An actual person created the non-Haitian zombie motif, and that person was film maker George Romero when he made the film Night of the Living Dead (1968) in Pittsburgh. The fat zombie in his underwear trying to break into the farmhouse was one of my high school English teachers.

Night was huge. It cost $114,000 to make and grossed many tens of millions of dollars. The more expensive sequel Dawn of the Dead (1978) takes place as a few people barricade themselves in a Pittsburgh shopping mall, and it is explicitly about consumerism. It was an even bigger success. To this day I can't walk into a shopping mall and not think about that film. The 2004 remake was good too, but it wasn't made by George Romero who made a string of related zombie films with the same motif. My favorite of those is Land of the Dead from 2005. It has Dennis Hopper in it.

But yes, the late George Romero is the go to guy for this subject, and the one who gets the credit for creating the motif.