I have an acquaintance whose personality I have always found grating and today I finally realized exactly what it is that I dislike so much: they pride themselves on being an ideal consumer. They get chuffed as fuck at how well marketing works on them to the point of being borderline braggadocious about how quickly and deliberately they react to advertising; even when they’ve been duped or scammed they admire the way they’ve been fooled.
It’s so cartoonishly American, they’re like a funhouse mirror that accentuates by own stupid fatso traits and stokes my most antisocial impulses. They say you should “let people enjoy things” but there’s got to be a healthier middle ground where my friend stops enjoying adding to their credit card debt to see every Ryan Reynolds movie in IMAX and I stop enjoying hating them for it.