Speech - Cory Baker

   Speech 

   Fellow students and Mr. Logsdon, I stand before you today to discuss an ever increasing problem among today's youth. Materialism. 

    We live in a culture that promotes a lifestyle of buying for joy, especially among our youth who are already prone to wanting more. This instillation of such concepts destroys their growing sense of identity and direct them on a life path revolving around monetary success, not emotional or social. 

    The American tradition of "keeping up with the joneses" has set a standard of buying for fulfillment and not in proportion to your earnings or necessities. This standard is what most kids see their whole lives and will especially around the upcoming holiday season. 

    This trend is on the rise due to the necessity of our people to be coddled and entertained, something that is becoming more and more available with expensive technologies. The American Dream is to surround yourself in artifacts of your wealth, luxury cars, designer clothes, and varieties of entertainment devices. 

    These concepts are perpetuated by the sea of media that the average person is engulfed in. Particularly social media. We are being fed in real time the accomplishments of our peers and being compared. Both by ourselves and those around us. You are exposed to more, you have more chances to covet thy neighbor. 

    With most students in this room being active on at least one form of social media I'm sure you can look in retrospect and recognize that this is an experience you are familiar with. 

    And while we are able to recognize it, what we don't recognize is the dangers of it. This intense materialism destroys individuality by reaching for what someone else has, it destroys fulfillment by using monetary accomplishments as a foundation, something that in an ever unpredictable economy is increasingly unreliable, and also leads to a vast series of other problems such as pollution, labor issues, and poverty. 

    It's a cycle that can only be broken by being exposed, people have to recognize the inherent flaws in trying to find comfort in material things. Then they must be willing to give those things up, this is the choice I ask every one of you sitting here today to make.