"Come On In The Room" The Georgia Mass Choir

no impact diapering woes

here's a link to one eco-baby diaper service...if you're interested...
http://www.ecobabydiaperservice.com/service_register.asp

no impact ii

after viewing the first portion of the no impact movie, what is your initial reaction to colin's project? you may want to comment on the reactions from his wife, friends, and the media.
due wednesday, april 28, 5pm.

Party!

I need all of my consumerism students to holla at the link below!
Click here to take survey

no impact blogpost assignment

In class on Wednesday I spoke about the "diet" type idea of the No Impact Experiment. What about the experiment is similar to "diets" and/or diet culture?

No Impact Project » The No Impact Experiment

No Impact Project » The No Impact Experiment

It's almost time to start the No Impact Experiment! Excited?

House Party power your party!

House Party power your party!
Here's the site I was talking about. If you have a party, invite me:)

No Logo Post 1

See the last few lines on xix:  What's your reaction to this irony?  Can you believe that we everyday users send our computers in for repair and tech support?

not about consumerism: ics lecture tonight

are you a joiner?

i admit it:  i have a need to belong.  mostly in geeky ways.  i consume memberships, i follow, and worst of all I PAY FOR IT.   i have a membership to cafe press, where any joiner can get his or her fill of tshirts displaying his or her current cause or obsession.  why do we feel the need to consume our own identities and display them for the world to see?

bazinga.  or, well, at least that's what my shirt says.  no seriously, from now on i'll label my musings (aka thoughts i share just because i can) as "bazinga".

extenZe shirts

disclaimer:  something we were talking about in class wednesday, NOT something I covet--believe me!

And another favoirte:

pharma harm

 i'm excited about our conversation concerning big pharma tomorrow!  it just gets me so angry that this industry that is supposed to help us is often hurting us.  seriously, there is no reason to have an ad campaign for any medicine these days, especially considering that none of the information provided in print ads or commercials s actually useful.  or (for other "readers digest" fans) it is in the smallest fine ever, just to give us the impression that the companies want us to be informed.  seriously, there is no difference in the validity of a viagra ad or an extenze ad.  let's watch:
ExtenZe:

Viagra:
Viva Viagra!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Scowretu2yc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH1aa-RhYX4

headline: health care, insurance, big pharma

in light of the history making vote on health care reform that took place this weekend, we'll spend this week discussing the nations health care system. 

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

In the United States alone, the average person uses 50 pounds of tissue paper per year, using up about seven trees worth of paper. Paper represents over one-third of all municipal waste and roughly 9% of greenhouse gas emissions in the country. With increasing concerns for the destruction of forests, it has become more important to reduce paper waste.
So tell me, why is that people waste so much paper by insisting on drying their hands with paper towels following their going to the bathroom? The other option provided, a technological solution mind you, is the annoyingly loud and energy consuming air-dry-unit. Please, someone explain to me what's wrong with using the back, sides, or front of one's pants? I can understand a woman in a fancy dress or slacks, or a man in a fancy suit, but college kids still wearing their pajamas from the night before? Or a person wearing jeans? It seems that most perform this task rather mindlessly with little consideration for the environmentally destructive action their participating in (needless production and all that comes with it).
Perhaps the next time you wash following your using the toilet, you should consider using your clothing to dry your hands instead of the environmentally unfriendly means provided. Conditioning is a fact of life and we should try our best to recognize those little things that we we're mindlessly conditioned to do so we can stop doing them. Give some feedback. What do you think about the wasteful means for drying ones' hands? Are you willing to dry your hands by simply flicking the water from your fingers down into the sink (2 or 3 quick flicks), and then with little effort, simply wiping the remaining water onto the pants your most likely going to wash after wearing once or twice anyway?

idiocracy

in class on monday and wednesday, we got a chance to view the movie "idiocracy".  of course, i want a bit of insight on what you thought about the film.  any comments are welcome, but specifically responses to these two questions:
are we (the US) headed towards an "idiocratic"society?
why does my judge (films writer/director) choose commercialism specifically as one of the main causes of an all-out idiocracy? is it fair?

anti-consumerism buyer beware!

i saw this on adbusters.org and thought of weston's brandless new balance [ie the "N" has been removed].  then i see this cute lil brandless boot & think "weston" would like this.  aside from style & all, this thing is really cool.  but i wonder how much the production really cost.  is adbuster selling an idea, meaning, or concept or are they selling an alternative?  i guess i'm going back to baudrillard...is that the use value, exchange value, symbolic value, or sign value?  i think that my worst fear is that i've been duped again, and that they're selling me this "idea" of conservatism & anti-consumerism & making a killer off of our good intentions. 

i mean, when walmart is even strategizing about how to "get" the frugal, conservation-minded consumers to think that they also support frugality & want them to save their $$$ instead of spend it, a ridiculous contradiction that is playing on our basic intelligence levels--and we fall for it--then how can i believe that there is any wholesome intention in our market? 

check out adbusters.org & soothe my paranoia: this org is well known for delivering media with content, where the reader is the customer & not the advertiser.  how do they do this?  are you convinced?  is this concept "strange"?  what would baudrillard do? w.w.v.d (veblen)? w.w.m.d (marx)?

what would jesus buy?

if Jesus would buy anything, i think it would have been another perfect sacrifice for salvation...or maybe that's just what i would've bought...

thanks dr. feldhaus for supplying this link...

http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/what_would_jesus_buy/

the consumer diaries: niecey's version

the Chin article is really on my mind right now.  mostly because she just opened up some interesting ways to view consumerism in my own life.  for example:


event-shopping:  this morning when i walked out of my house, it was snowing.  again.  i felt a sense of wonder (i'm not used to living in an area where it snows ALL the time) and a sense of dread (ice, cold, defrost cars, dogs that understandably don't want to pee in the snow).  and the first thing i thought was "i should go shopping. if its got to snow again, i should receive some tangible reward."  this train of thought makes no sense.

marketing my academic research:  i'm presenting my research here on campus during the ics lecture series.  one of the requirements it to 1) cut down my title to make it more attractive and 2) make it 'snazzier'.  wow.  i have no idea how to change a title to trick someone in to wanting to come to it.  i'm not that witty or clever.  i'm a sociologist--any attempt at being clever is going to be nerdy.  i know it and i must avoid the embarrassment.

buying community:  i'm doing the biggest loser contest at my gym (bloom health & fitness).  one of my first thoughts was "we need a tshirt for our team!  tshirts create community and cohesion".  i'm usually very aware of my tshirt addiction.  i'm a joiner and joiners love paraphernalia for their causes.  my dept chair showed me some childrens books about this siamese cat with a personality disorder and now i've ordered not only copies for myself, but of course a sticker book and a stuffed Skippyjon to set on a shelf next to my stuffed cow wearing a Dallas Cowboys tshirt. but to actually think that the tshirt alone was enough to bind four women together towards a common cause?  hmmm.  i'm of my rocker on that one.

[however, i did come up for a catchy quip for that one; "weight and see".  get it?  weight (wait) and see!  lol.]

i need a 12 step program...or do i?  is this normal???  idk.

Consumer Audit

After watching the "Story of Stuff" video and having some preliminary discussion (before being rudely interrupted by a fire drill--darn the bureaucracy & its efficient-inefficiency), it may be a good idea to just look at consumerism on a microlevel before we start going into our next set of readings.


Complete the "Consumer Audit" sheet posted on Blackboard by listing the rationale and details for anything you buy or throw away this Saturday and Sunday.  Then give a short response to the following questions here on the Blog!  If you want, you can add an image or something too.

Were there any patterns that you noticed in your purchasing and waste habits?  Did intentionally monitoring yourself make a difference in your habits?  Did anything you threw away actually hold meaning at one time?

?

The Story of Stuff

We are opening our Sociology of Consumerism course this semester by having a little eye opener on what "stuff" is--and what it means to us.  Today we did some introductory stuff and the normal 1st day of class BS.  However, on Friday and next Monday we will be watching the movie "The Story of Stuff" and just talking about the concepts discussed.  I felt like it would be good to look at this basic view before we got into all of the theory stuff later on.  And especially before we started the "Disenchanted" Ritzer book.

The Story of Stuff Blog

The Story of Stuff website