Quiz 3 Consumer Culture

George Carlin

• Comedian

• We have houses because we have so much stuff

Bruno Latour

• Objects become actants in our identity projects

We ______ ourselves as we _______

• Produce, consumer

• We incorporate things into our sense of self

Identity History

• “Individual” emerged in the Early Modern Period

• Identity was preordained in premodern society

• Rise of capitalism created the need to create one’s own identity

  • possibilities for social mobility

• People should improve their social status through public display of their consumer goods

Identity

• The inner being is split from the outer being

• The outer being plays a “social role” in society

  • Like a mask

• “dual” ontology for individuals

Dramatis Personae

• Characters in a play

Authenticity

• True to our spirit, nature, being, character

• What you claim to be

• Shakespearean Period: It became a major social concern because there were many “pretenders” of a higher status

• Does our outside match our inside?

Alexis de Tocqueville

• French essayist

• Mad scramble for upward mobility using cheap imitations of luxury items

Authenticity and Modernity

• The rise of the “individual”

• Separation of self and person

• Applies to both humans and consumer goods

Relationism and Authenticity

• Through practices, authenticity becomes attached to a person or a thing

• Realness emerges from our practices

Process of Authentication

• Display of ourselves with material culture achieves an authenticity

Self

who we are and how we relate to others

Eric Fromm

• 2 Modes of Human existence: having and being

• Being- precapitalist societies. People were their true selves

• Having- Capitalism. Our consciousness of self comes from what we possess

  • Condemned by social critics, ‘having” prevents true “being”

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

• Stuff in our house becomes part of ourselves because we recognize in it material traces of our use of things

  • We see ourselves in the material traces

• Traces inform us of our consciousness of ourselves

• Our stuff reminds us of who we are

Ian Woodward

• Self (subjective) Identity

• Social (objective) identity

• These two facets creates a duality of identity

  • relates to the problem of individual vs society

• Goods express our identities

  • We know who we are and we buy goods to communicate that identity to others and ourselves

Social Media Identity

• Digital (virtual) versions of one’s self

Multiple Aspects of Self Identity

• Identity we assert for ourselves

• Identity assigned to us by others

• Self and group identities influence each other

Social Identities

• Family

• Education

• Religion

• Age

• Subcultures/alternative lifestyles

• Etc.

Costume and Self

• Important in identifying self because they are visible and intimate

Talismans

Material markers that stand for your group/social identity

Pierre Bourdieu

• Disagreed with Woodward about identity coming first

• Identity emerges from our practices

• Through practices, we accumulate cultural capital

• Consumer goods do not express our identities, they shape them

• Our identity emerges from interactions with goods

Culture Capital

• Non-financial, social assets of value to a particular group or class

• Some of identity capital- we are investing in our individual identities to build up identity capital

  • Accumulated in consumer identity projects

  • Goal of many projects is to acquire identity capital

Contested Identity

• Identity projects are often ambiguous or challenged

• Not sure who we are or how others evaluated us

Consumption (Alfred Gel)

Appropriation of objects into one’s person

Taste Communities

Real and virtual communities (social fields) organized around consumption

Bourdieu: Theory of Taste

• Taste: Developed preference for certain things over alternatives

• Taste preferences are often shared within a group- forming a taste communities

Horizontal Taste Communites

Group equivalency

McQuarrie

Different taste communities can distinguish themselves from other communities

Vertical Taste Community

• One or few “taste leaders”

• Emulated by followers

• Hierarchy

• Created due to anxiety and uncertainty over identity so we seek guidance from others

  • based on product reviews- security comes from conformity

• Taste Leaders: fashion industry, celebrities, and influencers

Digital Microcelebrities

• Subset of influencers

• By posting images or videos of themselves, they attract followers

• Targeted, niche advertising creates an opportunity to influence consumers

• Make alliances with specific companies or even make their own

• They do not just advertise, they publicly consume products in familiar spaces or create how-to videos with products

• Ordinary consumers can acquire a mass audience through social media due to a demotic turn

  • New opportunities for ordinary people to appear in the media

• New leaders of vertical taste communities with distinction over their unknown followers

Bourdieu: Megaphone Effect

• Certain individuals or groups can use a metaphorical megaphone to amplify their voice over others

• This megaphone modernly, is social media

Alfred Gell: Extended Person

• Introjection and Projection go together

  • How we get people-thing relationships, intersubjectivity

  • We project ourselves regularly into our stuff

• Megaphone effect is the projection of the person onto things- extending the range of their person

• Aspects of a person can be extended far behind themselves- even after their deaths

• So personhood is detachable and mobile

  • Identity theft