If you think people's behaviors are not influenced by the slick tricks of the marketing industry, especially when they begin when their intended audience is very young - then they already own you (or at least your purchasing habits).

The whole idea of cool, in, hot, styling etc. is driven by someone trying to sell you something. There is no inate human need to be any of these things. It is 100% created by someone selling you the idea you should be some way you might not yet be; and then being there to sell you the goods to help you be that way.

Then, as soon as it starts to become mainstream, the next generation of cool must be fabricated, in order to keep the assembly lines busy.

Think about Coke. They spend untold millions on advertising. Do you think it is an attempt to reach the 6 people on the planet who are not aware of Coke? It is all about selling the image of cool and looking good, and connecting that to Coke.

You were conditioned to like McD's and are now addicted to it. A little sarcasm there, but with more than a grain of truth. To some degree or another, you were mentally (almost spiritually) manipulated to wanting that goo long before you ever ate it.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley