Shifting the “Want to a Need” is the proudest badge that the marketing industry brags about. You do not want chocolate, for example, you need it. You do not want to change your chattels, like a mobile phone or earphones, you need to, we find ourselves using this word unconsciously -“I need to go to the supermarket” – The mere trip to the big supermarket has the tempting thrill to overbuy, local grocers and shops cannot compete with the alluring call of the big chains, the only time we find ourselves shopping at our local grocer is when we are in a hurry and in need of some item ‘quickly’. But, shouldn’t that be the purpose of all our shopping trips, doesn’t that convey the true form of “needing” something?
I gave the example of the supermarket so I can gradually expand on the larger wants and needs for they are a recurring pattern in almost everything and anything in and around our daily lives.
The vicious cycle of consumerism is a glorification of the insatiable human hunger for novelty and excursiveness. I want more, and I want it new. A new dress restores beauty in a woman’s self-apprehension, a new car breathes pride and inexplicable exult in a man’s state of mind.
The purpose that menial items once served has been transferred; functionality has become a secondary criterion and conditional only to the aesthetic and the ‘trending’.
