Consumption In Consumer Culture

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The discussion about consumption studies has grown tremendously in recent times. As a consumer, it is important to understand how consumption is socially significant and symbolically powerful in our consumer culture. Our choices of consumption, such as: brands, goods quality, and price of the goods), is a non-verbal way of communication to indicate our social status and taste. In other words, we tend to purchases goods that can define ourselves and tell a bit about our background and personalities through observation in the process of interaction. As an International student from Hong Kong, my consumption and spending habit can possibly be explained by the following three sociological themes and concepts, and they can be seen as: sociological …show more content…

Like McGracken’s “The Diderot Effect”, he points out that “we seek to maintain a consistent moral and aesthetic quality( Pointof purchase p.30)”. Using this concept with reference to my shopping experience at Lululemon Athletica last week, I purchased a yoga mat and some yoga outfits; and, not surprisingly, it was a costly deal. It comes to a question that why am I still purchase at Lululemon? The answer can be simply explained by McGracken’s Diderot effect because I kept striving to upgrade my yoga clothing, for better quality and better branding, in comparing with my previous consumption at Abercrombie and Fitch. Furthermore, it cannot be denied that Lululemon offers a variety of well-cutting yoga products with their printed brand’s logo that can be seen as a way of expressing consumer’s taste and social status. It is worth to mention that Lululemon wearers able to ‘stand out’ aesthetically within the class as I realized that there is always an unconscious ‘outfit-competition’ going on among individuals in yoga classes, especially for the young-aged group. Yoga players, in their inner-heart, tend to make comparison with other classmates’ yoga outfit as well as to define other’s social class by evaluating one’s yoga outfits and related products. Overall, I believe that individuals have never-ending needs to consume on “upgrade” goods; thus, it is critical to place self-restraints on competitive consumption to some

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