Extravagance

I was reading in my MacAddict magazine this morning while eating my scrambled eggs and came across their "drool worthy" page (and I quote: "sexy stuff we can't wait to get our hands on"). Usually they have things like huge TVs, or fancy iPod accessories, or other cool, interesting, rarely seen gadgets. Well this time I saw this digital camera.

My first thought when I saw it: "What a lavish waste! Cameras get used and scratched and dinged - how extravagant to give a camera a gold case with diamond studs around the lens!"

But then the thought hit me - why do I not have the same reaction about gold jewelry as I do about this gold camera? Isn't jewelry just as "extravagant"? (I looked up extravagance in my Mac's built in Oxford Dictionary and it said that extravagance is "excessive elaborateness of style".)

I fear that sometimes people will spend more money for items like this gold camera or a gold necklace to try and increase their personal "worth". Minox has the same camera in a typical digital camera case that is quite a bit cheaper, but many people will buy the Carat camera simply to gain the attention of others, which they think will make them "better".

But this camera's beauty will fade. It won't bring the same sense of satisfaction in a few years. New and better cameras will hit the market. And eventually people will see the real you hiding behind your "extravagant" toys and possessions. And when that happens, will they like what they see? Or for that matter, will you like what you see?

With that said, there is another thing bothering me about this camera. Having just posted about young adults in debt, seeing things like this camera angers me a bit because I know there will be some young adult somewhere who will buy into the myth that he or she will be happy with a camera (or any product) like this, and it will only steep them deeper in debt, keeping them enslaved even longer. I'm a typical male in the fact that I love gadgets, especially ones with a high cool factor, but not at the cost of my financial freedom.