Conditioned Consumerism

After World War II Americans became bonafide consumers. And yet conditioned consumerism sneakily hijacks our time, money, and mental bandwidth. It also harms the planet. The system is entrenched, the marketing is omnipresent, and it's all designed to keep us buying until we die. But there IS a way out. On today's show author and former marketer Ashlee Piper pulls back the curtain on modern marketing so that we may hop off the addictive consumer hamster wheel for good. Here's a preview: [5:30] There's a reason why so many of us shop to soothe our discontent (We're told to!) [8:00] Advertising + Psychology = A powerful selling combination [22:00] When people feel lonely, inadequate, or restless they shop [32:00] When marketing gets predatory: zip code marketing, old guard sexism, and more [35:00] Why Ashlee has a problem with the 'underconsumption' trend, and for good reason Resources mentioned: No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity (via Bookshop.org) Book Club (with Ashlee!) is scheduled for Monday, August 25 at 7pm EST. Email to come. Join us for the Instagram giveaway, which officially goes live on Wednesday, August 6 This show is listener-supported. Thank you for supporting! Join our (free!) Facebook community here . Find your tribe. Sustainable Minimalists are on Facebook, Instagram + Youtube @sustainableminimalists Say hello! MamaMinimalistBoston@gmail.com . Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You can listen to Conditioned Consumerism online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

Conditioned Consumerism is an episode from The Sustainable Minimalists Podcast: Eco-Friendly Families | Simple Living + Parenting by Bleav + Stephanie Seferian.

This episode is 00:43:12 long.

This episode was published on Aug 5, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Sustainable Minimalists Podcast: Eco-Friendly Families | Simple Living + Parenting when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.