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Consumption
Ian Hudson
Mark Hudson
polity
Copyright page
Copyright © Ian Hudson and Mark Hudson 2021
The right of Ian Hudson and Mark Hudson to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2021 by Polity Press
Polity Press
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Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK
Polity Press
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3537-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-3538-5 (pb)
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hudson, Ian, 1967- author. | Hudson, Mark, 1971 June 27- author.
Title: Consumption / Ian Hudson, Mark Hudson.
Description: Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA : Polity Press, 2021. | Series: What is political economy? | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “A crystal-clear guide to how consumption greases the wheels of modern capitalism”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020024396 (print) | LCCN 2020024397 (ebook) | ISBN 9781509535378 (hardback) | ISBN 9781509535385 (paperback) | ISBN 9781509535392 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Consumption (Economics) | Capitalism.
Classification: LCC HB801 .H83 2021 (print) | LCC HB801 (ebook) | DDC 339.4/7--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024396
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020024397
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Acknowledgements
This book benefited tremendously from the behind-the-scenes work of talented people whose names don’t appear anywhere on the front cover. We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading and helpful comments. The team at Polity, particularly George Owers, Julia Davies, Evie Deavall, and Caroline Richmond, were also constructive and patient as we went through the writing process. Finally we would like to extend a huge thank you to our three excellent research assistants: Katherine Burley, Rylan Ramnarace and Jillian Stefanson. The money to hire them came from the Undergraduate Research Award program and the Faculty of Arts’ Global Political Economy Research Fund, University of Manitoba.
1The Meanings of Consumption
Coachella is a music and arts festival that happens every April in the city of Indio, California. Coachella is so cool, so self-explanatory that the answer to the number one question on the website’s FAQ “But Why?” is “Because.” Its 2019 music headliners featured heavy hitters such as Ariana Grande. It puts the festive in festival with the Pantene Styling Lounge, which encourages people to “be at the top of your content game & get your hair styled with glittery gold accessories,” and the “Sound + Sun = Fun” experience, where “Wearing Bose Frames & pairing them with your phone doesn’t just give you music for hours & style for miles – it also unlocks exclusive audio content in the official Coachella app.” Its 2019 sponsor list runs from Absolut and Amazon to Uber and YouTube. The UK’s Sun deemed Coachella “one of the most ‘FOMO’-inducing events of the year” (Wakefield, 2019). For those, like ourselves, who need the urban dictionary to understand even outdated terms, FOMO is fear of missing out – the anxiety you experience from missing a crucial event, often brought on by viewing posts on social media.
Part of the story of Coachella revolves around the importance of the festival as a vehicle for marketing. The sponsors not only appear prominently on the webpage but they are integrated into the very event itself, putting their names on parties and activities. This may represent a change from some concerts of the distant past, such as Woodstock, but this marketing path has been well travelled by big events such as Lolapalooza, which debuted way back in 1991.
What is also notable about Coachella and many similar culturally important events is that they are no longer merely events that people enjoy as consumers. They are also inputs into the production of something that had barely been conceived when Lolapalooza first grunged its way on stage. The 2019 Coachella festival was attended by the likes of Kendall Jenner, Olivia Culpo, Hailey Bieber, Gigi Hadid and Emma Chamberlain, some of the biggest influencers in the world. To take one from the list, Emma Chamberlain is an eighteen-year-old who, in 2019, had 8 million YouTube subscribers and another 7.7 million followers on Instagram. By some estimates she was earning around $2 million from the ads on her YouTube channel alone (Lorenz, 2019). Her product, distributed on social networks such as Instagram, YouTube and Twitter, is herself, or at least an infotainment version of her life. Influencers like Chamberlain make money by signing contracts with brands eager to have their products associated with people’s real life stories. Of course, the more followers an influencer has, and the better able they are to create sales for their sponsors, the bigger the contract. Chamberlain, for example, has a partnership with Hollister, which involves her posing for Instagram posts in its clothes. Our interest in their daily lives really functions – from their point of view and that of their sponsoring companies – only to make us into more enthusiastic consumers.
