“If you live for having it all, what you have is never enough.”
― Vicki Robin, Your Money or Your Life

“Men who read it [beauty pornography] don't do so because they want women who look like that. The attraction of what they are holding is that it is not a woman, but a two-dimensional woman-shaped blank. The appeal of the material is not the fantasy that the model will come to life; it is precisely that she will not, ever. Her coming to life would ruin the vision. It is not about life.

Ideal beauty is ideal because it does not exist; The action lies in the gap between desire and gratification. Women are not perfect beauties without distance. That space, in a consumer culture, is a lucrative one. The beauty myth moves for men as a mirage, its power lies in its ever-receding nature. When the gap is closed, the lover embraces only his own disillusion.”
― Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth

“Americans used to be 'citizens.' Now we are 'consumers.”
― Vicki Robin, Your Money or Your Life

“Get off the treadmill of consumption, replication, and mediocrity. Begin lifting the weights of creativity, originality, and success.”
― Ryan Lilly

“THE ORGANIC FOODS MYTH

A few decades ago, a woman tried to sue a butter company that had printed the word 'LITE' on its product's packaging. She claimed to have gained so much weight from eating the butter, even though it was labeled as being 'LITE'. In court, the lawyer representing the butter company simply held up the container of butter and said to the judge, "My client did not lie. The container is indeed 'light in weight'. The woman lost the case.

In a marketing class in college, we were assigned this case study to show us that 'puffery' is legal. This means that you can deceptively use words with double meanings to sell a product, even though they could mislead customers into thinking your words mean something different. I am using this example to touch upon the myth of organic foods. If I was a lawyer representing a company that had labeled its oranges as being organic, and a man was suing my client because he found out that the oranges were being sprayed with toxins, my defense opening statement would be very simple: "If it's not plastic or metallic, it's organic."

Most products labeled as being organic are not really organic. This is the truth. You pay premium prices for products you think are grown without chemicals, but most products are. If an apple is labeled as being organic, it could mean two things. Either the apple tree itself is free from chemicals, or just the soil. One or the other, but rarely both. The truth is, the word 'organic' can mean many things, and taking a farmer to court would be difficult if you found out his fruits were indeed sprayed with pesticides. After all, all organisms on earth are scientifically labeled as being organic, unless they are made of plastic or metal. The word 'organic' comes from the word 'organism', meaning something that is, or once was, living and breathing air, water and sunlight.

So, the next time you stroll through your local supermarket and see brown pears that are labeled as being organic, know that they could have been third-rate fare sourced from the last day of a weekend market, and have been re-labeled to be sold to a gullible crowd for a premium price. I have a friend who thinks that organic foods have to look beat up and deformed because the use of chemicals is what makes them look perfect and flawless. This is not true. Chemical-free foods can look perfect if grown in your backyard. If you go to jungles or forests untouched by man, you will see fruit and vegetables that look like they sprouted from trees from Heaven. So be cautious the next time you buy anything labeled as 'organic'. Unless you personally know the farmer or the company selling the products, don't trust what you read. You, me, and everything on land and sea are organic.


Suzy Kassem,
Truth Is Crying”
― Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem

“I spent my time drinking and staring at a television in the airport bar. More death and destruction. Crime. Pollution. All the news stories were telling me to be frightened. All the commercials were telling me to buy things I didn´t need. The message was that people could only be passive victims or consumers.”
― John Twelve Hawks, The Traveler

“In this image (watching sensual murder through a peephole) Lorrain embodies the criminal delight of decadent art. The watcher who records the crimes (both the artist and consumer of art) is constructed as marginal, powerless to act, and so exculpated from action, passive subject of a complex pleasure, condemning and yet enjoying suffering imposed on others, and condemning himself for his own enjoyment. In this masochistic celebration of disempowerment, the sharpest pleasure recorded is that of the death of some important part of humanity. The dignity of human life is the ultimate victim of Lorrain's art, thrown away on a welter of delighted self-disgust.”
― Jennifer Birkett

“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.”
― Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

“Mom, for example, is Procter and Gamble’s perfect repeat customer. Renovation contractors send her personalized Christmas cards. She lives for the Sunday edition of our local newspaper. She thumbs through the “Modern Home” section. She mopes through the rest of the day, unhappy with all her outdated things.”
― Michael Benzehabe, Zonked Out: The Teen Psychologist of San Marcos Who Killed Her Santa Claus and Found the Blue-Black Edge of the Love Universe

“Here, in Lorrain's poisoned little jewel of a tale (“The Man Who Made Wax Heads”) the consummate achievement of decadent art is caught in miniature. The genius of the artist entangles perpetrators and victims in a sticky web of perverse delights, in which exploitation becomes collusion, the ripples of guilt spread outward, and the real criminal slips away. In the end, responsibility is lodged firmly with the consumer, forced – he must confess – by his own perverse desires, to buy into the values of this particularly black market.”
― Jennifer Birkett

“As a business leader you have to ask yourself, “Am I creating a consumer environment that is conducive to loyalty?” If the answer is no, FIX IT!”
― Steve Maraboli

“It is a testament to the success of cartels in laundering their images that millions of consumers buy drugs each year without giving a moment’s thought to the fact that they are funding unimaginable suffering”
― Tom Wainwright, Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

“Difference between TV and the internet was how far you sat from the screen. TV was an 8 foot activity, and you were a consumer. The internet was a 16 inch activity, and you participated. I think the sitting down thing is similar. You're not going to buy an armoir while standing on the subway.”
― Seth Godin

“A person needs ideas in order to survive. A person whom ascribes to a philosophy for living and is dedicated to constant learning will find that ordinary life is enough without living in a zone of consumer consumption and media devices.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Being a college or pro football fan is in the same intellectual category of Funko Pop collecting. It's using a mass-crafted product to self-identify yourself because without people associating you with a certain team you have nothing to do with, you have no personality.”
― Jarod Kintz, Powdered Saxophone Music

“VOTERS are the ultimate Consoomers. The product they fanboy over is either Team Red or Team Blue, and their whole self-identify revolves around the ritual of deluding themselves into believing they had any control over the selection of the actor pretending to be their leader.”
― Jarod Kintz, Powdered Saxophone Music

“Japanese people like New Zealand, the quality of education, the beautiful natural surroundings, the value for money and the perceived high safety aspect. These unique characteristics attract tourists, working holidaymakers and students alike.”
― Peter Hanami, Buyer Behaviour of Japanese Students in New Zealand

“Japanese consumers require and expect a lot of detailed information when making a purchase decision.”
― Peter Hanami, Buyer Behaviour of Japanese Students in New Zealand

“A consumerism credo is a poor substitute for liberty, human dignity, and personal integrity; pursing a hedonistic and materialistic lifestyle proved spiritually enslaving. Rather than pointing its aim at raising the moral consciousness of individual persons and our community, consumerism gives its blessing to basking in wanton self-indulgence”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Most people want Jesus as a consultant rather than a king. Many want to consume the kingdom of God without first carrying the cross of Christ.”
― Jonathan Hayashi, Ordinary Radicals: A Return to Christ-Centered Discipleship

“Your customers will always be human, always have an empathic approach in how you treat guests. You will profit more on relatability than just revenue.”
― Janna Cachola

“The only proper test of worth is the judgment of the consumer who actually uses the product. And the State’s judgment is bound to be governed by its own despotic interests.”
― Murray N. Rothbard

“Capitalist and economist in their souls don't see newborns as kids but as consumers.”
― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words

“In every area, i.e. what protects the workers, the employers, the consumers.. it's always the existence of variety and alternatives.”
― Milton Friedman

“From the spectacular point of view, the reduction of man to consumer is an enrichment: the more things he has, the more roles he plays, the more he is. So it is decreed by the organization of appearances. But, from the point of view of lived reality, all power so attained is paid for by the sacrifice of true self-realization. What is gained on the level of appearances is lost on the level of being and becoming.”
― Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life

“The information consumer, enslaved by e-commerce, video streaming, and social media, a narcissist and a chronic complainer, is not well versed in the art of critical thinking and is incapable of employing his gray cells to their full capacity.”
― V.J. Cole, The Modern Ignoramus

“[Shopping is a] Mardi Gras of consumerism.”
― Russell Brand, Revolution

“I am a free man, an American, a United States Senator, and a Democrat in that order. I am also a liberal,, a conservative, a Texan, a taxpayer, a rancher, a consumer, a parent, a voter, and not as young as I used to be nor as old as I expect to be, and I am all these things in no fixed order.”
― Lyndon B. Johnson

“There was nothing he needed or wished to buy; but he liked to see the display of goods, any goods, objects made by men, to be used by men. He enjoyed the sight of a prosperous street;”
― Ayn Rand

“I wanted to be a virtuous consumer, a demonstrably good feminist, but at the same time I also wanted to be a citizen of the world of art, a person who was the opposite of a philistine. The question, the puzzle, for me was how I might behave correctly, confronted with these twin and seemingly contradictory imperatives. I felt pretty sure the problem was solvable. I just needed to think harder.”
― Claire Dederer, Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma