Celeste Oon - Supplemental Post #1

Hi all! The readings about consumption this week made me think primarily of two things: firstly, this recent TikTok from Kim Kardashian where she displayed her lavish wealth and luxurious lifestyle. Expectedly, it generated online discourse about “acceptable” levels of wealth and jokes about “class warfare.” (I would love to hear what people’s reactions to this video were.) Dyer spoke about conspicuous consumption as a class/status marker (p. 38), which I felt was very fitting.

Secondly, I found this point to be quite intriguing: “stars imply that not only success but money is worth having… [S]tars as successes can be seen as affirming ‘in fantasised form’ wage earning, selling one’s labour power on the market, as a worthwhile goal in life” (Dyer, pp. 42-43). Of course, selling the idea of money, wages, and labor is critical to upholding consumerism. I feel that in recent years, there has been a large push towards entrepreneurship on social media, an attempt to sell the idea of accessible wealth to the masses. There are individuals who have gained a following by selling their strategies for income generation (dropshipping, affiliate marketing, renting, selling courses, etc). While these people are by no means stars or celebrities (but perhaps… niche micro-influencers? People of Influence?), I think it is interesting to consider how tenets of neoliberalism form the foundations of this “self-made” rhetoric. Stars (especially those who are “discovered” through their talents), can represent this same sort of potential on a much larger scale. That this is a potential (or fantasy, as Dyer puts it) is important, I feel, because it must seem realistic enough to be attainable, yet maintain some level of elusivity (hence, the ordinary-but-extraordinary model).

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