Why We Crave What’s Cool

Today’s society is so focused on name brands when it comes to buying things and consuming them. The main brand conscious people are us teenagers. When looking at advertising of status brands the medial prefrontal cortex of your brain is activated therefore bringing in one’s perception or social status into play. Name brands also use this to get people to buy their products activating the ventral striatum known as the central reward structure. The idea of “cool” in the 1950s were not to conform or integrate with mainstream media, this has all changed when brands have increased our standards of living. For example Apple has represented themselves as “rebel cool” in the 1984 commercial saying that their rival IBM’s consumers are all “lemmings” for using their product rather than changing it up and using Apple. I feel that using or wearing a certain brand does say a little about you although doesn’t say a lot about you. There are many brands out there owned by people who have certain backgrounds that they are known for. I don’t know of any brands that are cool for teenagers probably because I am not cool at all.

Pain Of Paying
The pain of paying means when our feelings about spending money are coupled consumption. I know the feeling of watching my money go really sucks looking at my wallet getting thinner and thinner throughout the week or even day. It hurts to see your money disappear but with a credit card you cannot see or feel that money disappear by just swiping. I know that casinos use playing chips to help prevent the pain of paying rather than watching green money being lost. I thought this was genius and very interesting on how the mind works.