The consumer society

Bookmarked Notes on Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society (1970) by Rob (Marginal Utility Annex)

Baudrillard’s basic premise in The Consumer Society is that the logic of exchange value in consumption has rendered all activities equal

“When we consume, we never do it on our own (the isolated consumer is the carefully maintained illusion of the ideological discourse on consumption). Consumers are mutually implicated, despite themselves, in a general system of exchange and in the production of coded values.”

— Jean Baudrillard

See also: How we feel about what we consume

Performing yourself on social media

The draw of the herd

The vulnerability of having taste

 

The world of goods treats consumers as a group in order to classify them into different statuses, but the individuals within the group feel no collective impulse; have no sense of being a part of a group – so the process is impervious to collective resistance.

See also:

Packaging people for corporate consumption

Preserving our rights from corporations

Finding enough together

 

Meta note: I’m never clear what of older theory remains worth reading, but also, what I’m interested enough to read. It is here I feel my lack of liberal arts background — I’m taking notes of references to older works, so if one seems to come up again and again I can check it out. That’s what has me interested in McLuhan for media, but I might also be interested in exploring deeper the literature on culture.