consumer culture
Shop-till-you-drop mentality
Consumer culture is a social order organized around the acquisition and display of goods.
Identity, status, and satisfaction flow through purchasing rather than making, inheriting, or simply being.
The phrase typically carries critical weight, implying that buying has displaced other values: Consumer culture has turned Christmas into a shopping marathon.
Also called consumerism, though that word has additional meanings.
- commodificationTransforming into sellable goods
- materialismPrioritizing goods over spirit
- capitalismPrivate profit-based economy
- keeping up with the JonesesStriving to match neighbors' lifestyle
- affluenzaMaterialism's emotional cost
status symbols · commodity fetishism · branding · greenwashing · free market · buy now pay later · alienation · critical theory · postmodernism · disposable income · brand loyalty · spending · impulse · shopping mall · credit cards · resource depletion · status · advertising
- 20th century cultureRoaring Twenties, Jazz Age, Great Depression, baby boom, counterculture
- pop artpop art, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, soup cans, screenprint
- postwar eraMarshall Plan, prosperity, reconstruction, Cold War, iron curtain
- Suburban Themessuburban life, American Dream, domesticity, home ownership, neighborhood
- economic historystock market crash, Industrial Revolution, trade routes, Great Depression, gold standard
- Modern FranceCharles de Gaulle, National Assembly, French politics, National Front, far right
consumer culturefrugality
Economical resource management
thrift · austerity · penny-pinching · minimalism · anticonsumerism
consumer cultureanti-materialism
Opposition to prioritizing possessions
spiritualism · monasticism · essentialism · intentional living · counterculture
consumer culturemaker culture
Do-it-yourself creation movement
DIY culture · homesteading · self-sufficiency · agrarianism · cottage industry
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