/lit/ - Literature

>>5216235
Excellent post. Once while waiting in line at my campus eatery I overheard the conversation of two young women ahead of me. One said: "I love Friends! I've already got the first five seasons on DVD and once I get my next paycheck I'm going to buy the complete series!"

Upon hearing this I thought to myself, "Those DVD boxsets usually cost somewhere between thirty and sixty US dollars, and the complete series must be around one hundred. This person has already spent and is going to continue to spend a completely ludicrous amount of money on an incredibly popular television show that is already aired constantly on television for free. What's more is that there are various streaming sites both legal and illegal which undoubtedly host the show, torrents, direct downloads, etc, all of absolutely no cost. I wonder, did repeated exposure to show's glamorization of shopping and shopping culture affect this person's psychology and encourage her to make these unnecessary purchases, essentially functioning as a commercial for itself? And now this woman walks around bragging to her friends about what she bought, she herself has become a human commercial."

But that is the beauty of Friends, isn't it? Here we see how materialism breeds further materialism, indoctrinating society into an ouroboros of meaningless consumption by tapping into the American fantasy of being white, wealthy, and sexual active. It represents our greatest desires and our greatest failures, the horror of being a poor minority along with the limits of being privileged and free. It is a better chronicle of our society's faults than either The Wire or The Great Gatsby, which are both burdened by their conscious politics. I also enjoy the antics of the Joey character.