Oh, I’m like Paris Hilton now

Sheer genius. That is what I call the newest marketing to us these days. Now that you can own anything as long as you can hold off the creditors, how do you keep your individuality while still buying the exact same thing as everyone else has? Well, by purchasing accessories, of course!

In this new world the web connects us all, everyone gets the same TV channels, and mega-corps have provided us with a standard set of shops in every town. It’s a wonderland out there. Never even feel bad that you can’t travel, because every town in America that has more the ten thousand people has the exact same shops in it. There is not a Mennonite that doesn’t know Starbucks, and you can go down any road on which they might have filmed Deliverance and find some toothless wonder in an Old Navy shirt.

The individuality of every town is close to extinction, but at least we are all in fashion together. The fear of us all becoming the Logan’s Run society is near, but the people who sell us our ideas have come up with a way to keep you fresh and different from everyone else. You can buy accessories for everything these days, like iPods, Xbox 360’s, refrigerators, cars, coffee, lunches, web service, and even pets. Just think how much money you have blown not only buying what everyone else has, but I bet you have blown twice that trying to personalize it. Good job, now everyone picks you out from teems of people drowning in debt and says “Wow, that guy loves red.”

Think through just how much money you have lost buying a named item and then how much more on personalizing them. Doesn’t in make you feel just a little manipulated? All these years after getting out the hell that was high school, and you are still trying to fit in with the cool kids. Go buy a generic; it costs less and gives a little bit of your soul back with every purchase.