Unconscious conformity

It's a concept we hear everyday; the media influences the ways in which we live our lives and in how express who we are. I read my partners blog and her blog consisted of the question of whether it was the media or the audience that made trends and ways of "life." I responded by defending the media and putting fault on us, the audience because I feel the audience is what makes something hot or something not. the media just gives us an idea. In reading chapter two I came across the sentence, " you shall conform, with no instruction as to what;...the power of cultures industry ideology is such that conformity has replaced consciousness" (pg. 25). 

In my youth and even in some of my high school days I conformed to these ideas of beautiful or cool but I had no idea how I even started to do so or when it began. I began to conform without any instruction to do so. No one told me this is how you should dress or what shoes you should by, you're hair should be this color or that length.  It was like it was unconscious. As stated in the book my conformity replaced my consciousness. Towards the end of high school and in college I totally did things my way in terms of getting piercings, changing my hair color, wearing what I felt comfortable in but then I see even then it was a form of conformity. It seems like today it is really hard to look as if you are not conforming  because in one way or another we all really do. We conform based on our jobs, friendships, and relationships. Products we use, cars we drive, magazines we read, or college classes we attend there is a form of conformity. 

I don't have a Facebook or a twitter but I do have an Instagram. I have conformed to a form of social networking. I have an iPhone 5, an iPad, and a Mac laptop. I have conformed to the "way" of technology. I text more than I talk on the phone. I conformed to how my generation communicates. As much as I say, "I am my own person, I am unique, I am woman hear me roar," I have conformed in one way or another. Is there really such a thing as being individual? Has conformity replaced the conscious? What other things have I/you conformed to? Was that intentional?