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The term "consumerism" was first presented by Sidney A. Reeve (engineer and economist, in his book Modern Economic Tendencies - 1921). He referred to it as how industries and companies tend to look for what their consumers want to increase their profit. This was one of the first times in which this concept was used to represent how our society creates exercise consumption.

The idea of consumption by the population started in World War 1, but became more common in the US around the 1920s. Before that, people consumed mostly what was necessary (food, shelter, clothing). However, over the years, our consumption increased massively, and looking for products that we need to survive turned into buying things we won't even use.

After WW2, this process intensified even more.

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“We need things consumed, burned up, replaced, and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate,” retail analyst Victor Lebow remarked in 1955.

This quote shows the linear system of production/consumption (materials economy), where there is a constant rate of consumption and disposal. This was first noticed by Victor Lebow in 1955, which shows how this process was already apparent even 70 years ago. Also, he indicates that this process happens quickly, and will continue to happen even faster with time.

The overall evolution of consumerism can be represented by: It first started to appear in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

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This image talks about how consumerism controls humans, representing MNCs such as Amazon or Adidas and their workers "drilling" on our brains. This is a metaphor to explain how consuming is a way for these brands to have control over us, "consuming" our brains.

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1. Social isolation/less human interactions: This is primarily due to automation, which means that normal interactions such as going to the grocery store will be replaced by machines. This does mean that some small businesses can take advantage of the less automated way of working and opt for face-to-face interactions. On the other hand, it might be hard to compete with larger companies with automated systems.

2. Possible more sustainable supply chain: This has already been happening especially with smaller companies that choose morally correct ways to produce and sell their products. One example of this is the brand Patagonia, that had been investing in this idea for a while now.

3. Better integration/globalization: With the growth of consumerism, the world becomes more connected. Also, companies look for ways to synchronize products in order to create a chain of connected products that creates a bigger desire for consumption. One example of this is the "Apple ecosystem".

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This image is a visual representation of the evolution of consumerism. It compares the lifestyle (road of life), or the way people led their lives in 1919 and 2019. In 1919 we see that their life is more focused on values. On the other hand, in 2019, it was based purely on consumption. People live their lives working towards materialistic ideas, such as a Ferrari or a new phone. This shows us how consumerism has evolved, and how nowadays it takes an important part in people's lives.

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Tiles vs. Apple: The relashionship between companies and consumerim 

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Tiles vs. Apple: The relashionship between companies and consumerim 

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Tiles was a company founded in 2012 that sold trackers for various items. In April 2021, Apple released "Airtags" with the same purpose of tile's products. This made the company almost bankrupt, as they now had a much bigger and stronger competition.

This shows how much companies depend on consumerism, but there are behaviors caused by this process that can lead to problems in those same companies. This happened in the example Tiles x Apple, because the of way the desire for consumption that creates consumerism acted upon the reason why people went from buying from tiles to apple. Apple uses consumerism to grow and deepen the roots of its company by assuming the consumers will submit to their ecosystem, leading the fall of others who can't compete.

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Make the linear system circular, since the problem is that people think the Earth’s resources are endless, and that we can just keep extracting materials from it to then just throw them away and repeat, destroying our planet. We can make it circular by reusing the materials we would be throwing away, or at least part of it, in a way that we can transform them into materials that can be reused for something else.

Become more aware of how it truly works, so we can make more responsible decisions and reduce waste, decreasing our carbon footprint and creating a more sustainable future. (mindful consumption)

“One way to practice mindful consumption is to ask ourselves the following questions before making a purchase:

- Do I really need this?

- Is this product made ethically and sustainably?

- Can I find a more eco-friendly alternative?

- Will this product bring me long-term joy and satisfaction?

For example, instead of buying new clothes every season, we can opt for high-quality, timeless pieces that will last for years. We can also choose to buy from ethical and sustainable fashion brands that use eco-friendly materials and pay fair wages to their workers.”

In addition, we can try to use only materials that are biodegradable, such as paper bags and water bottles instead of plastic, composting our organic waste, etc.

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1.  Functional consumption:

Definition: Consuming things that you actually need and that make your life easier.

Examples: Groceries, clothes to keep you warm, a bike for transportation…

2. Symbolic consumption:

Definition: Consuming things that make you feel like you belong, expressing your identity, making you fit in, etc. This can also extend to an experience that makes you feel more like yourself.

Examples: Buying luxury items to represent your prestige, a shirt that expresses your true self (e.g. a gay pride shirt if you’re gay).

3. Experiential consumption: spending on doing rather than having

Definition: Consuming experiences and good moments.

Examples: Travelling, having dinner at a nice restaurant, spa treatments…

4. Conspicuous consumption:

Definition: Consuming expensive things you don’t need simply because you want to show off and make others feel bad or look up to you.

Examples: Buying products from exclusive brands, having a car collection…

5. Digital consumption:

Definition: Consuming using online platforms.

Examples: Buying products online, watching movies with subscriptions, and engaging with social media platforms.

6. Compulsive consumption:

Definition: Consuming uncontrollably, having a shopping addiction, often resulting in economic and emotional distress, as it is driven more by psychological problems rather than the actual need to shop.

Examples: There is a sale at Sephora and you just can’t help yourself from buying everything, mostly things you don’t even need and will probably use very few times before moving on to the next big thing.

7. Collaborative consumption:

Definition: Consuming with another person/sharing what you pay for, also giving people a sense of community while consuming. *good way to help the environment.

Examples: Sharing an Uber, a big meal, an apartment…

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How can we make the changes happen - what's stopping them from happening is economic desires

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How can we make the changes happen - what's stopping them from happening is economic desires

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Specialized repair services, in which companies could offer to help fix someone’s problem with their product, so we don’t have to constantly buy newer models. This way, it would reduce waste and expand the lifespan of our products.

Upcycling or repurposing, in a way that you’d take discarded goods and turn them into something new and more valuable, creating less waste.

Example: Clothing brands like Patagonia are offering for you to return your clothes after you were going to throw them away so they can reuse the materials.

Product-as-a-Service model (PaaS), where companies would “rent” their products like services, offering them per use so people don’t have to straight up own them for only half of their capacity to be used, encouraging companies to design products that are durable, repairable, and long-lasting.

Examples: Renting suits, which in most cases, aren’t worn that much and cost a lot of money.

Collaborative consumption, where you’d have something normally used by only one person be used by more than one person, creates more balance and sustainability since you’re wasting less.

Examples: Shared Uber rides (less air pollution), shared apartments…

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1. Biological cycle: for products used for consumption.

2. Technical cycle: for products used for services.

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The consumer society being talked about in the song “Material Girl”, by Madonna

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The consumer society being talked about in the song “Material Girl”, by Madonna

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By making a whole song about this and singing these lyrics, Madonna owns up to the consumer society, and that she is a material girl in a material world, admitting that she is part of this society, where everything is about consuming and materials.

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This graph shows the life cycle of products, and how it has an introduction, then its exposure and sales grow, reach an all-time high, and then the next thing comes out, and the sales and profits decline, because of how many new products are constantly being released.

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Strategies used by companies to increase consumerism

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Strategies used by companies to increase consumerism

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Advertising: Advertising is used to sell more products by making them a symbol of how up-to-date and how cool/trendy we are. They make us want to buy everything that comes out, by flashing it all over social media and making us feel like we need it through influencers, so we all buy it, use it once or twice, and then the next thing comes out, and this cycle repeats itself forever.

This image shows a tik tok filming a PR haul of what she has received from brands in just 2 weeks, showing how much these brands are using social media to advertise their new products, sending insane amounts of things to influencers, and it works, sometimes going viral on the internet and becoming super famous, so everyone feels the need to buy it. These influencers even use specific hashtags to get more views on the video and give the products further exposure, such as #fyp; #Beautytok…

Perceived obsolescence: When companies come out with slightly different and improved versions of products that already existed, then they advertise it as much as possible for everyone to buy it so they can come out with a newer model and the same thing happens over and over again.

Example: Apple releases the iPhone 13, which instantly goes viral on social media, so now everyone HAS to have it or they’re considered not trendy or even poor, so people buy it. A few months later, Apple released the iPhone 14, and now suddenly everyone NEEDS to have that one, and they just throw the other one away.

Planned obsolescence: Companies release products with a purposely short lifespan, so people will have just bought a product, and just a short period after, it will have broken down and they’ll need to throw that one away to get a new one.

Example: My grandma had a car that lasted her 20 years with no problems. I, however, had a car that lasted me 7 years, and I took as much care of it as she did. - This happens because of planned obsolescence, so the company planned that your newer car would stop functioning quickly so you would have to get a new one.

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The text describes the consumption situation, and all of its hidden truths. It tells us how 56% of our closet isn't used, and how the average woman spends 17 minutes per day to choose an outfit, but end up picking the same thing everyday. Also, it describes all the ways we waste and harm to have so many clothes for such a cheap price. For example, sweatshops, which are places in under-developed countries where they have massive unsafe factories for workers that don't have rights or fair wages to produce and the smallest price possible. These sweatshops are used by big fast fashion companies, which have a lot of options with frequent changes for very low prices. These conditions often result in harm to these workers, both financially and physically, as when they try to protest, they are beaten, and the structure of the buildings they work in are so bad, major accidents have happened, such as Rana Plaza. In 2013, Rana Plaza, a building in Bangladesh with poor construction fell and hurt, killing aprox. 1300 people and injuring 2500. When these accidents happen, workers expect changes in the system, but they rarely happen. After the Rana Plaza incident, workers got a little raise in their wages, but 5 years later, it dropped again. "And so the cycle closes. Half of your closet unused. And on the other side of the world, people producing the new piece that will go into your closet for 30 reais and soon after will be forgotten. And there you go shopping again." From this passage of the text, we are able to infer that they author is referring to the consumer society, and the need that we feel to always purchase new things to try them once and forget about them in the back of our closets.

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A cell phone that we buy is just an example of what our society has become, a consumer society. Every year companies like Apple launch new phones, and every year our society feels the need to buy the new version of the iPhone, even if there is just a minor difference between them. And this happens because companies know how to increase their sales, they do that by advertising, perceived obsolescence, and planned obsolescence.

Apple uses their advertisement to attract new customers and old customers do purchase the new iPhone every year. Their advertisements are made by video clips, influencers unboxing their new purchases, and their accessories to this purchase. For example, for this year's new iPhone, the iPhone 15 Pro Max, Apple made an elaborate video clip (​​https://www.youtube.com/) advertising the iPhone. In this video, they say that it is made with titanium, can film videos of high-end quality, and has a new button that can be configured to do anything you want. So, these new factors in the iPhone and the way the company influences society makes us have the feeling of needing to get the new product to make us feel better. Even though our current iPhone is working perfectly well, in one year we will be getting, again, the new version of the iPhone. And with the phone, come the multiple cases, the foil, that often breaks, and other accessories to your iPhone.

Perceived obsolescence is used to make people buy these new products because of their feeling of need, which is caused by the advertisements that make us feel unsatisfied with what we already have. And in this Apple advertisement people feel the need to get the new iPhone that has it's camera quality like a movie camera.

And the last strategy used to increase sales is planned obsolescence, which is when companies shorten the lifespan of the product. In the case of the iPhones, we can observe that in a year, a year and a half, the battery of our phones each time charges less. That is the reason that Apple makes the batteries to last a shorter period so we have to buy a new iPhone every year.

Lastly, there are the accessories we buy with the iPhone, for example, the charger, the card holder, the case, and other things to make it seem more elaborate. In this video, we see a girl who just got the new iPhone 15 and all the accessories she got to come with it, claiming they are “essential”. In addition, we know that each one of the accessories was custom-made to this certain iPhone design, showing how much extra harm is done because of just 1 new product.

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Phone accessories and how these habits are shared through social media

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Phone accessories and how these habits are shared through social media

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In this video, we see a girl who just got the new iPhone 15 and all the accessories she got to come with it, claiming they are “essential”. In addition, we know that each one of the accessories was custom-made to this certain iPhone design, showing how much extra harm is done because of just 1 new product.

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The True Cost. A documentary that talks about how the consumer society affects the people who make it and how it affects the environment.

The Fashion Industry was the first one to take advantage of production decentralization, their production is divided in developing countries in small portions, so the production of these items are cheaper and have less limitations. These site productions of big companies are called Sweatshops, they usually produce clothes for brands that are a part of the Fast Fashion Industry. Fast Fashion means to have a huge variety of products, that are replaced every week, has quick production, and small batches. But nowadays, we have seen Ultrafast Fashion.

As we see the documentary, we can analyze that the Fast Fashion, and the Ultrafast Fashion system is harmful, both to the environment and to the people who work in these sweatshops.

Firstly, the environment is harmed by Ultrafast Fashion, because of the raw materials that are taken from nature constantly and transformed into products that nature can't recognise. Making it nearly impossible to decompose. Also, the fact that industries pollute rivers, oceans, lands, etc.

Lastly, the harm that is made to the workers that make these products. They work in unstable and unhealthy conditions. In Bangladesh, the main location that industries look for when looking for production decentralization, there are numerous accidents on the sweatshops. For example, Rana Plaza, one of the most marking catastrophes in the Fashion Industry. In April 2013, the Rana plaza located in Bangladesh had one of its floors imploded. Many of the workers that were working in this sweatshop died, and many were injured. The main victims were workers from sweatshops that operated in the building and whose clients included around 40 international clothing brands. It was one of the biggest incidents in the fashion industry recorded. They fight for minimal work conditions, and a raise on their salary, but they are mostly never heard.

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Sustainable consumption is consuming and producing products that are sustainable, therefore, products that don't pollute the environment in its process of producing and degradation. According to ONU, the goal of sustainable consumption is to encourage each time more sustainable consumption and production patterns, that can be made by various measures, like, including specific policies and international agreements of the management of materials that are toxic to the environment.

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https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/sustainable-development-goals/why-do-sustainable-development-goals-matter/goal-12#:~:text=Sustainable%20Development%20Goal%2012%20encourages,are%20toxic%20to%20the%20environment

https://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-perceived-obsolescence-definition-examples.html#:~:text=In%20economics%2C%20the%20perceived%20obsolescence,longer%20useful%20in%20this%20context.

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/suny-mcc-childdevelopment/chapter/marketing-and-advertising-influence-on-consumer-behavior/#:~:text=Advertisers%20persuade%20people%20to%20buy,and%20what%20not%20to%20purchase.

https://www.iberdrola.com/sustainability/planned-obsolescence#:~:text=Planned%20obsolescence%20describes%20the%20practice,been%20banned%20in%20some%20countries.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X22000550

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/conspicuous-consumption.asp#:~:text=Conspicuous%20consumption%20is%20the%20purchase,members%20of%20a%20person's%20class.

https://www.aemark.org/esic/2017/Theinfluenceofsymbolicconsumptiononexperience.pdf

https://www.igi-global.com/dictionary/symbolic-consumption-in-the-online-world/39339#:~:text=interpretive%20process%20by%20which%20people,and%20expression%20of%20an%20identity.

https://www.repositorio.ufop.br/handle/123456789/12912

https://www.york.ac.uk/media/economics/documents/seminars/RationalAddictionRevisited7.pdf

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/collaborative-consumption.asp#:~:text=Collaborative%20consumption%20is%20the%20shared,good%20and%20bear%20its%20cost.

https://www.wired.com/story/tile-trackers-apple-airtags/

https://study.com/learn/lesson/what-is-consumerism-examples-history.html#:~:text=History%20and%20Growth,-Of%20course%2C%20humans&text=Consumerism%20as%20we%20recognize%20it,during%20the%20Second%20Industrial%20Revolution.

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/a-brief-history-of-consumer-culture/

https://digitalcommons.sacredheart.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2171&context=acadfest

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-consumer/

https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/03/13/21st-century-consumers-will-change-capitalism-for-the-better?ppccampaignID=&ppcadID=&ppcgclID=&ppccampaignID=&ppcadID=&ppcgclID=&utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=19495686130&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwlN6wBhCcARIsAKZvD5jVuP2msd8NKHTLtnIEW_adS_oaJisGtWMJVJuOu6Ysmxa-MUKjh-UaAsT0EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/07/06/four-predictions-on-the-future-of-consumerism/?sh=b269102aa80b

https://medium.com/design-council/the-future-of-consumerism-rent-repair-reuse-bef53812b4ac

Text: "You only use 44% of your closet"

The True Cost: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/truecost?autoplay=1