The outcome of marketing gimmicks

It started with the purchase of a Bluetooth speaker. 

My friends had come for a sleepover and the next morning we sat to relish the beautiful November sun. Eventually, all picked up their phones and one of them started browsing Amazon. She exclaimed with excitement that the price of the Bluetooth speaker that she had bought a month ago was slashed by a full hundred rupees. Objectively speaking, a bargain of hundred bucks for a product worth thousands isn't a big deal. But the dopamine rush in her veins told her that this opportunity must not go waste. 

Now, I don't like to admit that I harbor the occasional follies of the human psyche. But I do. I jumped at the opportunity of gaining something at hundred bucks off lest someone else should grab it. 

Cut to 7 months later, that pretty Bluetooth speaker is sitting pretty in my bookshelf without being used. Not once. Still packed. 

The modern war is an internal one. We have no land to claim (barring the Chinese), we have no wars to wage against others. In our quest to possess what others have, we go out of our way to claim materialistic objects that release dopamine for a few minutes and then we go back to living our lives the way we were before. We do this every day without realizing how we are gradually being bent towards something that we do not require. 

We have been led to believe that we won't get into our dream shape without that Fitbit. We think that a modern era of nutrition can be ushered only with the purchase of expensive granola and a buttload of foreign seeds in the market. 

This forced consumerism has ushered in an era of unhappiness, dejection, anxiety and depression. We are led to believe that paucity of such objects is a source of misery to most of us. 

As I struggle to find my feet in this newly discovered world of deceit and unhappiness, I am inclined to take a step back and decide whether this fast moving world would have any space for me. In this era of FOMO, I sincerely hope that someone is willing to stay back to the time when we relied on technology occasionally and not depend on it in its entirety. 

The modern day fields of advertising and PR fall in the same zone. Having lived in a world where lying passes on for credibility and where trust is based upon the gullibility of people, these industries are thriving well. They create an artificial need among us. Soon enough, that transforms into an artificial dearth of the same and we all spiral down inwards in our quest for the next savvy product. 

 

Anyway, it's time I dusted the box containing the speaker.