A History Of Conspicuous Consumption Analysis

First impressions stick with a person for a long time and appearances do matter. When it comes to living in America, everyone wants to live the American Dream. Everyone wants a big house, luxurious cars and a white picket fence around your property. In Christine Page’s paper A History of Conspicuous Consumption, she talks about conspicuous consumption and how it refers to the ostentatious display of wealth for the purpose of acquiring or maintaining status or prestige. The thought process is you have to show how worthy and successful you are by buying expensive things. If you are rich buy a new 2016 BMW M6 class or a new Rolex to show off your success as well as your status with the elites. The thought process, “Look at all my stuff, I am successful!”
it is not the case. Jon Gertner says in his paper The Futile Pursuit of Happiness, “You are wrong to believe that a new car will make you as happy as you imagine” (1). Items can only make you happy for a short time period, but when this item cannot satisfy any longer, you have to get a new item to replace that original item that made you happy. I think Madonna sums up the way people are in society with her song Material by saying, “And I am a material girl. You know that we are living in a material world” we truly are living are living a material world. Gertner and Page both agree with an each other, and both believe that success should not be measured solely by how much you stuff you accumulate, but by a sense of self-worth.