Material Culture: Everyday Life

 I have never gave it much thought, but I guess that I too shop for meaning to some extent. There are certain items that I purchase whenever I go to the store, so I basically always have them in my fridge.

 If I'm going to consider three of them, the first one would definitely be chocolate milk "Moja Kravica". I never actually noticed that it tastes better than any other, nor is it cheaper, but the cow on the package and the name of the product are really cute to me, so they somehow lure me to pick that one in particular. As I was reading the passage about Global Food Packaging and how the use of semiotic research can assist in developing effective packaging solutions because it provides a toolkit for utilizing signs and symbols in terms of pack format (shape, size, texture, color), I realized that this indeed influences some of my personal choices.

The second product that I have to mention is the feta white cheese "Grekos". My grandma used to have goats when I was little, and whenever we would visit her, she would beg me to eat her homemade cheese, and I persistently refused. At some point she finally convinced me to at least try and taste it, and I actually kinda liked it. When I tried "Grekos" for the first time, it somehow reminded me a little of that taste, so I started buying it. Now I buy it regularly because I connect it with memories of her and of those times, although there are many others similar to "Grekos" with a more affordable price and I'm not even that big of a fan of cheese whatsoever. 

Last but not least would be pudding "Choco Loco". I literally buy this thing every time I step my foot into the store. And I literally never need this. It was hard for me to figure out why I keep buying it. The design of the package isn't specially interesting or colorful, it's just simple ordinary pudding. Only it's not ordinarily packed. The package is transparent and the way chocolate and vanilla are combined inside is really aestethically pleasing. When I'm home and when mom is making us pudding, she always combines vanilla and chocolate. I might be too lazy to make one as she does, but it seems I'm not too lazy to buy one which is similar. So emotional design mentioned in the Brain Understanding passage doesn't even have to have to do with the complexity of the design, but the simplicity of it. 

I'm aware that l buy lots of things I don't really need, often for wrong reasons, and that I am easily subject to consumerism, but as long as I feel good buying something for myself and as long as I can afford it, I don't think that I will stop buying it. Maybe this just confirms how well manipulated I am.