As I go onto my last blog, I begin to wonder if this will be the last of my anti consumerism habits. Though this class session is coming to an end, I feel the need to always think of anti consumerism as a way for me to help myself, that is to say- helping me financially simply because I am a student at a very expensive school. I must say, every since we had conducted this compact challenge, I had saved a lot of money. I always had a habit to purchase things and then store it away in my closet. I know for a fact that the main culprit that has attracted me into consuming would be through the media and its infinite propaganda advertised. As stated in the reading by Yuniya Kawamura “Production, Gatekeeping, and Diffusion of Fashion” stated that “The purpose of propaganda is to ‘stimulate a desire for the same thing at the same time in a large number of people to build collective belief among consumers’” in which I believe this is proven to be true. The population strives to consume the same thing, whether it is clothing, accessories and as bad as it sounds- SHOES. I can’t help but purchase shoes that please my eyes and help compliment my style. But again I must emphasize, I have minimized my ways of consuming since we had taken on this compact challenge.
The key factors as to why I have lessened my ways of consumerism is because of the effects it does to the economy, environment and the people. One way I have found out to lessen the effects is that people can begin to recycle and begin to compost food waste. At UC Davis t
here
is a program called the “Project Compost” which focuses mostly on food and agricultural waste. This program began since 1999 and is still going on so long as there are students and interns that are willing to help out and make a difference. To learn more information on the UC Davis Project Compost, follow the link I pasted below under my resources, so that together, we can make a healthier and happier environment and earth at that.
There is also another community that base their living through what is known as the “Freegans” in which “Freegan.info reflects our commitment to creating models of living that allow us to limit the control that corporations and money have over our lives, reduce our financial support for the destructive practices of mass producers, and act as a living challenge to waste and over-consumption.” (Freegan-info) Through this motto, there have been many individuals who wonder the streets of New York City, or other places that have these activists.
Many of these activists have gone to restaurants that have thrown away the “so-called” trash but the food that was thrown away are still completely fresh and some foods expiration that are supposedly rotten, are not. In the end, there are people that are trying to make a difference and that this world we live in has both pros and cons.
Image 1- http://blogs.nypost.com/fashion/photos/shoes_highend.jpg
Image 2- http://blogs.phillyburbs.com/news/bct/wp-content/blogs.dir/3/files/2008/06/wk_of_6.30_/0707_Compost.jpg
Image 3- http://jaclynlarisa.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/freegan2.jpg
Image 4- http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3146/2486566272_60cc6be17a.jpg?v=0
Resources
-Kawamura, Yuniya. 2005. Fashion-ology: An Introduction to Fashion Studies. New York: Berg Publishers.
- http://projectcompost.ucdavis.edu/
- http://freegan.info/?page_id=2
Yvonne Tran
Blog #6
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