Joe Kelly
Foundations of College Writing
M. Perakovich
February 22, 2013
Consumerism and the American Teen
What is consumerism? It’s a question that a lot of people know the answer to but to
clarify, consumerism is the preoccupation of society with the acquisition of consumer goods.
Most people feel as though we need these goods to survive. The TV we as a society watch
almost every day blast us in the face with ads telling us about the next best thing. They even hit
us with “limited-time offers” that make us get up right away to order this sham of a product.
Being a consumer in today’s world, we have a lot of options but which of these options is best.
When looking at myself, an average American teenager, and others like me I see that we are the
ones who buy most of this junk, but for what reason? The reason is because it gives us short term
happiness, a sense that this little thing we just bought will make life so much better but the next
day it’s in the trash. In this essay I’m going to show, with sources from John Verdant’s essay
“the Ables vs. the Binges” how I myself and other young people spend and waste and how we
could accomplish much more.
Consider teenagers as the Binges, they are wasteful and are never satisfied with their
purchases, always wanting more. Now on the opposite side of the spectrum are the Ables, people
who conserve their money and use all their goods to the fullest, getting true happiness from what
these items have given to them. One excerpt from Verdant’s essay states “The Binge Family
watches lots of TV and lusts after the things advertised” (155). This is a good reflection of the
American teen such as me who sits in front of the TV all day snacking on some name brand
chips staring intently at commercials of things that I want but don’t truly need. A great personal
example for me would be Christmas time, when I would ask for all the latest gadgets and
gizmos, such as moon shoes and Crayola crayon makers, to play with and about a month after
Christmas about half those things are in the trash. Another problem I have is impulse buying. If I
was walking through the mall and stumbled upon some new and interesting gadget at a store, I
would have to go in and check it out. If I truly liked it enough I would buy it without even
considering what else that precious money could have been spent on or if the product I just
bought is even quality. Verdant puts it perfectly when he says “These folks succumb to fashion
and purchase on impulse without researching prices or quality” (155).
Also most American teenagers are more focused on their self-image and how others
perceive them, me included. “Their self-image is dependent on what they wear, drive, and where
they spend their money” (156) says Verdant of the Binges, aka Consumers. This statement hold
up very well as most teenagers are very discriminative today and some will be quick to throw
you aside if you don’t have the newest clothes or the nicest car. Another thing that is wrong with
us teenagers and our consumerism is that these items that we buy distract us from the things that
actually matter, such as family, friends, and other things that matter in the real world. Verdant
says it best when he says “IPod Nanos, personal TV’s, health club memberships, videogames, all
these things distract and remove the members of the family from interaction and participation in
home or community life” (156).
On the other side of the spectrum is where I and other teens like me could be right now,
sitting on par with the Ables and their spending habits. I will be the first one to say that a good
amount of the things that I buy are one-time-use trinkets that get thrown out sometime after use.
A great example of this is the other day I bought a cooler so that my friends and I could keep our
drinks cold while we watched television. When I was about to head back to my dorm room my
friend asked me if I wanted the cooler to bring back, I said no, being that it was an impulse buy
and at the time I wasn’t concerned with the twenty dollars it cost, I only wanted cold drinks.
What I myself need to do I realize that these things truly do add up and that the behavior is
wasteful and unacceptable.
Using the Ables as an example, Verdant says “One family, the Ables, makes careful
decisions about their economic and social activates and thus are working for their own selfpreservation” (152). This is how we as American teens should be spending, with the goal of selfpreservation, not spending money because you look really cool in that three hundred dollar
hoodie. Verdant goes on to say about the Ables that “Even while spending little and saving
much, they can live well and enjoy their surroundings while they strengthen their community and
thus the nation” (152). I like to think this is where I can get to, but at the moment I (and I don’t
think I’m alone in this feeling) feel like I need to spend my money to have a good time, buying
the newest trinkets to keep myself occupied for a day. Verdant describes my feeling of
America’s teens and I well in this passage where he says “The other family, the Binges, blindly
goes on its way leaving a trail of social and spiritual destruction in its wake. They consume and
spend and go deeper into debt. Things just happen to them, life seems out of control, because, for
them, it is” (152).
In conclusion I feel that American teens, myself included, are spending and consuming
way too much but caring about it way to little. We are not putting any thought into our purchases
and once we’re done with them we toss them aside, never to think about them again. We are
living in a consumer society where every which way we look we are blasted with advertisement
telling us to buy this and buy that but never telling us why. We need to overcome and start
considering the things we purchase and not spending willy-nilly. Next time myself or any other
teen goes to purchase anything, I’ll just think about if I really need this, is it essential, and will it
end up in my trash can the next day.
Word Count: 1,150 words
Joe Kelly
Foundations of College Writing
M. Perakovich
February 22, 2013
Works Cited
Verdant. John. “The Ables vs. the Binges”. Signs of Life in the USA: Reading on Popular Culture for
Writers. 7th Ed. Boston, Ma: Bedford, 2012. (152-158)