Moving from conspicuous consumption to conscious living this Christmas

Ask a Filipino millennial or Gen Z what “Black Friday” is, and they will probably say that it is practically synonymous with shopping.

- LIZA MAE L. FUMAR

Black Friday is indeed tied to shopping. It falls on the day after Thanksgiving and is the biggest shopping day of the year in the United States, Interestingly, Filipino social media feeds also become rife with Black Friday deals as soon as November rolls in. We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but that’s no reason not to embrace yet another reason (or excuse) to shop. Moreover, shopping isn’t just about acquiring things that we need. It is also about being seen buying. How many times have we been guilty of using #budol on our social media posts?

This is conspicuous consumption, a term coined by economist Thorstein Veblen in 1899 in his work, The Theory of the Leisure Class, which describes how people use their purchase behavior to signal wealth and prestige, even when it is impractical. It’s when people buy a 700+ horsepower luxury car, even when they cannot fully experience its speed given the EDSA traffic, or when two people order every entrée from the menu of a fine dining restaurant, knowing that they wouldn’t be able to finish it. Apparently, flexing has been around for more than 100 years, and it has just been made easier with social media.