Originally Posted by
Zou
The genuine truth is I'm most likely to buy a pen if I start watching videos about pens or reading reviews. There's no point over rationalizing it and acting like I'm really making a decision. 99% of the reason to buy something is because something somewhere planted a desire in me to have it, it's not economically hard on me, and I wanted the feeling of desire to go away even if I know that probably my happiness won't increase for very long after acquiring it.
The answer has basically never been that there's anything wrong with the pens I already have or that I'm not satisfied with them. It's honestly the opposite, I like the pens I have, and so I end up engaging in these weird meta activities around the pens.
But yes, of course when I buy a pen I'm either looking for a spare of something I really like or something I haven't tried before that I'm curious about.
What is strange to me is that although traditional advertising has not had a huge impact on my purchasing decisions, these very long user reviews done by people who buy every pen there is and have no right to actually give advice on selecting a pen, because they have never made a selection regarding pens in their life, are somehow extremely effective at making me want a pen. Probably because of the sheer amount of time spent thinking about it.