Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Consumed


trainers

To consume:

1. to eat up
2. to completely destroy
3. to engage or dominate (often passive)
4. to use up

As a consumer, I blog my new trainers. I like them. I consume them/they consume me…part of a train of thought that I embarked upon when I wanted a bookshelf on the sidebar of my blog. My intention was to be able to share what I’m reading (listening to) with my friends and readers. The provider, gives the default header of “3 things I’m consuming”, and I must admit to feeling a little uneasy with this. I subsequently re-worded the header “interest” and then “interests” – but it’s still not quite right.

Of course 43 things’ default header is quite accurate – these are indeed things I’m consuming. You buy them from a shop or order them from Amazon. I consume therefore I am. At the same time I have deeply ambivalent feelings about being positioned as a consumer in a consumer society in which everything gets trashed (definition 2) or spent (definition 4).

But still, I like my trainers…maybe I should eat them before they eat me...

5 comments:

Joolz said...

Nice side bar.
Are you consuming books or is that different?
If it is worthy, is that still consumerism?

Kate said...

I bought a far worse thing.
A Jacket from Pollyanna.
I shop therefore I am.

Guy Merchant said...

Back to Bourdieu: 'pure taste is nothing other than a refusal, a disgust, a disgust for objects which impose enjoyment and a disgust for the crude, vulgar taste which revels in this imposed enjoymment.' Are academics who write about popular culture always stranded between a value system inflected by notions of 'pure taste' and one founded on the pleasure of consumption?

Guy Merchant said...

Back to Bourdieu: 'pure taste is nothing other than a refusal, a disgust, a disgust for objects which impose enjoyment and a disgust for the crude, vulgar taste which revels in this imposed enjoymment.' Are academics who write about popular culture always stranded between a value system inflected by notions of 'pure taste' and one founded on the pleasure of consumption?

Guy Merchant said...

*blush* I double-posted...probably because it was so deep and meaningful.