"Someone is *wrong* on the internet."
I went to Happy Bodies1 for the first time today. I felt a bit out of my element since the last time I was in a discussion-based environment was -- god, I can't even remember without having to go look it up -- at least two years ago, more like two and a half years ago.
In any case, the topic was consumerism and (female) empowerment, which I thought was particularly interesting because of the environmental aspect to it. From the consumerism angle, I really think that the first thing to being a responsible consumer is just to consume less. I think people who want to be perceived as green are particularly susceptible to the type of advertising that is all, "Buy this to be more green!" Like someone mentioned at the discussion, unless the thing you are replacing is a constant drain of energy (e.g. light bulbs), you're just adding to your carbon footprint by buying more and replacing something that probably didn't even need to be replaced.
The other aspect that we discussed was consumerism as empowerment, particularly for women, since we're stereotyped as such a materialistic group. I really didn't have anything to contribute because we were, for the most part, talking about ads, and obvious gender-targeted ads piss me off to no end. I consider them completely irrelevant to my life. My intellectual commentary on them is that they are stupid. Not very deep, I know.
Anyhow, I started this post much earlier in the day, and thought I had more to write, but now I am just too tired by reading completely racist, sexist, ignorant, and stupid comments on the internet. I know, I'll never learn.
1Happy Bodies, for those of you who are not Carletoners, is a student-run discussion group about body positivity and related issues.
In any case, the topic was consumerism and (female) empowerment, which I thought was particularly interesting because of the environmental aspect to it. From the consumerism angle, I really think that the first thing to being a responsible consumer is just to consume less. I think people who want to be perceived as green are particularly susceptible to the type of advertising that is all, "Buy this to be more green!" Like someone mentioned at the discussion, unless the thing you are replacing is a constant drain of energy (e.g. light bulbs), you're just adding to your carbon footprint by buying more and replacing something that probably didn't even need to be replaced.
The other aspect that we discussed was consumerism as empowerment, particularly for women, since we're stereotyped as such a materialistic group. I really didn't have anything to contribute because we were, for the most part, talking about ads, and obvious gender-targeted ads piss me off to no end. I consider them completely irrelevant to my life. My intellectual commentary on them is that they are stupid. Not very deep, I know.
Anyhow, I started this post much earlier in the day, and thought I had more to write, but now I am just too tired by reading completely racist, sexist, ignorant, and stupid comments on the internet. I know, I'll never learn.
1Happy Bodies, for those of you who are not Carletoners, is a student-run discussion group about body positivity and related issues.