Stuart Ewen Quote

I completely agree with Stuart Ewen’s statement that we as humans construct our identities in part through the consumer products that inhabit our lives. Advertising speaks to us in ways that we may not even realize. Growing up we begin to shape ourselves into the human beings we are going to become whether it’s what we have chosen or what someone else has told us to be. The effects of advertising start early on in our lives with television commercials, magazines, billboards and virtually everything that has a picture on it. We may see a person in a magazine using a certain product and we may like how they look with that product, which makes us want to buy that product. We may not even realize the underlying message, which is that in order to be a certain way you must have that product. However, during formative adolescent years of a kid’s life their peers begin defining what it means to be a certain way through material possessions. This makes a lot of teens go out and get certain products to help define themselves and establish the identity that Ewen is talking about in his quote.

I can’t think of a more pertinent example with virtually any rap artist. All they rap about is money, cars, and women that they lured in with there material possessions. Then you read about how they beat their girlfriends. People then wonder why. Maybe because they developed their entire persona around material possessions and never developed moral character. A lot of the blame can be put on the education system and bad parenting, but that’s a whole different issue.

The chapter also talked about the presumption of relevance, which is basically what I touched on earlier about how people feel like by getting a product they will magically become whatever the product is advertising. We see ads and think we can become like the people in them, which is a completely unrealistic idea, but in the ad world it seems feasible to us.

I think in today's world you would have to be completely isolated from the world of advertisement not to be a product of some type of product so in a way I am a product of products. However, I've developed character and personality traits that make me who I am outside of material products as well so I guess I'm a little of both.