Is it only TikTok?

Is it only Tiktok?

Politicians and business heads will go to any length to gain power over impressionable minds and build fortunes out of it.

The nineties saw five Indian beauty queens win the Miss World and Miss Universe titles in a row. The idea was to open up the huge Indian market for beauty and fitness products. And did they succeed?

L’Oreal swamped the market with hair colour in a country that believed in black hair. Different shades of hair were seen everywhere. Gyms make huge money with people who sign up for a year, but don’t go regularly. My shoe wardrobe expanded from five colours to seventy pairs. The story continues with many things.

Globalisation had any way provided access and created awareness about international products. Indian versions of the same brand are now sold at a lower price to suit Indian pockets.

I guess current male hair and beard styles the world over, are driven by the desire to pull men into grooming parlours. They were spending too less by going only for haircuts.

Shirts for women get shorter but the price remains the same. It means a larger profit for manufacturers. They can make 10 shirts from the same fabric length which yielded 7 earlier.

What pains me more than all this is the addiction being created to Buy Now Pay Later schemes. Indians are debt averse. But the youth are being lured into the habit of living on credit, so that financial institutions can amass huge profits after a decade.

Online games will create compulsive gamblers.

The idea is to create generations of mindless consumers and very few inventors and business persons who know how to milk the market.

Power is addictive. It not only corrupts, but destroys all that is noble, positive and responsible.

China is creating markets for their products and services. Political power emanates from economic power. No country could cut off from China completely despite the pandemic they unleashed on the world.

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Friday Faithfuls