Inflation here? gas/grocery prices just continue to climb

Men have their own litany of problems that I could spend a thousand years pontificating on, so I'm certainly not randomly bashing girls/women here, but I've always been very troubled by the place rampant consumerism/materialism driven by the fashion industry has in the American feminine identity.

Nobody needs 200 pairs of shoes. Nobody needs an entire closet dedicated to shoes.

Nobody needs an entire new wardrobe every few months.

Nobody should buy absurdly expensive dresses that are worn one time and then completely disregarded.

These are not healthy practices economically, sociological, or even mentally. Big spending shopping sprees to deal with stress or depression are not a good thing. "Retail therapy" is a pretty sick concept. You get a brief dopamine hit from buying some clothes and then all your problems are still there.

And it feeds destructive practices on the corporate end of things. Sweat shops. Pollution. Forcing girls and women to feel like they're always competing with or one upping each other.

It's just all bad.


I think the reasoning is that women are more susceptible to "appearance" issues then men ( i think men are more susceptible to appearance of wealth issues/strength/virulence etc )

The marketing these companies put out is in DIRECT correlation to that aspect.

Same with men ( ED ads, GNC type ads over 40 etc, cars etc )

Same with kids

Target marketing has become quite adept at figuring out how to "motivate" its audience.

anecdotal but part of the convo:



wife went to dermatologist last week for annual scan. All good. Yet i get a notification of $179 charge...hmmm. Get home, and we casually talking and im like "when did dr. XXX start charging $179 for a scan?!" she said " no it was only $50 co pay" - ok so whats the $179.

Oh thats an anti wrinkle cream. ( and i kid you not, the tube is no bigger than that of like Oragel type tube )

im like "babe you hardly have any wrinkles"

She said " EXACTLY! " ( its not the cream, lol she under 45 so hasnt happened just yet )


sigh.