Consumerism is a social and economic order that encourages the purchase of goods and services in ever-greater amounts. The term is often associated with criticisms of consumption starting with Thorstein Veblen. Veblen's subject of examination, the newly emergent middle class arising at the turn of the twentieth century, comes to full fruition by the end of the twentieth century through the process of globalization.

Sometimes, the term "consumerism" is also used to refer to the consumerists movement, consumer protection or consumer activism, which seeks to protect and inform consumers by requiring such practices as honest packaging and advertising, product guarantees, and improved safety standards. In this sense it is a movement or a set of policies aimed at regulating the products, services, methods, and standards of manufacturers, sellers, and advertisers in the interests of the buyer.

In economics, consumerism refers to economic policies placing emphasis on consumption. In an abstract sense, it is the belief that the free choice of consumers should dictate the economic structure of a society (cf. Producerism, especially in the British sense of the term).

George Denis Patrick Carlin (May 12, 1937 – June 22, 2008) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, actor and writer/author, who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.

Carlin was noted for his black humor as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his "Seven Dirty Words" comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a narrow 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government's power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves.

The first of his fourteen stand-up comedy specials for HBO was filmed in 1977. In 1988, the 1990s and 2000s, Carlin's routines focused on socio-cultural criticism of modern American society. He often commented on contemporary political issues in the United States and satirized the excesses of American culture. His final HBO special, It's Bad for Ya, was filmed less than four months before his death.

Greg Koch (born June 14, 1955 in Bethesda, Maryland) is a former American football tackle and guard who played eleven seasons in the National Football League, mainly with the Green Bay Packers. In 2010, Koch was inducted into the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame. Koch was also inducted into the University of Arkansas Sports Hall of Honor. He is a licensed attorney and a part time radio personality on SportsTalk 790 KBME in Houston, Texas

Koch was a four year letterman at the University of Arkansas. He was a starter for the Arkansas Razorbacks were he was part of the offensive line that blocked for the school record 3,523 rushing yards in 1975. That same season Koch was a First-team All-SWC. Koch played in the All-America Bowl in Tampa, Flida after the 1976 season. Koch was named the Razorback 1970s All-Decade team with offensive linemen R. C. Thielemann, Leotis Harris George Stewart and Greg Kolenda. No one is quite sure whether the urban legend that Koch and Thielemann rode with outlaw motorcycle clubs during the summer while attending Arkansas is in fact true. The two did however, own and operate a tattoo parlor long before it became fashionable.

Mark Dice is an author, media analyst, and political activist based in San Diego, California, who professes conspiratorial beliefs about the New World Order and secret societies stemming from the Illuminati, Bilderberg Group, Skull and Bones, and Bohemian Grove.

Dice and his supporters have been reported to "flood the airwaves of call-in radio and television shows," a practice called phone mobbing, to promote these ideas. His first book, a 450-page manifesto titled, The Resistance Manifesto (2005) details these beliefs.

Mark Dice purports that a global criminal mafia called the Illuminati operates under the cover of various organizations and manipulate political and financial arenas, slowly eroding the Constitution and America’s sovereignty, pushing towards a New World Order global socialized government. This "Illuminati" that he talks about is an alleged corrupt extension of the historical (and real) Illuminati secret society founded in Germany in 1776, but was said to have been stamped out by authorities after their plans to infiltrate and overthrow all state and local governments were discovered. Dice also believes that the New World Order promotes immorality, selfishness, materialism, and purposefully aims to keep the population entertained with television and issues of little significance in order to separate them from the political process, thus allowing the Illuminati to operate without much opposition.

Gad Saad was born in 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. His family emigrated to Montreal, Quebec, Canada in October 1975 to escape the brutality of the Lebanese civil war. Saad is an evolutionary behavioral scientist and Professor of Marketing at the John Molson School of Business (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada). He holds the Concordia University Research Chair in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences and Darwinian Consumption (2008–2013). He was recently appointed an advisory fellow of the Center for Inquiry. Professor Saad has a blog at Psychology Today titled Homo Consumericus.

For much of the past 15 years, Saad's research program has operated at the intersection of evolutionary psychology and consumer behavior. He is the author of The Evolutionary Bases of Consumption (Erlbaum, 2007), The Consuming Instinct: What Juicy Burgers, Ferraris, Pornography, and Gift Giving Reveal About Human Nature (Prometheus Books, 2011), and editor of Evolutionary Psychology in the Business Sciences (Springer, 2011). He has also guest edited a special issue of the journal Futures (Elsevier, 2011) on possible futures of evolutionary psychology across a wide range of disciplines.