What do vegan cordcutters who used to play D&D have in common?
Don’t worry, they’ll tell you. (And so will I.)
Because otherwise, how would you know?
Let me introduce you to the idea of conspicuous non-consumption. It can be seen as the antithesis to Veblen’s conspicuous consumption, where people will buy certain brands or products to show off how awesome they are, but what do you do if that brand sucks?
Well, much like the Road Dogg Jess James, you better call somebody. And tell them, obviously, because how else would they know… how awesome you are, for not buying that thing.
It’s the paradox of non-consumption, that the absence of an action doesn’t communicate the intent. It goes hand-in-hand with things like brand boycotts, where the option to not buy, or experience, or engage, for reasons, as opposed to preference, like I’d watch The Flash if I had the money, or time, or wasn’t sick of superhero movies, but I lack the means.
Conspicuous non-consumption is the vocalization of the un-uttered “I’d prefer not to”, that oft-repeated Zizekian aphorism.
But it goes much further than Zizek takes it in our social media driven, Instagram and TikTok influencer kind of age, where every post is an advertisement (some paid, some not) for that particular brand or product.
So, if you want to send a message to Hasbro, or DC, f’rex, you’d have to do more that just not buy those products, you’d have to let people know.
Conspicuously, of course.
For a point of reference, I’m drawing from the following article on CN-C: Conspicuous non-consumption in tourism: Non-innovation or the innovation of nothing? – Elin Brandi Sørensen, Anne-Mette Hjalager, 2020 (sagepub.com)
I’ll be building out this idea shortly, but in the interest of publishing, and not letting the interminable and never-arriving perfect drive out the immediate good, I’ll post this up for now and we’ll come back to it in a moment or three.
Right now, there’s a handful of threads floating about that I need to bring together…