not sure if this is considered a self-assessment, or whatever this is. A perspective. Probably.

A marketing perspective maybe, but I think the obvious takeaway here is that people purchase things they "need".

Meaning (again), from marketing and branding and positioning angles, your objective is to convince the buyer that their life will be better if they do buy, worse if they don't, and you have to convey that other people are already loving their better lives because of it. Then you need to give them the opportunity to make the transaction now, right now, rather than later.

I'm pretty sure I hate the consumer world we live in. I know the tactics, but still find myself needing things that I don't.

It's a game, which means there's hope for capitalists and probably less and less hope for humanists.

Or who knows, maybe consumerism saves more lives than it destroys. Hey, I didn't invent it, but I'm sure as hell not immune to it even though I think I want to be.