About

I will start off this article by saying that I am what you might call a classic American consumer. I think that Americans are notorious for being obsessed with materialistic items and wanting to buy more and more things as we drift our way through life. I feel that I myself have participated in this way of life greatly. I deeply enjoy buying new things and feeling that sweet dopamine hit for a little bit, before I inevitably fall back into the pit of despair and deep recessed knowledge that nothing in my life will last or bring me any fulfillment. Sorry, that got a little dark. What I am trying to say is that I found myself spending a lot of time and money this year in the form of online shopping. Especially since I was stuck at home for a long period of time due to COVID19, I had a lot of time on my hands that unfortunately was spent looking for ways to spend my hard earned money. Places like Amazon make it super easy to buy things online and get them relatively quickly, and now that websites are continually collecting data and tracking my online habits and interest, I constantly get advertisements thrown at me that are tailored just for suckers like me.

I mean, how are we supposed to combat the system that is being pressed down on us? Everything we use and consume is not made last. Our society clings to convenience and popularity and fashion and coolness. How are we supposed to break away from a mass marketing ploy that constantly learns and constantly creates more content for us to look at? I know for myself that I have had to step away from a lot of social media consumption and spending time online. Like I said earlier, I definitely spent way too much time online and this would often lead to me buying things that I don’t really want or need. Sometimes I would spend money online simply because I was bored. Websites make it insanely easy to buy from them. I work in marketing myself, and have learned that most companies will try to make it as simple as possible for consumers to buy their products or services, which translates into more sales because people are slaves to convenience. 

I spent a lot of time during the pandemic lockdown waiting for packages to arrive at my door. Heck, I barely had anything else to do with my time. The amount of cardboard boxes and poly bags that showed up at my door on a regular basis would simply disgust me by the end of the week. I truly did not want to go into massive credit card debt and develop awful financial habits, but I just could not help myself. What’s worse is that I knew that what I was doing was not good for the world around me. Not only are plastics like poly bags bad for the environment, but I knew I was feeding into Jeff Bezos’ greedy mentality and poor treatment of his employees.

I have had several friends who have worked at Amazon warehouses who have absolutely hated it. Sure, the pay might be somewhat competitive compared to other factory jobs, but the work culture was cold and demanding, and that is something that I would never want to be a part of.