Identity Consumerism
As identity politics was to the 70's, identity consumerism is to the 00's. It's the phenomenon of thinking that in buying a product, you're joining a group of like-minded folks (presumably, like-minded in more ways than just liking buying that product). Saturn, the car company, was the first to really effectively exploit this technique, but Apple is currently its dominant practitioner.
posted by Charles P. Everitt at 10:26 AM
3 Comments:
Oh, I forgot to say: I came up with the phrase. Google didn't bring up any previous uses.
I really like the phrase "identity consumer," too, which I will credit to you as well. Reminds me of Cold War body snatchers and such, but, this time, it's us.
Also, would you say that T. Franks was onto this with the counterculture introduced through advertising? What seems different here, is that politics has dropped out of the issue. Ipod doesn't equal open-minded. (I believe this is not in tension with your initiation of the phrase; possibly a further implication?)
Yeah, I mean to be suggesting that this is a replacement for political engagement, not another form of it (it's *not* 'voting with your dollar, another recent form of bourgeois self-expression).
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