When something is truly learned, it becomes part of who we are and we don't need to give it much deliberate thought. This is true of any habit we have, of the things we've been trained to do and of things we've internalised by accident. We are learning from the moment we enter the world, and we absorb a great deal without question - and not just as children.
I've worked in marketing, and one of the things I learned from doing that was that people usually need to see something five times before they'll buy it. Five times isn't that many times, in the grand scheme of things. Of course we don't all rush out to buy things we've seen five adverts for. At the same time, when you consider how much gets bought on impulse that isn't needed or even necessarily wanted, it seems likely that a lot of people really do buy things for no other reason that they've seen it repeatedly and the idea of it being attractive has got inside them.
There are people who will buy things, read things and watch them for no other reason than that the thing is already popular. Popularity itself is something that people find persuasive. Perhaps that's about wanting to connect with other people, wanting to be involved in cultural moments and movements. I don't know because I've never really felt it. But then, being a person who takes pride in being at the margins isn't actually any more meaningful than being a person who takes pride in being up to date and at the cutting edge of things. Wanting things simply because they are new is also an issue for many people, and something that doesn't grab me. I'm slow and old fashioned in a lot of ways, and I adopt things when I have to. Newness doesn't reliably excite me.
I probably spend more time thinking about what I want and why, than is normal. I also don't encounter that many adverts in the course of my day - just what I see online, which is brief and easily ignored. I'm not that persuadable that stuff is going to make me happy, and I think that insulates me a lot from internalising marketing prompts. I think it helps me that I have a very clear understanding of what makes me happy, so even when I'm low, I'm not persuaded that any product will give me that. I also don't have the kind of body chemistry that can be made to respond to shopping. I don't find it rewarding, so there's nothing for an advert to manipulate.
It's interesting to wonder how much of our desire is open to manipulation. Probably more than any of us likes to think. There are certain kinds of language use that I have no defence against, and I certainly have buttons that are easy to push. Most of us do - around the desire to be accepted and respected. So many adverts promise us those things, and threaten us with not having them if we haven't kept up with what we're supposed to be doing and consuming. Your socially appropriate body in your super-clean house wearing the right clothes and surrounded by the right gadgets is supposed to magically bring your heart's desire. Except none of it works that way.
It might not matter so much if it worked. If we really could buy happiness and delight, then that would be great. However, once our basic needs are met, we don't get much out of having more. Happiness is not something we find in products. The more time we're persuaded to spend on earning money to buy things that don't answer our needs, the more trapped we are in this relentless loop of earning and consuming, and the less room we have in our lives for joy.
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