Intro CC 1

Vocabulary flashcards covering foundational concepts, theoretical viewpoints, and historical debates in consumer culture.

Consumer Culture

The way in which the consumption of goods, services, and brands structures social actions and interpersonal relations.

Consumerism

Defined by Sassatelli (2007) as a continuous and unremitting search for new, fashionable but superfluous things.

Consumer Culture (Marxian Definition)

Part of the lived experience within capitalism where daily needs and desires are both produced and addressed within the marketplace, and where people relate to each other as representatives and owners of goods and services.

Cultural Expectation of Pleasure (Žižek)

The structural demand in consumer culture that individuals must constantly experience increased levels of pleasure through consumption, making the pursuit of enjoyment a cultural mandate rather than a spontaneous act.

Reproducibility of Consumer Culture

The process described by Campbell (1987) wherein consumer desire is grounded in fantasy, daydreaming, and yearning for desire itself, trapping consumers in a spiral of never-ending and never fully satisfying consumption.

Subjectification Condition (Bauman)

The premise formulated by Zygmunt Bauman (2007) that becoming a subject within consumer culture requires an individual to first become an object that can be consumed.

Irony of Consumer Culture

The structural contradiction wherein consumers strive to express individual identity and uniqueness through the purchase of mass-produced goods worn and owned by millions of others.

Consumer Tribes

Collectives formed around shared consumption practices and experiences that run counter to individualism, capable of exerting power over corporations and resisting hegemonic market practices.

Productivism Perspective

The historical account arguing that consumer culture emerged directly from the Industrial Revolution, which separated work from home life and positioned domestic consumption as a reward for labor.

Consumer Society Perspective

The historical view advanced by Frank Trentmann (2016) asserting that consumption predated the Industrial Revolution and actively shaped modern history rather than merely resulting from industrial production.

La Xocolatada

A 1710 Spanish social custom of public chocolate consumption cited by Frank Trentmann to demonstrate that consumer culture existed long before the Industrial Revolution.

Ethical Consumption (Historical)

The mobilization of consumer choices for political and moral causes, illustrated in the 1820s by English glass bowls promoting sugar not made by slaves.

Mundane Materiality

Trentmann's approach examining how everyday material objects shape daily habits, routines, and lived practices, contrasting with traditional views centered purely on individual desire and status competition.

Consumer Culture Theory (CCT)

A research field defined by Arnould and Thompson (2018) that examines the heterogeneous distribution of meanings and overlapping cultural groupings within globalization and market capitalism.

Consumerism

A continuous and unremitting search for new, fashionable but superfluous things, as defined by Sassatelli (2007).

Consumer Culture

A system wherein the consumption of goods, services, and brands structures social actions and interpersonal relations (SAGE Key Concepts Series).

Lived Experience within Capitalism (Marx)

An aspect of consumer culture where daily needs and desires are produced and addressed within the marketplace, and people relate to each other as representatives and owners of goods and services.

Mandatory Enjoyment (Žižek)

The cultural expectation generated by consumer culture that individuals must constantly experience increased levels of pleasure, meaning the pursuit of enjoyment does not arise spontaneously ('the more you have, the more you want').

Reproducibility of Consumer Culture (Campbell, 1987)

The mechanism whereby consumer culture sustains itself through romanticist fantasy, yearning, and daydreaming, where what is desired is desire itself, creating a self-perpetuating spiral of never-ending consumption.

Subject-to-Object Precondition (Bauman, 2007)

The premise that a requirement for becoming a subject of consumer culture is that an individual must simultaneously become an object that can be consumed.

Irony of Consumer Culture

The paradox wherein consumers attempt to express unique individual identities through goods (such as fashion) that are mass-produced and worn by large numbers of other people.

Consumer Tribes

Collectives formed around shared consumption practices and experiences that run counter to individualism, possessing the capacity to exert power over corporations, redefine consumption, and resist hegemonic practices.

Productivism Perspective

The historical viewpoint arguing that the Industrial Revolution created consumer culture by separating the home from the workplace and establishing consumption in the domestic sphere as a reward for work.

Consumer Society Perspective (Trentmann, 2016)

The historical perspective arguing that consumption existed long before the Industrial Revolution and actively helped shape it, rather than merely being its passive byproduct.

Mundane Materiality (Trentmann)

An analytical focus in consumer history on how everyday physical objects alter daily habits, routines, and lived practices, shifting attention away from status-seeking individual desires.

Consumer Culture Theory (CCT)

A field of research defined by Arnould and Thompson (2018) that examines the heterogeneous distribution of meanings and overlapping cultural groupings within globalization and market capitalism.