IDEAS

YOU ARE WHAT YOU SHOP

the new you in meta-verse consumption

By Min Ji Kim 

It’s always been true. What you buy is who you are. Whether you are consuming food, clothes, cars or houses, it all paints a picture of who you are. This isn’t something new, but a part of our culture since the beginning of the 20th century and what we might call the “Age of Consumption.” And if the 20th century was bad, the 21st seems to be the worst and you can see it everywhere: in television shows, the marketplace, and the emerging meta-verse.

Black Mirror & Instagram

We are currently living in a world where we can create our own identities. The episode “Nosedive” from the Netflix television series, Black Mirror is a great example of how our consumption is all about identity and self-presentation “episode” depicts a world where every action we take, every word we say every facial expression we make is rated and becomes part of our identity.

Get your number

The protagonist, Lacie Pound, starts to act in ways that will boost her identity rating, behaving not only in ways that will elicit favourable reactions from other people but also in ways that directly mimic the highest-ranked players. These numbers establish levels, creating a boundary between each rank and limiting what each person can do or buy. In “Nosedive”, Lacie tries to increase her number to get the house she wants. But, is this world only visible in dystopian television shows? Social media has greater power than we think. Every number of followers and likes on Instagram are treated as equivalent to a person's popularity and maybe, more accurately, worth.

Black Mirror clearly shows that our identities are a product of online tools. The way we choose to use Instagram or Facebook creates a large part of our identity. The tv series is incredibly canny about the way they present this dilemma, as Lacie behaves in ways that are completely controlled by consumption. Who she really hardly matters.

Vogue 3D shopping experience

People used to buy everything in physical stores, but for years they’ve been shifting to online websites. And during the COVID-19 pandemic, when consumers couldn’t go to stores, the fashion industry explored different methods of shopping. In Emily Farra’s profile in Vogue, she claims Catherine Holstein, the creative director of KHAITE has brought AR and film together to create a new way of shopping. The idea is that a remote site takes over your cell phone’s camera and lets you explore their shoe collection using AR.

Buy this

The fact that you access it through a simple link makes it accessible to anyone. You can go to Rodeo Drive without ever leaving your home. AR transfers the offline experience into the online. As Holstein explains, “It’s about making online shopping more of an experience.”

As consumer culture adapts more to advanced technologies, the shopping experience will become easier and easier and the issue of consumption and identity will become much more entangled, is this really a good thing? My guess is probably not. In a creepy way, it is the possibility that you are what you consume. This technology is not only growing and becoming more advanced but also trying to create a shopping experience that eventually becomes the world. It's akin to the dystopian fears of the Matrix, that the online world will become so much more satisfying than actual life.

Nike’s RTFKT (“artifact”) - fashion in meta-verse

Consumption is not only happening on our phones but also in the 3D virtual world of the metaverse. It is crazy to see where this world is going towards. As the virtual world is grabbing more attention, people are starting to invest their money in Non-fungible tokens (NFT), which is how you purchase assets such as digital artworks. Nike has acquired RTFKT, which is pronounced as “artifact”, that specializes in digital sneakers. RTFKT sold $3.1 million worth of NFT sneakers within just seven minutes, which demonstrates the economic and cultural potential of the RTFKT bringing a whole new perspective of what digital assets can be, but also how the industry might change the very rules of the game of how we live.

The future of Nike

But is this really the future that we want? We are dominated by the forces of consumption in all their forms: TV commercials, advertisement pop-ups, influencers and celebrities to promote not only what we should purchase, but who we are.

Within the advanced technologies, these advertisements are being personalized just for you, but you have to wonder in the end if there will be any of you left. Perhaps our entire lives will be lived online in a consuming frenzy.

©Min Ji Kim and the CCA Arts Review