{"id":42339,"date":"2011-11-25T12:25:40","date_gmt":"2011-11-25T17:25:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=42339"},"modified":"2017-09-17T14:09:51","modified_gmt":"2017-09-17T19:09:51","slug":"on-this-black-friday-ritualized-consumption-dances","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2011\/11\/25\/on-this-black-friday-ritualized-consumption-dances\/","title":{"rendered":"On This Black Friday: Ritualized Consumption Dances"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s that time of year when we savage the world with our unbridled consumerism. If it\u2019s not a\u00a0Black Friday stampede at Target<\/a>, it\u2019s a news story of a shopper who camped out in front of a\u00a0Best Buy for over a week<\/a> to score some discounted gadgets. Everywhere you turn consumers are whipped into a frenzy, children\u2019s eyes are glazed over as they think of what gifts they\u2019ll open, and romantic partners are stressed over what they will give their loved one to demonstrate the depths of their love.<\/p>\n

When consumerism is exaggerated, as it is this time of year, it\u2019s easier to see the cultural scripts and rituals that surround it. These cultural scripts tell us:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. How to feel when we come into a lot of money or even just get a good deal<\/li>\n
  2. How to act when we receive a gift<\/li>\n
  3. And how to impute love from inanimate objects.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    1. The Rapturous Consumer Windfall<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Next to presentations of sex and bad karaoke there is arguably no other scenario played out on television ad nauseam more than the consumer windfall. Turn on your TV right now, and find an advertisement or game show and you will almost certainly see someone falling to their knees, eyes full of tears, as they praise the gods of capitalism for blessing them. \u00a0Bob Barker (er, Drew Carey) play the role of\u00a0Benny Hinn<\/a> in this consumer revival smashing their open palms on the foreheads of game show contestants as they exclaim, \u201cThe. Price. Is. RIGHT!\u201d (Watch at 0:51):*<\/p>\n

    <\/object><\/p>\n

    Television advertising is a wellspring for this type of consumer exaltation. The best example of this consumer rapture is the\u00a0@ChristmasChamp<\/a> campaign from Target. Watch the video below and you tell me; is this woman having a consumer-gasm or what?**<\/p>\n

    <\/object><\/p>\n

    Maybe it\u2019s just me, but this ritualized consumer rapture gives me the heebie geebies.<\/p>\n

    2. The “Show Us What You Got” Photo<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Leaning on the arm of your parent\u2019s love, seat slightly sauced, your aunt turns to you and says lovingly, \u201coh show me what Santa brought you!\u201d After you halfheartedly motion to the pile of loot on the floor she puts her glass down, grabs the family Polaroid and says, \u201cLet\u2019s take a photo to send to [fill in name of absentee relative].\u201d<\/p>\n

    If we were to flip through your family photo albums I bet we\u2019d find page after page of people cheesing with their unwrapped gifts held head level. This obligatory photo is the classic post gift exchange cultural script. Somehow a gift is only properly received when there is a photo to document it.<\/p>\n

    From my point of view, it is strange that we take photos of the things we receive during holidays which are tangible and will be around well after the event. But many of us don\u2019t take photos of the moments with our loved ones that won\u2019t linger and fill up our closets.<\/p>\n

    3. The Hand Dance of Love<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Does he love you? Does your hand show it? The holiday season is a time when many will pop the question and boy do advertisers know it. While the issues surrounding jewelry ads are\u00a0well documented on this site<\/a>, I\u2019d like to talk about the hand dance women are socialized to do\u00a0after<\/em> their love has been verified by an appropriately large shiny rock.\u00a0After a woman says \u201cyes,\u201d she walks around with one arm sticking out like a zombie for the next few months doing the hand dance. This cultural script dictates that women flaunt their recently acquired diamond ring and then all women in their surround give their requisite \u201cOh, that is GORGEOUS!\u201d There is a sad sizing up that goes on here, where women are shamed or praised for the size of ring bestowed upon them.<\/p>\n

    In Conclusion<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

    Most of these cultural scripts and rituals go unnoticed or at the very least unquestioned. These acts are the mechanisms through which we objectify the social world and alienate ourselves from our loved ones. So this year why not participate in Buy Nothing Day<\/a> and double down on some quality time with your loved ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

    ———————————<\/p>\n

    * We should acknowledge that sometimes the people who are receiving these windfalls are desperate and totally deserving. I don\u2019t want to shame or cast dispersions on anyone in this situation, but these are exceptions to the rule.<\/p>\n

    ** Forgive me for sexualizing this, but I mean come on, that\u2019s an apt description. While we are at it, this ad is chock full of sociology. We have an \u201cempowered woman\u201d who uses her power to consume; it\u2019s the classic redirection of feminist energies into consumer. This woman, who appears to be the epitome of the middle class, white, privileged consumer, is flexing her muscles, exerting her power, and being aggressive enough to make Betty Friedan blush\u2026 \u2019cept she is using her power to purchase consumer goods from a capitalist system that creates and maintains her oppression. Maybe it\u2019s just me, but I think feminist scholars would have a (justified) objection if I called this \u201cchamp\u201d a feminist. I dunno.<\/p>\n

    Nathan Palmer\u00a0is a faculty member at\u00a0Georgia Southern University<\/a>, editor-in-chief of\u00a0SociologyInFocus.com<\/a>, and the founder of\u00a0SociologySource.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    It\u2019s that time of year when we savage the world with our unbridled consumerism. If it\u2019s not a\u00a0Black Friday stampede at Target, it\u2019s a news story of a shopper who camped out in front of a\u00a0Best Buy for over a week to score some discounted gadgets. Everywhere you turn consumers are whipped into a frenzy, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,15,98,254,272,23703],"class_list":["post-42339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-consumption","tag-culture","tag-capitalism","tag-holidays","tag-marriagefamily","tag-marketing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42339"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71492,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42339\/revisions\/71492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}