Due to the fact that the list is long, we didn´t want to place it on the same page so here it goes:
Cultural History & Advertising
• Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. McGraw-Hill, 1976.
• Packard, Vance. The Hidden Persuaders. David McKay Company, 1957.
• Curtis, Adam. The Century of the Self. BBC Documentary, 2002.
• Twitchell, James B. Adcult USA: The Triumph of Advertising in American Culture. Columbia University Press, 1996.
Psychology of Comparison & Self-Objectification
• Festinger, Leon. “A Theory of Social Comparison Processes.” Human Relations, vol. 7, no. 2, 1954, pp. 117–140.
• Fredrickson, Barbara L., and Tomi-Ann Roberts. “Objectification Theory: Toward Understanding Women’s Lived Experiences and Mental Health Risks.” Psychology of Women Quarterly, vol. 21, 1997, pp. 173–206.
• Pyszczynski, Tom, et al. In the Wake of 9/11: The Psychology of Terror. American Psychological Association, 2003 — on existential insecurity and symbolic immortality through cultural validation.
Media & Masculinity
• Katz, Jackson. Tough Guise: Violence, Media & the Crisis in Masculinity. Media Education Foundation, 1999.
• Gill, Rosalind. “Beyond the ‘Sexualization of Culture’ Thesis: An Intersectional Analysis of ‘Sixpacks’, Style and Sexuality in Men’s Magazines.” Sexualities, vol. 12, no. 2, 2009, pp. 137–160.
• Kimmel, Michael. Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. Harper, 2008.
Social Media & Hustle Culture
• Newport, Cal. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. Portfolio, 2019.
• Abidin, Crystal. Internet Celebrity: Understanding Fame Online. Emerald Publishing, 2018.
• Duffy, Brooke Erin. Not Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media, and Aspirational Work. Yale University Press, 2017.
Philosophical and Religious Views on Self-Worth
• The Qur’an: Various Surahs including 16:90 (on justice and kindness), and 49:13 (on equality and dignity of human beings).
• The Bible: Matthew 6:26, Luke 12:15 – teachings on value beyond material accumulation.
• Fromm, Erich. To Have or To Be? Harper & Row, 1976.