I recently watched the documentary - "The Culprit of Unrestrained Consumption". Through three episodes and two and a half hours, it tells the story of ‘Why do we buy things? Who made this world become a world of unrestrained consumption? How do they do this? Investigative journalist Jacques Peretti examines the mechanisms behind the trend of unrestrained consumption and gives the answer. It turns out that the culprits who make the world become a world of unrestrained consumption are not the advertisers and marketers as people generally think, but the people behind these appearances who first changed the products and then changed us. '

A simple summary is: Capitalists have changed the attributes of products through planned obsolescence, rapid product iteration, and the concept of one-time consumption, while taking advantage of consumers' fear of aging and illness; the psychology of comparison; the tendency of children; The marketing model of other means allows consumers to buy goods that they don’t need much. The development of the credit market has intensified the lifestyle of unrestrained consumption. But in the process of the formation of this kind of consumerism, consumers have resisted (the emergence of the electronic product repair industry), and also promoted (although a certain increase in cholesterol concentration will not cause any problems to the body, consumers do require doctors to prescription drugs).

Personally, I feel that this film aims to allow the audience to understand the reasons behind consumption and consume rationally, but it seems that it also provides methodologies and ideas for marketing and sales staff to learn what successful marketing is. At the same time, it also shows that it is this kind of consumerism that has promoted economic prosperity and improvement of living standards to a certain extent - but it does not bring us enough happiness, but instead brings us more anxiety and uneasiness.

I have always thought that I am a rational consumer, but after watching this film, I was really shocked. Looking at the furnishings in the surrounding rooms, I lamented that no one can say that they are rational consumers in this era. We Every consumption is a long-planned arrangement by invisible hands. Look at the number of credit cards in your wallet, look at the number of products on the dressing table (there was another documentary before about the little difference in effectiveness between cosmetic brands, and even cheaper products have better results), the stationery in the pencil case The types and appliances placed in our homes all prove that we have been brainwashed by consumerism without even realizing it. In today's society, the development of technology, such as the intelligent marketing of big data, the convenience of payment brought by electronic wallets, the explosion of IP volume, etc., are further defeating our traditional consumption concepts, unknowingly affecting all aspects of life. Changing our consumption patterns.

Documentary link: Unrestrained Consumption