CONSUMERISM
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Lesson
SOC 86 – Popular Culture
Robert Wonser
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Whereas consumption is an act that
people engage in, sociologists
understand consumerism to be a
characteristic of society, and a
powerful ideology that frames the
world view, values, relationships,
identities, and behavior of those who
live in a society of consumers.
WHAT GIVES PEOPLE
AN IDENTITY?
The conditions in which identities form
have changed in recent years.
A central feature of contemporary
society, then, has been the gradual
erosion of traditional bases from which
settled identities may develop, including
old scripts of work, religion, family, and
community.
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Capitalism and popular culture changed
identity formation.
CONSTRUCTING
IDENTITY TODAY
Mounting literature has also
highlighted the significance of a
growing consumer culture to
provide the means necessary
for constructing an identity
within contemporary society.
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In this regard, the body is
objectified, subject to constant
modification, and governable
to the logic of commodities
(Featherstone 2008).
IDENTITY=APPEARANCE
Now, individuals invest in bodily
appearances so as to establish,
enhance, or maintain their self-identity
(Giddens 1991).
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Distinct from previous eras, identity has
become subject to the principles of
the market whereby products and
status symbols are actively sought
within a burgeoning consumer culture
to invest in one’s image.
What we acquire and own is tightly bound to our
personal identity.
Competitive acquisition has long been an
American institution.
Comparisons we make are no longer restricted to
those in our own general earnings category,
today we are more likely to be making
comparisons with or choose as our “reference
group” people whose incomes are three, four,
or five times his or her own – pop culture’s
influence.
Advertising and the media have stretched our
reference groups vertically, built on relentless
ratcheting up of standards.
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CONSUMING = IDENTITY
CONSTRUCTION
HOW BAD IS IT?
27% of all households making more than
$100,000 a year say they cannot afford
to buy everything they really need.
• Nearly 20% say they “spend nearly all their
income on the basic necessities of life”
In the 50-100k range, 39% and ⅓ feel this
way respectively.
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Overall, half the nation’s richest country
say they cannot afford everything they
need! Which half are we talking about?
From Conspicuous
Consumption to …
Veblen argued that in affluent societies
spending becomes the vehicle
through which people establish social
position.
This conspicuous display of wealth and
leisure is the marker that reveals a
man’s income to the outside world.
wives? Ornamental; used to display
a man’s finest purchases….
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Conspicuous consumption.
Rich spent conspicuously as a
personal advertisement, to secure
a place in the social hierarchy.
Consumption was a trickle down
process with those below emulating
those above.
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Everyone else stood below and
watched and to the extent
possible, emulated those in the
class above.
At a minimum: average persons spending
increased 30% between 1979-1995.
Economic trend: diverging income
distribution.
Sociological trend: upward shift in
consumer aspirations and the vertical
stretching out of reference groups.
Growing income inequality yet more of us
aspiring to ‘make it.’
In short, 4/5ths of Americans were
relegated to earning even less than the
people they looked up to, who were
now earning and spending more.
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INTENSIFICATION OF
COMPETITIVE CONSUMPTION
COMPETITIVE UPSCALE
CONSUMPTION
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An accident? Nope…
The escalating lifestyles of the most affluent and
the need that many others felt to meet that
standard, irrespective of their financial ability
to maintain such a lifestyle.
American consumers are often not conscious of
being motivated by social status and are far
more likely to attribute such a motive to others
than to themselves.
We have high levels of psychological denial
about the connection between our buying
habits and the social statements they make.
CASE STUDY: APPLE
Apple makes consumer products like computers,
tablets and phones. What makes apple different?
Apple’s 98 billion dollar brand.
A brand is a vision, a vocabulary, a corporate ethos,
and a story, but most importantly, it is a promise.
What does Apple’s brand mean to you?
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Though intangible, the brand is infused throughout all
facets of a corporation, its culture, communications,
products, and services.
It is the sum total of a person’s
experience with a company, its
advertising, those in its employ, and
the products or services that it
offers.
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Brands do the work of connecting a
corporation to the outside world
and to consumers, but ultimately, it
exists only within the mind of the
consumer.
Key ideas from Apple’s ads
over the years:
“Think Different”
“Silhouettes” (suggest that using Apple products can
help one be youthful, daring, adventurous, fun, and
hip).
Sentimentalism, especially in commercials that
promote the FaceTime app, which promises to
enrich one’s relationships with others.
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The ability to enrich and express themselves
intellectually and artistically—especially through
iPads—by using apps to create skillfully rendered
audio-visual presentations, to compose and perform
music, or to guide one through preparing a posh
dinner party. The suggestions is that by using Apple
products to such ends, one can inhabit a cultured,
learned, cosmopolitan identity.
Apple has been exceptional throughout its
corporate history at responding to these desires
by promising us the cultural capital that goes
along with being a revered intellect, artist, or on
trend consumers; the social capital that comes
from sharing our creations and experiences with
others; and, the economic capital earned
through what we do with the product.
In a society of consumers, in which we are all
constantly engaged in the process of marketing
and selling ourselves, that is an exceptionally
compelling promise.
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The success of Apple’s brand is that speaks not just
to what the product can do, but who we can
be if we use them.
COMMUNICATING
WITH COMMODITIES
Lack of desire, like desire, is a social construct.
Traditionally consumer desires were prompted by
exposure to the possessions and lifestyles of a
reference group—a comparison group located
nearby in the social hierarchy.
What people spend both reflects social
inequalities and helps to reproduce and even
create those distinctions.
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We construct our personal identity in relation to
these social groups, thereby creating a social
identity. Even those of you who shun your
associations with these identities can be fitted
into a category of similar individualists.
WHEN SPENDING
BECOMES YOU
Clothes, cars, watches, living room
furniture, and lipsticks are well-known
purveyors of social position.
Furnaces, mattresses, bedroom curtains,
foundation powders, and bank
accounts are not. What’s the
difference?
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We use the first list, visibly, the others we
don’t. Competitive spending revolves
around socially visible products.
While most experience these tastes as just being
themselves, they are actually being a lot like everyone
else.
Personal identity does not exist prior to the social world, it
comes into being with it.
• Ex: higher the status of a brand, the more closely
people associated their self image with it.
It is when traditional markers of identity and position begin
to break down that spending comes to the fore as a
more powerful determinant of social status.
Worth noting: a significant number of branded and highly
advertised products, there are no quality differences
discernable to consumers with the labels removed; and
Variation in prices typically exceeds variation in quality,
with the difference being in part a status premium.
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PERSONAL IDENTITY
PURCHASING
WITH DEBT
Debtors pay an average of $1,000
a year in interest fees alone.
Credit card link is Pavlovian:
Adding the MC logo causes
people to spend more.
What else do we buy with debt?
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Credit card tips tend to be higher
than cash tips.
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HOUSES
IRRATIONALITY OF IT
ALL
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If we measure our satisfaction by how well
we are doing compared to others, general
increases in affluence do not raise our
personal satisfaction (as mounting
evidence shows).
Maxes out at $75,000
Why do we participate then? Psychological
factors, and both social and economic
forces keep us in the system.
Technology – how fast does it improve?
With widespread adoption it becomes a
necessity even if we forgo it.
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SATISFACTION AND INCOME
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HAPPINESS AND INCOME
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A BETTER
ALTERNATIVE?
HOARDING
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Compulsive hoarding (more
accurately described as "hoarding
disorder”) is a pattern of behavior
that is characterized by the excessive
acquisition of and inability or
unwillingness to discard large
quantities of objects that cover the
living areas of the home and cause
significant distress or impairment.
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AN INDIVIDUAL PROBLEM?
Where is the dividing
line between
hoarding and
collecting?
Hoarding or
compulsive buying
could only take
place in a
consumerist society
that encourages
endless
consumption.
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Where does a
consumerist society
fit in to this?
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OUR NEWEST HOLIDAYS
PROMOTE CONSUMING
A WEEK DEVOTED TO
CONSUMERISM
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Let’s check out what the week
surrounding Thanksgiving holds.
WHAT ARE WE LEFT
WITH?
The alienation and dissatisfaction
engendered by the pseudo-freedom
imposed on us by consumer culture has
led to an inexpressible malaise and
resentment.
To be remedied by purchasing things.
Things that don’t fulfill leaving us wanting
and willing to buy again later.
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Capitalism sustained indefinitely!
In a society of consumers, the social ties that bind
communities and groups together are weak,
and people understand responsibility to be
primarily to and for oneself, rather than to and
for others.
In the place of communities and groups, people
come together and disperse quickly as
“swarms” around consumer spaces and trends.
The characteristics of a society of consumers bear
implications for the possibility of true
democracy, and for the state of ethics and
morals in today’s world.
where does this leave our democracy?
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In this context we understand ourselves as
consumers foremost rather than members of
society.