http://www2.thejakartapost.com/news/2012/12/24/imo-view-the-overspent-snobs.html
Can you hear the bells chime? It’s Christmas soon! New Year is approaching! Jakarta’s malls are in full swing with sparkling decorations and ready for the year-end shopping spree. These malls will undoubtedly provide special prices and discounts to add to the exuberance of year-end sales! Midnight sales! Shop till you drop! The mirthless shops attendants wearing silly red Santa hats are in every corner of the malls to attract shoppers. It is the time for every shopping mall to turn into a huge arena for the overspent snobs!
Such frenzy doesn’t even spare my colleagues. It is addicted like drug! Some of my colleagues love to buy things they don’t even need. Without doubts, additional huge discounts will make all the glittering blinking branded items the more alluring. Sometimes, they don’t care if they have to pay that bit extra and go for a prestige brand. As with any modern shoppers, they tend to buy things to make a statement, to show off their status. They don’t even listen to my whinnies and protests.
“C’mon! We have worked so hard, honey! It’s time to spoil ourselves!” They would argue.
Well, what can I say? It’s their money. They have every right to spend them on whatever they want! It’s not my problem if they purchase more than they simply need to demonstrate a base materialism, to gain a certain status! By the end of the day, they simply try to live the lifestyle of their – two paycheck friends. They spend more than is fiscally prudent! It’s all about consumerism!
It is not surprising if many of us trapped into the so-called modern consumerism. We watch the how our idols live in what seem to be ‘fairy tale on television. We see advertising and commercials prescribe what’s fashionable and what’s not, what’s elegant and what’s not, what’s important and what’s not, and so forth. We read about lifestyle of celebrities and other public figures. We scrutinize how they live, what they wear, where they go. We admire their ‘classy’ life. They become our ‘reference group.’
Consciously and unconsciously, such shows find their way to transform us. They affect us. We assimilate the information and try to build a twin image of what we see in the media over and over again. Wearing particular brands, living in a certain kind of home and going to fancy restaurants emphasize support for a particular image. It’s an image in the world as we know portrayed in those Medias. Living the reference group’s lifestyle will upgrade our status! Classy and fancy! The result is that many of us have become participants in an upscale spending of consumerism.
As for me, I try always to buy things that I need, and not things that I want. I don’t want to fall into the consumption culture, a movement of people who are downshifting – by working less, earning less, and living their consumer lives much more deliberately. Living such a life would be suffocating. I can’t imagine live from paycheck to another paycheck.
But I still love to go with my colleagues to the shopping malls. To annoy them I would say “spend less than you earn” otherwise “earn more than you spend!
In response, they would purse their lips and left in a hurry, lol.
Can you hear the bells chime? It’s Christmas soon! New Year is approaching! Jakarta’s malls are in full swing with sparkling decorations and ready for the year-end shopping spree. These malls will undoubtedly provide special prices and discounts to add to the exuberance of year-end sales! Midnight sales! Shop till you drop! The mirthless shops attendants wearing silly red Santa hats are in every corner of the malls to attract shoppers. It is the time for every shopping mall to turn into a huge arena for the overspent snobs!
Such frenzy doesn’t even spare my colleagues. It is addicted like drug! Some of my colleagues love to buy things they don’t even need. Without doubts, additional huge discounts will make all the glittering blinking branded items the more alluring. Sometimes, they don’t care if they have to pay that bit extra and go for a prestige brand. As with any modern shoppers, they tend to buy things to make a statement, to show off their status. They don’t even listen to my whinnies and protests.
“C’mon! We have worked so hard, honey! It’s time to spoil ourselves!” They would argue.
Well, what can I say? It’s their money. They have every right to spend them on whatever they want! It’s not my problem if they purchase more than they simply need to demonstrate a base materialism, to gain a certain status! By the end of the day, they simply try to live the lifestyle of their – two paycheck friends. They spend more than is fiscally prudent! It’s all about consumerism!
It is not surprising if many of us trapped into the so-called modern consumerism. We watch the how our idols live in what seem to be ‘fairy tale on television. We see advertising and commercials prescribe what’s fashionable and what’s not, what’s elegant and what’s not, what’s important and what’s not, and so forth. We read about lifestyle of celebrities and other public figures. We scrutinize how they live, what they wear, where they go. We admire their ‘classy’ life. They become our ‘reference group.’
Consciously and unconsciously, such shows find their way to transform us. They affect us. We assimilate the information and try to build a twin image of what we see in the media over and over again. Wearing particular brands, living in a certain kind of home and going to fancy restaurants emphasize support for a particular image. It’s an image in the world as we know portrayed in those Medias. Living the reference group’s lifestyle will upgrade our status! Classy and fancy! The result is that many of us have become participants in an upscale spending of consumerism.
As for me, I try always to buy things that I need, and not things that I want. I don’t want to fall into the consumption culture, a movement of people who are downshifting – by working less, earning less, and living their consumer lives much more deliberately. Living such a life would be suffocating. I can’t imagine live from paycheck to another paycheck.
But I still love to go with my colleagues to the shopping malls. To annoy them I would say “spend less than you earn” otherwise “earn more than you spend!
In response, they would purse their lips and left in a hurry, lol.
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