Consumerism

LessonSOC 86 – Popular CultureRobert 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.

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What gives people an identity?

The conditions in which identities form have changed in recent years.

Capitalism and popular culture changed identity formation.

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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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.

In this regard, the body is objectified, subject to constant modification, and governable to the logic of commodities (Featherstone 2008).

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identity=appearance

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.

Now, individuals invest in bodily appearances so as to establish, enhance, or maintain their self-identity (Giddens 1991).

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Consuming = Identity ConstructionWhat 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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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.

Overall, half the nation’s richest country say they cannot afford everything they need! Which half are we talking about?

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From Conspicuous Consumption to …

Veblen argued that in affluent societies spending becomes the vehicle through which people establish social position.

Conspicuous consumption.

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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Rich spent conspicuously as a personal advertisement, to secure a place in the social hierarchy.

Everyone else stood below and watched and to the extent possible, emulated those in the class above.

Consumption was a trickle down process with those below emulating those above.

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Intensification of Competitive ConsumptionAt 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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Competitive Upscale ConsumptionAn 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.

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Case study: Apple

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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.

Though intangible, the brand is infused throughout all facets of a corporation, its culture, communications, products, and services.

What does Apple’s brand mean to you?

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.

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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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).

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.

Sentimentalism, especially in commercials that promote the FaceTime app, which promises to enrich one’s relationships with others.

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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.

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.

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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Communicating with CommoditiesLack 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.

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.

What people spend both reflects social inequalities and helps to reproduce and even create those distinctions.

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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?

We use the first list, visibly, the others we don’t. Competitive spending revolves around socially visible products.

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Personal IdentityWhile 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. 20

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.

Credit card tips tend to be higher than cash tips.

What else do we buy with debt?

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houses

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Irrationality of it All 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 $75,000Why 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?

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hoarding

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?

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Where is the dividing line between hoarding and collecting?

Where does a consumerist society fit in to this?

Hoarding or compulsive buying could only take place in a consumerist society that encourages endless consumption.

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Our newest holidays promote consuming

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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.

Capitalism sustained indefinitely!

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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.

In this context we understand ourselves as consumers foremost rather than members of society.

where does this leave our democracy?

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