The water bottle phenomenon has become ‘normalized’; when we look in a classroom, on a bus, in the gym or out at lunch, it’s not about who has a bottle of water, but rather who hasn’t
...bottled water is a commodity that sums up a lot about the consumer culture we live in. Bottled water does have a use value, but that has been masked by false needs through advertising, language, semiotics and marketing. As Lury points out “all material possessions carry meaning” (1996: 13). A water bottle is no longer just a water bottle; it is a social indicator of class, gender or age, it can be viewed as a display of environmental ignorance to some or attentiveness to health and beauty to others. The most important aspect of the water bottle is that it is shrouded in myth, you no longer buy a bottle, you buy a lifestyle.
http://jadestroudwatts.wordpress.com/2010/02/22/116/
At the same moment the commercial message adds value to the product it devalues the natural resource... we are encouraged to see the natural resource/communal resource as "not good enough"
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