Slide 2 Happiness By Steve Cutts

Slide 1: Intro: Consumerism is the belief that a person’s happiness is directly affected by the value of and the number of material goods they possess. This concept has been so ingrained in our society that consumerist ideology will be shoved down our throats with us often not batting an eye.

This brainwashing causes an endless cycle of chasing happiness through material goods, and never achieving true happiness. m

Happiness:

Slide 2: Happiness is a short film written and illustrated by Steve Cutts, displaying the dangerous effects of believing in consumerism.

Throughout the film, we see a rat going through an almost endless cycle of purchasing items as an attempt to pursue happiness, based on the conditioning it’s gone through to believe

Just Buy It.” The phrasing of these signs blatantly illustrates how consumerism relies on the consumer wholeheartedly believing that not only happiness is something that can be purchased, but that it’s absolutely necessary to achieving happiness.

Later, at the end of the film, the rat is shown dead in a rat trap, baited with a dollar bill. This rat trap symbolizes how following consumerist ideology is a trap. The placement of the trap at the end of his pursuit of happiness shows how at the end of it all items will never bring happiness.

The billboards around the city and the rat's endless pursuit perfectly demonstrate how consumerism has convinced us that items are necessary above all else for our happiness and that we should chase them, endlessly, in an attempt to achieve true happiness.

Slide 4 Personal Connection: I can relate to the rat to some extent. I understand how easy it is to think I’d be happier if I could just have a certain item, or if I had a different item it would make me feel better. This never ends up being the case, and if I actually get the item I never feel more fulfilled, although this never stops me from moving on to a different

The woman, for what seems to be endless, buys a lot of items, escalating in price until she’s at the point where she travels to other countries to fuel her shopping spree. The woman has clearly developed a shopping addiction, and she’s trying to find a sense of fulfillment in buying items, rather than appreciating the natural beauties of life. She even skips over her wedding in one sentence, moving quickly onto the expensive honeymoon she went on, further displaying how she’s finding fulfillment within materialistic