As Victor Lebow (1955) said:
“Our enormously productive economy… demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption… We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate.”
Post World War II in order to increase the standard of living and collective contentment, the above theory by Lebow was adapted by governments and big corporations. By making over-consumption our way of life, our economy grew and an industrial world came into power. And just as Lebow had predicted, the target of promoting materialism succeeded. At present, according to Consumers Report website (2008), an average North American is bombarded with approximately 250 commercial messages per day. The goal of most of these advertisements is to make consumerists reach their satisfaction in a materialistic world. The media and the entertainment world are major sources of imposing new fashion trends onto our consumerist society. People need to step out of their roles as consumer puppets misguided by the pre-planned government and corporation conspiracies. They need to realize their true role as citizens of a democratic society and understand the future impacts of their actions. Just Stop not only wishes to unveil the truth behind over-consumption that has been part of this society since Victor Lebow, but also to touch upon other conspiracies such as perceived obsolescence and planned obsolescence. Planned obsolescence is a policy of deliberately planning and designing products in such a way that they become out-of-date or useless within a known time period. The team operating this group is a mix of students who believe in taking good care of their things, making them last as long as possible, resist the upgrade- don’t throw it out just because a slightly newer version is available. Just Stop is not anti-stuff but rather PRO-stuff.
