What I’m seeing from the comments so far is that people are so used to advertising as a part of their lives that they can’t even conceive of a world that might be different, and they blindly dismiss any challenge to the system that produced them. Your example of Thanksgiving dinner, however, is a perfect illustration of what I am trying to say. You can center your idea of a good Thanksgiving meal around the brands your family uses to cook with — brands used by millions of people, brands which do nothing to distinguish your dinner from a million Thanksgivings elsewhere — or you can can center your concept of a good Thanksgiving meal around your family’s recipes and serving traditions: the one-in-a-million things that make your Thanksgiving a unique, special, personal experience.

Facebook and other marketers have trained you to anchor your identity and your relationships around brands, brands which homogenize us and steal attention away from the intangible qualities of life that really can make our experiences fun, memorable, and unique. Compare life today to life just 150, 100, or even 50 ago, and you will see that although people are a tad more prosperous now (or maybe a tad less, in the 50 year category), they have lost their diversity, they have given up their sense of place and sense of identity, and most tragically, they have given up the ability to dream and their courage to try and change the world around them.

Advertising in 2010 is everywhere, yes — so you can just give up and say it’s inevitable, or you can take a stand against it. The first step is as easy as quitting Facebook. Your choice is between letting yourself be defined by the world of advertising around you, or building yourself from within to become a person who helps shape the world.

Also, I do have meaningful relationships outside of Facebook as well. Just because I have a Facebook doesn’t mean I use it as my only way of communicating with people.

And, almost every event in life has a bit of advertising. When I go home for Thanksgiving I’m aware of the products my grandmother uses to make dinner (Butterball, Ocean Spray, Green Giant, Lindmann’s, etc.) I’m not saying that my grandmother is promoting those brands; however it definitely influences me in the items I choose to buy. Yes, if I’m buying canned veggies, I will get Green Giant, and I would probably buy a Butterball turkey when I host my first Thanksgiving.

How about when you’re spending time with friends? I know when I get together with my girlfriends we talk about the products we use, the hair stylists we go to, and the movies we see. In a way, that’s kind of like advertising.

What about events? When I go to a play or another school event, we usually use a portion of the time to plug another event. Isn’t that like advertising too?

Advertising is everywhere – even in our personal relationships. So what if it’s on Facebook? I usually pay more attention to my messages than the advertisements anyway.

The internet provides countless alternatives for sending messages, keeping in touch, and sharing photos. I do all of those things, but I do them on my terms, as an individual, instead of prostituting myself at Facebook for the sake of these simple tools.

Being used to a consumerist culture is no excuse for accepting it. In fact, that should be an urgent warning sign. Advertising works by familiarity, by making you used to something. You might not pay any attention to it when it appears, but when you go to the store, will you buy the product with the name you recognize, or the one you’ve never heard of? Does the fact that a company paid money to publicize the familiar product make that product better?

If you view Facebook’s commercialized culture as normal, then you will not understand how destructive it is until you are able to see or imagine the alternative: a life structured around purpose rather than products — a life that is vanishing. Being a fan of a musician is little different than becoming the fan of any other product. The global music industry is worth $40 billion. You’re still defining yourself by what you are a fan of, rather than by who you are, what you have done, and what you hope to do. Facebook makes no provision for those concepts. Facebook is a community of 400 million people who are relentlessly taught to define themselves by other people’s products, ideas, and money, while forgetting whatever might have come from inside themselves — and for what? Keeping in touch? Sharing photos? That’s nothing but a minor enhancement of email.