Many years ago in San Francisco, I looked down at the street one day and saw a spray-paint stencil graffiti work saying: “Be silent, consume, die.”

Immediately after seeing it, I thought to myself, “This perfectly sums up Western consumer capitalism.”
The words of the graffiti message were written on the image of a TV screen, apparently to emphasize the idea that television and other media are promoting mindless consumer capitalism.
Western consumer capitalism uses advertising in the mass media to convince people to buy things they don’t need, usually at exorbitant prices.
Advertising agency marketers are experts at producing commercials to sell products that people normally wouldn’t buy.
Every trick in the book is used to dupe the hapless consumer.
The ad agencies appeal to people’s desire to be popular, to be in fashion, and to possess status symbols, and they manipulate their insecurities.
And it has been proven that TV can induce a hypnotic trance state.
Ad agency experts know this and thus extensively make use of TV.
There is even evidence that subliminal messages in films, other video images, and music have been used to market products.
And certain companies have proposed that the Internet activities of individuals should be tracked (read: monitored) to customize advertisements for each user.
So how can you tell if you have become a mindless consumer?
Well, do you often buy the most expensive product or a name brand even when a less expensive generic item is not of lower quality?
Do you own many things that you rarely use?
Do you feel a compulsion to buy things you know you don’t need and probably can’t afford?
Do you find yourself buying useless products because you feel they are status symbols that you must have?
Do you often use a credit card to avoid paying up front, even though you know this will cost you more in the end?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are in trouble.
And now we have the phenomenon of the shopaholic, which is a new expression defined as a person who compulsively shops to the point where it has become an addiction.
There are even treatment programs for people suffering from this malady.
This is what happens when money and possessions are valued more than people.
Shop till you drop, consume till you die, and make sure to remain silent.
People must become aware of how they are being manipulated.
The corporations want your money and they want you to work as a wage slave so you can hand them all your earnings for over-priced products you don’t really need.
And after you’ve worked yourself to death, the corporations will just find another consumer to take your place.
To the corporatocracy, you are also a disposable product.
When people wake up to this reality, something will change.