Having grown-up in the 60s and 70s in Connecticut thus being raised by Yankees who were both wise investors and simultaneously cheap I followed a similar set of behaviors.

Of course, in them their olden times we were still considered citizens instead of doing our part as consumers. As hungry vampire-like consumers we and everybody else did our duty by buying stuff. We forgot we were citizens, but I won’t go into the boring-tale-of-woe lecture about the reasons.

As a cheap Yankee I learned strategies for repelling products that were maybe good ones advertised on tv. Now with products that are click bait that intrigue me I actually use a writing tool, wow — I mean a pen or pencil to write down the name of the product. I put it somewhere, where I might find it again. I might even think about said product -if i really need it and blah, blah, blah, apply other egghead type criteria like being an AI camera examining the “product” from every possible angle, etc. Okay — a tad nerdy too. I don’t use Google anymore to do research, ’cause the way i figure it — since they’re using predatory capitalism on me, I’m defending myself from their BS by using predatory citizenship on them.

Interested in reading more flotsam on this topic: https://the-kai9.medium.com/predatory-citizenship-a-treatise-not-on-resistance-2115ef8b4323