Review Of Culture Jam By Kalle Lasn

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The advertising culture is having a devastating effect on our agendas of becoming the media's ideal of perfection, and behind all of this self-sacrifice the media and corporations are the ones succeeding, not us. In Culture Jam, by Kale Lasn, the founder of Adbusters magazine, he attempts to show the reader what our mass media has been doing subliminally. When the average American thinks of consumerism, we believe it is the promotion of the consumer's interests. What Lasn believes is that we're being told what our interests are and to buy into those false interests. We've become disconnected with ourselves and our own interests to fit those that our corporations have designed for us. He uses an example of taking your family to the forest for some alone time to brave the elements and come closer as a family, but after only a few short hours becoming so bored that you begin self-destructing due to lack of technology. Our children have become so reliant on consumerism that they can't possibly enjoy any of the senses you have to use in your most primitive state. After only a short while, they show signs of grief and withdrawl. He writes that we should prioritize the earth as number one, and get back to the basics of feeling that the earth is one with us. If we have this way of thinking, we won't look at helping the environment as something self-serving, but more like helping out a part of our family. As humans, we've learned that buying creates happiness, or so we believe. Most of the time, we're living in a world we've created for ourselves through the consumer process. The environment is what we have purchased; there are no trees or fresh ponds. We become compulsive shoppers when we're bored with our lives, and we look for outside factors to fill those gaps. As a country, we have the most diagnosed mental ailments in the world, even though we're the richest also. This is due to Americans being able to. We can validate our pains, discomforts, and social anxieties through means of doctor's notes. Why we're feeling this way is due to an "unknown" cause draining us of our happiness, and Lasn feels that plentitude is our problem. We have the ability to purchase whatever our hearts desire, therefore there is no satisfaction in earning these rewards in life. We don't have any driven motivations other than monetary,

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