::: An introduction :::

So this blog is a chronicle of my 2014--my year of subversive consumption.

It's funny, as I type I'm listening to Spotify and, literally just this second, a commercial for "The University of Phoenix" has come on.

It's surprisingly difficult to avoid advertisements, actually. They're so pervasive... And I guess I've realized that I know I don't know how these ads--ads in my music, on my computer, all over my TV, are affecting my wants and goals.

I'm not choosing to consume these ads, and it strikes, me, I don't want to be consuming them.

I don't care about the University of Phoenix.

So I'm going to try to avoid advertisements. And unwanted, unneeded media of all kinds. I'm going to be a conscious consumer of the words, ideas, and images I put into my brain.

I'm interested in Marxist economics, in people's patterns of consumption, commodification, and authenticity, and so I've decided to pay closer attention to my place in this economic system, starting with the ideas I consume.

And the ideas in advertisement, which promote consumerism and manufacture need--to benefit those already in power, at the expense of all the rest of us--aren't the kinds of ideas I'm interested in internalizing.