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14.0 FIGHT CLUB AND THE YOUNG CONSUMER CULTURE; CONSUMER CULTURE ARTICLES, FROM SAVVY-DISCOUNTS.com

"Never trust anyone over thirty!" was the watchword of young people in the 1960s. I suspect that young people still say that today. Older people are equally distrustful of the next generation. They often claim that these kids are clue-less mall rats who are only interested in appearances and designer jeans.

A new movie has come along to challenge this perception of young people. In the film "Fight Club" young men strip away superficial layers and try to get down to the basics of who they really are. "You are not your job. You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your khakis," says the main character played by Brad Pitt. (While I do not endorse the violence in this movie, I welcome an examination of the consumer society.)

Each generation responds to a unique challenge. World War II, Korea and Vietnam were faced in succession by young people in this country. While this generation today does not have to deal with military service, it will have to deal with environmental problems on a scale than no older generation has experienced. In addition these young people have been conditioned by our consumer society to buy, buy, buy. Before they could even talk they had seen about 60,000 ads on TV (a conservative estimate). By the age of twenty most will have watched about one solid year's worth of advertising or about 600,000 ads on TV.

Now it seems that some young people are seeing through the conditioning and manipulation of advertising and consumerism. At least for some, the answer is to turn away from the consumer culture and to look elsewhere.

They are examining our insatiable need for more "stuff" in terms of what is really important to an individual, a family, a community, a country and the environment.

The answers they find will be hard won as they face this unique challenge.

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