Editing Consumerism (section)

===In the 21st century===
[[File:Dongmen.JPG|thumb|[[McDonald's]] and [[KFC]] restaurants in China]]
[[File:Marinedacity.JPG|thumb|300px|Shopping mall in [[La Coruña]], [[Galicia (Spain)|Galicia]], ([[Spain]]).]]
Madeline Levine criticized what she saw as a large change in [[American culture]] – "a shift away from values of community, [[spirituality]], and [[integrity]], and toward competition, [[Economic materialism|materialism]] and disconnection."<ref>Levine, Madeline. "[http://www.nais.org/publications/ismagazinearticle.cfm?ItemNumber=150274 Challenging the Culture of Affluence]". Independent School. 67.1 (2007): 28–36. {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927060753/http://www.nais.org/publications/ismagazinearticle.cfm?ItemNumber=150274 |date=27 September 2011 }}</ref>

Businesses have realized that wealthy consumers are the most attractive targets of marketing. The upper class's tastes, lifestyles, and preferences trickle down to become the standard for all consumers. The not-so-wealthy consumers can "purchase something new that will speak of their place in the tradition of affluence".<ref>Miller, Eric. ''Attracting the Affluent''. Naperville, Illinois: Financial Sourcebooks, 1990.{{ISBN?}}{{page?|date=December 2024}}</ref> A consumer can have the [[Deferred gratification|instant gratification]] of purchasing an expensive item to improve social status.

Emulation is also a core component of 21st century consumerism. As a general trend, regular consumers seek to emulate those who are above them in the social hierarchy. The poor strive to imitate the wealthy and the wealthy imitate celebrities and other icons. The celebrity endorsement of products can be seen as evidence of the desire of modern consumers to purchase products partly or solely to emulate people of higher social status. This purchasing behavior may co-exist in the mind of a consumer with an image of oneself as being an individualist.

Cultural capital, the intangible social value of goods, is not solely generated by [[Information pollution#Cultural factors|cultural pollution]]. Subcultures also manipulate the value and prevalence of certain commodities through the process of [[bricolage]]. Bricolage is the process by which mainstream products are adopted and transformed by subcultures.<ref>Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. "Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture". Oxford UP, 2001, p. 78</ref> These items develop a function and meaning that differs from their corporate producer's intent. In many cases, commodities that have undergone bricolage often develop political meanings.

For example, Doc Martens, originally [[Marketing|marketed]] as workers boots, gained popularity with the [[punk movement]] and [[AIDS activism]] groups and became symbols of an individual's place in that social group.<ref>Sturken, Marita and Cartwright, Lisa. ''Practices of Looking: An Introduction to Visual Culture''. Oxford UP, 2001, p. 79 {{ISBN?}}</ref> When corporate America recognized the growing popularity of Doc Martens they underwent another change in cultural meaning through counter-bricolage. The widespread sale and marketing of Doc Martens brought the boots back into the mainstream. While corporate America reaped the ever-growing profits of the increasingly expensive boot and those modeled after its style, Doc Martens lost their original political association. Mainstream consumers used Doc Martens and similar items to create an "individualized" sense of [[Consumer identity|identity]] by appropriating statement items from subcultures they admired.

When consumerism is considered as a movement to improve rights and powers of buyers in relation to sellers, there are certain traditional rights and powers of sellers and buyers.<ref>{{cite book|author1=Gary Armstrong|author2=Stewart Adam|author3=Sara Denize|author4=Philip Kotler|title=Principles of Marketing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UKyaBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA463|year=2014|publisher=Pearson Australia|isbn=978-1-4860-0253-5|page=463}}</ref>

The [[American Dream]] has long been associated with consumerism.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Rise of American Consumerism |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/tupperware-consumer/ |publisher=[[PBS]]}}</ref><ref name="americandream"/> According to [[Sierra Club]]'s Dave Tilford, "With less than 5 percent of world population, the U.S. uses one-third of the world's paper, a quarter of the world's oil, 23 percent of the coal, 27 percent of the aluminum, and 19 percent of the copper."<ref>{{cite news |title=Use It and Lose It: The Outsize Effect of U.S. Consumption on the Environment |url=https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/american-consumption-habits/ |work=[[Scientific American]] |date=14 September 2012}}</ref>

China is the world's fastest-growing consumer market.<ref name="americandream">{{cite news |title=The meteoric rise of Chinese consumerism will reshape the world, and maybe even destroy it |url=https://qz.com/994345/the-meteoric-rise-of-chinese-consumerism-will-reshape-the-world-and-maybe-even-destroy-it/ |work=Quartz |date=4 June 2017}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=China to surpass US as world's biggest consumer market this year |url=https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/China-to-surpass-US-as-world-s-biggest-consumer-market-this-year |work=Nikkei Asian Review |date=24 January 2019}}</ref> According to biologist [[Paul R. Ehrlich]], "If everyone consumed resources at the US level, you will need another four or five Earths."<ref>{{Cite news|last=McKie|first=Robin|date=25 February 2017|title=Biologists think 50% of species will be facing extinction by the end of the century|language=en-GB|work=The Observer|url=https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/feb/25/half-all-species-extinct-end-century-vatican-conference|access-date=11 March 2023|issn=0029-7712}}</ref>

With the development of the economy, consumers' awareness of protecting their rights and interests is growing, and consumer demand is growing. Online commerce has expanded the consumer market and enhanced consumer information and market transparency. Digital fields not only bring advantages and convenience but also cause many problems and increase the opportunities for consumers to suffer damage.

Under the virtual network environment, on the one hand, consumers' privacy protection is vulnerable to infringement, driven by the development of hacker technology and the Internet, on the other hand, consumers' right to know is the basic right of consumers. When purchasing goods and receiving services, we need the real situation of institutional services. Finally, in the Internet era, consumers' demand is increasing, and we also need to protect consumers' rights and interests to improve consumers' rights and interests and promote the operation of the economic market.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kucuk |first=S. Umit |date=14 March 2016 |title=Consumerism in the Digital Age |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/joca.12101 |journal=Journal of Consumer Affairs |volume=50 |issue=3 |pages=515–538 |doi=10.1111/joca.12101 |issn=0022-0078|hdl=10.1111/joca.12101 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

==== Socially mediated political consumerism ====
{{also|Consumerism and social media}}
Today's society has entered the era of entertainment and the Internet. Most people spend more time browsing on mobile phones than face-to-face. The convenience of social media has a subtle impact on the public and unconsciously changes people's consumption habits. The socialized Internet is gradually developing, such as Twitter, websites, news and social media, with sharing and participation as the core, consumers share product information and opinions through social media.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Boulianne |first=Shelley |date=31 December 2021 |title=Socially mediated political consumerism |journal=Information, Communication & Society |volume=25 |issue=5 |language=en |pages=609–617 |doi=10.1080/1369118X.2021.2020872 |s2cid=245621126 |issn=1369-118X|doi-access=free }}</ref> At the same time, by understanding the reputation of the brand on social media, consumers can easily change their original attitude towards the brand. The information provided by social media helps consumers shorten the time of thinking about products and decision-making, so as to improve consumers' initiative in purchase decision-making and improve consumers' shopping and decision-making quality to a certain extent.