Armani’s T-shirt, Rado’s watch, Ray Ban’s sunglasses and Levi’s jeans are the stuffs that today’s youth craves for and holds an eye on. Not because the quality they provide, but the craze of the brand and the need to flaunt among the peer group is the reason. There was a time when bands were not so commonly used by the people especially the common masses. But in present times, affordability is not a question. What matters is acquiring those stuffs.The westernisation has hit the young generation so badly that in the greed of acquiring brand stuffs, youth don’t even think about their parent’s purchasing power.
Whether it is an urban or a rural area, the brand culture has become a fast moving trend all over. The desire of riding a Royal Enfield bullet is much higher in the rural areas. It’s because people have money but they don’t have the idea of how to invest it wisely. What they know is to run behind the brands just like the others do. Electricity or water supply is still a big question in the villages, but every young boy is fond of having a Ray ban or Fastrack’s sunglasses. At present, the purchasing power and the affordability have increased to an extent that buying branded products is no more a surprising task. From useful household commodities to luxury items, everything has to be branded: this is the new trend.
The rising culture of using branded products is mainly because of the mainstream media. Bollywood movies, alluring advertisements and the popular television shows have created a powerful impact on the common masses. The bright, creative advertisements are majorly responsible for it. It’s all because of the reach and access to the media. Not every time using brand has become the need, but mostly in the rural areas, it is a general concept of moving with the crowd. The technology friendly era has made the access to mainstream media easy and fast in every corner of the world. The result is that these big and rich brands are fooling people as they are aware of the general mindset.
The only concern is “Woodland ke shoes chahiye”, “Spykar ki jeans”. No matter how the quality is, what the manufacturing cost must be. Just a big tag of a famous brand has been the sole attraction. Among youth, the brand culture has hit so hard that the greed of possessing these things, they are even ready to commit wrong doings. Just in order to flaunt among the friend’s group without even realizing the value of money and one’s own financial condition, young generations are going crazy about the brands especially international brands. Youth generally have the trait of flaunting and not understanding the reality. This is the reason that these big brands are taking advantage of this immaturity and are deceiving the young customers.
The majority cannot think of the negative approach, the brand culture inculcates in the society. Because of this brand obsession among youth emerges a discrimination of rich and poor. The ones who can afford to keep flaunting and the ones who cannot feel underestimated and suffer from inferiority complex. This discrimination later leads to various crimes, because the adolescence age is a sensitive age and the youth is not aware of the consequences. They unaware of the problems keep on doing wrong things and till they realize it becomes too late.
One needs to understand one’s capability, status and decide accordingly. Just running behind the brand unnecessarily without knowing about it is a mindless activity. Here comes the role of parents to make their wards understand these things clearly. They should stop them running behind the materialistic things till they are not capable of achieving it on their own. However at the end of the day we should take care of the fact that this brand culture should not rise as an evil in the society. The brand’s usefulness and worth should be made to understand so that the youth come to know what the reality is. Therefore, avoid being the part of crowd rather use your own understanding.
