HTIC: Stuck From Birth

We don't even get a break when we're children: the media starts imposing things on us from day one.  There is loads of good commentary on this, but I'd recommend the video on Feminist Frequency .  Implanted in us at an early age is the idea that girls need these pretty things and that boys need to make the world for themselves.  Even as preschoolers we have it pushed on us that females are second class and only really there to serve and support men until its time to get married, then its up to the man to pay for everything or else he doesn't really love you.  Fundamentally, the way the corporations infiltrate childrens' minds is violating, but if you're too young to know you're being manipulated, who can stop them?
As we get older, its easier to prey on people with guilt, shame, or proposing their lives will be better if they just do X.  Teenagers get sold how to fit in and look "normal", which is its own giant bag of bullshit.  Girls continue to get the short end of the stick because if they doesn't fit into certain archetypes then they straight up don't exist. Some of the what we get pushed to just accept are certain hygiene standards, being submissive, having to be a certain type of pretty, even how we're supposed to behave sexually is commodified and sold to us.
Once the teenage market starts getting becoming relevant to where you are in life it loses most of the subversive touch, its stops implying that this is how you should act and just presents how you're to be molded as the only option.  Sexual education programs in schools are sponsored by the same companies that sell extra whitening toothpaste, deodorant and leg razors.  After school specials only show girls that fit the desired future consumer mold having a decent life.  Even "alternative" people are regulated, and its handled to only properly be a phase.  At the hands of the media, we're encouraged to hate ourselves, fear our natural bodies, and conform to things that make your life expensive and miserable.  We're even sold an overpriced and disrespectful death at the hand of social norms.
There is one advantage that we do have: as soon as you decide to pull back from the vortex of consumerism, you can start pulling apart all of the damage its done.  Online, there are huge libraries of counter-culture information about how to quit living by the corporate blade and most big cities will have some kind of anarchist group.  It will never be too late to take charge of your own life, and there will never be a better time then the present.

How to influence change: part 1

As soon as any one person steps outside of the general media sphere of influence, socially, politically or ideologically, then they start to see the flaws in the corporate governed lives we're conditioned to want.  By realizing that we're given this really specific idea of happiness to conform to, the ideal means of changing your life to be how you would want it should be easy: cut out the parts that are false and useless.  Only when one goes to try do they get to see how deep rooted and culturally ingrained all of the lies and conditioning go.

Its in the little details, its the little things that you probably don't notice.

Its the fact we have to pay to live, period.
Its how people somehow got the mindset that paying more for something means its better.

Its how we get told that not showering everyday and wearing your clothes more than once is filthy

Its how white straight teeth mean someone is better, no basis for better, just better.

Its how a slightly messy house isn't lived in, its slovenly and a sign of a lower class person

Its how social classes matter at all.

Its how all little girls for some reason want diamonds and big weddings

Its how not having a car makes you poor

Its how body hair is dirty

Its how some girls are sluts...just because they're sluts

Its how a date not paying for the meal and everything else was a bad date; even if you enjoyed yourself

How is it we get these silly ideas in our heads that were probably never directly told to us, but we feel some driving urge to conform to?  More importantly, how do we break free from them?  With all of the bullshit being fed to us so subtly, Its up to those who want change to have an active voice in making it happen.  We can't just be fed things we don't want and accept it.  If we want a better future, we can't wait for someone else to make it happen:  we have to fix it for ourselves.