Commercial World

One of my favorite videos on the subject of commercialism is the story of stuff. If you haven’t seen it before, I highly recommend it. It provides an awesome explanation of why our current cycle of consumerism can’t last forever. In a nutshell, we use more and more resources on goods that are largely disposed of shortly.

In that theme, every so often, there’s a commercial that leaps to my attention. I mean commercials by nature are, well, commercial. They are trying to encourage us to purchase a good or service that we may or may not need. I have to admit there are some clever ones on occasion that amuse me (though don’t necessarily sway me). and then there are the ones that are just too over the top in asking me to consume for the sake of consumption.

And this Staples commercial is an excellent example. Oh my, before I had to worry about keeping up with the Joneses. Now I have to worry that the burglars won’t even find my stuff nice enough to steal. Apparently it doesn’t matter whether or not the old PC was doing what they needed, they need to get a new one just by virtue of the old one being uncool. This is a seriously poor message in my opinion.

What do you think? Are there commercials or other mass media messages that bother you?