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Consumer vs.

December 5th, 2006 by Anuj

Recently was a time of politics. Which means that politicians and voters alike everywhere were getting out there and finding one side of the fence to be on. While I may not be the most politically inclined person, I do know a thing or two about picking sides of a fence. It’s pretty much what we as people do. Now, I do have my preferred sides of the fence when it comes to politics, but those aren’t really the types of things I generally like to discuss, so that isn’t what this is about. This is about the consumeristic nature that drives us to make the decisions we do, this is about us as consumers.

[i want to consume a sandwich]

We as people, are all consumers, I don’t mean for that to have any negative or positive connotation (as it usually does…usually negative). We all buy things, we all sell things, we all expect each other to do the same, and doing any of the following excessively or inexessively really changes nothing. If you tend not to buy as many things, then you’re still a consumer, but you’re more of a consumer of opinion, belief, entertainment, knowledge, and other such generally free commodities. So consumerism as I believe it, is life how we live it; and as such, we as consumers, face everything else, we face the “man,” the “machine,” we face each other, we face figureheads and leaders, propaganda, and anything else you can think of. Thus, I create this as a means to talk about we as the consumer, and whatever audience I choose to face it against; and of course, facing against something, doesn’t necessarily mean opposing it in any way, it’s just a comparison of one to the other.

So anyways, today I choose to begin my first installment of this series. Why today? Well, I’m bored and I really wanted to write this. This first installment will serve as an introduction to the series and what purpose it serves, and also a means of introducing what will be the topic of this series for the few weeks to come. Today we are on the cusp of what, for me and very many other gamers everywhere, is going to be a large time of consuming. With the Wii and the PS3 launching, and a slew of games for them and the 360, I can’t think of too many people (that are gamers) that I know that aren’t planning on investing (”consuming”) soon into one area or another. Within a few days, a lot of things will happen, and I want to make sure I get a lot of what is on my mind now out there before it may change.

Though my next installment will focus on gaming, ‘gaming’ is too broad of a topic to compare upon. I’m going to focus on the whole “picking a side of a fence” kind of consumerism, the reviewing and the critics in gaming. As much as I’d like to get into the aspect of gaming or the release of the new console and the comparison of the state of the industry and the audience it so strongly tries to entertain, especially considering how much more relevance and importance it has, I think I’ll write about that later still. So here’s looking forward to Consumerism versus Critics!

Entry Filed under: Gaming, Life