Spend More to Look Poor: Conspicuous Consumption
In their 2011 work Tonight Tonight, social commentators Hot Chelle Rae describe the phenomenon of obtaining goods and services with insufficient funds. More than a decade—and a global pandemic—later, individuals’ economic situations don’t seem to have changed all that much. Consumerism is rampant in a culture of perceived scarcity, although humans are objectively materially better off than they ever have been. Thanks to social pressures induced by capitalistic marketing, many individuals feel the need to compete with one another to signal status through the consumption of goods. However, these marketing tactics obscure the fact that consumption of goods is not the means of signaling wealth and status that it used to be. Conspicuous consumption is no longer a means of social advancement, but companies that profit off that idea are not doing anything to change people’s perspective, to the detriment of individuals’ finances and the health of the planet. Nowhere is this phenomenon seen more than in the apparel world.
Conspicuous Consumption
Conspicuous consumption is the consumption of goods of higher qualities, prices, or quantities, often used to signal social status to others. This is frequently seen in the modern world through clothing. Whether it’s designer brands, unnecessarily large wardrobes, or flashy objects, clothing is an easy way to signal your status to others in your day-to-day life. With the rise of social media, this status signaling is ever-present and encompasses a wider range of individuals. With this increased exposure comes increased opportunities for social comparison. Social comparison is nothing new, but with social media and the ever-increasing choices made available to us through it, comparison is now unavoidable. As a result, people are going to increasingly more extreme lengths to show the world their social standing, even to the point of deception through renting items, faking experiences, and editing images. This pressure on individuals to showcase a social position that is often beyond their means can have devastating impacts on an individual’s real financial situation.
Economic Stress
The brands that are often associated with luxury and elevated social class are not targeting individuals who can actually afford them; they are targeting lower classes. Rich people don’t buy designer products, and if they do wear them it is often gifted to them or a paid promotion with the brand, so there isn’t a market having them as their sole customers. These brands instead market the idea of luxury and status to people who are insecure in their own social standing. These lower-income individuals then shell out their hard-earned money that could be going toward their necessary expenses or future savings because these brands are exploiting their human need for belonging and social respect by promising an illusion of social mobility through consumption of their products. Not only are they losing their money, in both the present and future, they aren’t even gaining what was promised—what the classes they aspire to emulate have. This not only creates problems for the individuals but for the planet as well.
Environmental Damage
The fast-paced consumerism fueled by social media and the pandemic has given rise to a new era of maximalism where consumers are being fed new products constantly. Brands are finding new ways to create products to sell to consumers to stay relevant with constantly shifting demands. This often leads to cheap, rushed production of products. To achieve this, brands use increasingly cheaper materials that don’t last and underpaid labor that doesn’t hold up. The environmental impacts of fast production, cheap materials, and pieces that often get thrown out are large. Some efforts are being made to give clothes a second life, but due to the quality of the current fashion world and the speed with which demands change, these are not sustainable and have led companies to fail.
Conclusion
The world of conspicuous apparel consumption poses many threats to individuals and the world alike. It robs individuals of the money they need in both the short and long term, harms the planet with its overproduction and wastefulness, and doesn’t even provide what it claims to. Consumers are left poorer than when they started and without any of the goods the upper classes get to have. This article is just the first part of the equation, educating people on the harms conspicuous consumption poses. The next part is explaining a good solution: conspicuous production.
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