User:Egbe Imariagbe/sandbox

Impact on consumers:
As of 2019, people follow trends through social media such as Facebook, Instagram, websites, and beauty blogs. Brands now use social media to promote their  clothing, which is more accessible to the general population. Advertisements are now being showcased through blogs, and beauty influences, which is a big shift from how advertisements used to be. This is how fashion designers communicate with their consumers and understand what their demands are. According to the Huffington post, “In the past, marketing and advertising focused on the four P’s: Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. Wasiak says that social media has expanded this to include a fifth P: People. Platforms like Facebook and Twitter have so much data that - for the first time ever - advertisers can invest in highly-targeted, cost-effective advertising.” One way Companies do this is by constantly exposing consumers to advertisements for by website monetization. Social media sites sell advertisements for clothing brands and fashion related content,which makes an enormous market for both the advertisers and the site itself. While this way of advertising is very cost effective, Social media's impact on consumer Culture has had some negative effects. According to Ads, Fads, & Consumer Culture: Advertising's impact on American Character & Society, "If the the economic effect is to make the purchaser like what he buys, the social effect is...to diminish the range and variety of choices,and in terms of abundance, to exalt the materialistic virtues of consumption." This addresses that one problem of the main problems with advertising is that people inherently become increasingly materialistic as they are constantly exposed to world of consumer goods. Advertisement teaches people the current trends and fads about clothing, hairstyles, what is considered fashionable or not, and social media makes these judgments easier for people to come across. This influences peoples beliefs and values because people become self-conscious about their lifestyle decisions instead of adopting a lifestyle based of their own sense of individuality. With social media being a prevalent part of today's society, nearly everyone with access to social media is effected with this modern construction of consumer culture.