WK6 Material culture: Everyday life

“Consumers shop for meaning, not stuff.” – Laura Oswald

In my opinion, this quotation perfectly represents the reality of the modern-day consumer culture. Every day, people visit many different kinds of facilities in order to get the things they so desperately need to keep their lifestyles unaltered. Since I grew up in a small village far north, pretty much unaware of how society copes with itself, this never had any real impact on me, nor did I put much thought into it until a couple of years ago when I moved to a fairly large city.

At first, it was the small, somewhat meaningless things I started to notice. For example, my roommate asked me to get him a tube of toothpaste on my way back from class, but said that he preferred Colgate toothpaste over any other. Since I hadn’t found that particular brand in a store near the student dormitory where I live, and I didn’t want to bother going someplace else, I bought a different one. My roommate didn’t care for my reasoning, so he ended up going to a different grocery store to buy toothpaste. The whole situation seemed incredibly ridiculous to me since I almost never bothered with choosing products based on their brands before, but rather the product’s purpose. However, I too have managed to pick up some of those weird habits over time while living in the city, where there are always too many unnecessary options to choose from.

The first item I am very fond of is a certain brand of crunchy peanut butter. The main reason for it being that it can only be bought at one place, and there’s never enough product in stock. Also, it is delicious, especially paired with apricot jam. So, you could say that, in the spirit of consumerism, I exclusively buy this brand of peanut butter and refuse to disclose any further information on it, other than I always have it in my pantry.

Another item I always seem to find lying around the pantry is tea. Much like a true Brit, I drink tea daily, and although I tolerate lots of different flavors, TeaTime tea packaging is very pleasing to the eye because of its detailed design and simple color combination. Now I can see one reason why consumers would shop for meaning.

The last item I prefer doesn’t have to do with food, but is rather a clothing choice – specifically, ECCO shoes. This brand has an overall simple design, and even though it is not as popular or widely-known as Nike or Adidas, they do make for a comfortable, yet sporty, footwear. Ever since I bought my first ECCO shoes around three years ago, I haven’t gotten a single pair of a different brand. I just can’t get tired of the plain gray colour – nor do I get tired in them!