Abstract

With this final project, I initially wanted to address the topic of our society's emergent narcissism, but I decided a better way to tackle the ideas present would be to address consumerism and consumer dependency. The topics I address under the umbrella of consumerism (consumption of virtual goods, reality television, and anti-consumerism) tackle the alienation from reality and consumer dependency is creating and the response against this dependency. For the creative portion of my project, I documented my own consumption and judged its merits. When my consumption is not particularly telling, I tackle other elements of consumerism that I felt were left unaddressed otherwise but deserved attention nonetheless. The consumption web log is in reverse chronological order.