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1002:2022:3.2 [2022/07/19 01:08] – external edit 127.0.0.11002:2022:3.2 [2022/08/15 21:54] (current) – [Haul of mirrors] Ryan Schram (admin)
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 **Other reading:** Marx ([1867] 1972) **Other reading:** Marx ([1867] 1972)
 +
 +
 +
 +===== Global experiences =====
 +
 +
 +{{:store-screen.jpg|A hallway in World Square}}
 +===== The arcades of Sydney =====
 +
 +A slogan for World Square is “Quench your thirst for global experiences at World Square.”
 +
 +{{:store-courtyard1.jpg|A courtyard in World Square, downtown Sydney}}
 +
 +===== The world at your doorstep =====
 +
 +{{:store-courtyard2.jpg|Storefronts in World Square, downtown Sydney}}
 +
 +===== Tune in next time… =====
 +
 +{{:comingsoon.jpg|A temporary wall as advertisement in World Square, downtown Sydney}}
 +
 +===== We got apples =====
 +
 +{{:apple.jpg|Apples on display in a supermarket at World Square.}}
 +
 +===== And carrots =====
 +
 +{{:carrot.jpg|Prepacked carrots on display in a supermarket at World Square}}
 +
 +===== From our kitchen to yours =====
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 +{{:marion.jpg|A shelf of boxes of readymade mixes}}
 +
 +===== Food is sacred =====
 +
 +{{:sacred.jpg|A shelf of boxes of various dried beans and grains, each bearing a label, “Food is sacred”}}
 +
 +===== Daigou [代购], personal shoppers or “model consumers”? =====
 +
 +Daigou [代购] purchase goods on behalf of overseas clients, and document their purchasing online (Xiao and Mantesso 2019; Zhou 2017).
 +
 +They also produce live streams while they shop, watched by many more than just their customers.
 +
 +Like the beauty bloggers examined by Woronov (2016), daigou present themselves as “everyday experts” in the world of luxury consumption.
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 +  * They are “experts” at being bourgeois individuals.
 +  * The expanding consumer culture of the urban middle class of China has created a space in which they offer themselves as role models: “model consumers” (Woronov 2016).
 +
 +===== Haul of mirrors =====
 +
 +“Haul videos” on Youtube allow us to see daigou in a wider frame.
 +
 +* Destiny Marie, dir. 2022. //I Spent Over 2,000 Dollars Shopping (Haul)//. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gZR4yQTQKg. (This example may in fact be satire, but if it is, it’s good.)
 +
 +The producers of haul videos merely display what they have bought, emphasizing the sheer quantity and the total spent, like a score.
 +
 +You can score points on social media, either as a daigou, blogger, or haul-video maker, but who benefits?
 +
 +  * The fame one earns as a model bourgeois individual is also work.
 +  * Shopping media cultivates the proper ethos of individualism in audiences.
 +
 +===== Individualism is learned =====
 +
 +Media texts about shopping, and the experience of shopping, provide a structure—a template—which we learn to apply to other domains.
 +
 +  * Hospital care
 +  * University education
 +
 +===== There is no such thing as modernity =====
 +
 +The conventional view of history is that every society moves from tradition to modernity, from a state of constraint to one of individual freedom.
 +
 +In this view, consumption is simply a realization of the individual’s freedom to choose.
 +
 +Yet look at how much effort is needed to suppress awareness of social relations, and to teach people to be the right kind of individual.
  
 ===== References and further reading ===== ===== References and further reading =====
 +
  
 Marx, Karl. (1867) 1972. “Capital, Vol. 1 [Selections].” In //The Marx-Engels Reader//, edited by Robert C. Tucker, 309–43. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. Marx, Karl. (1867) 1972. “Capital, Vol. 1 [Selections].” In //The Marx-Engels Reader//, edited by Robert C. Tucker, 309–43. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
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 West, Paige. 2012. “Village Coffee.” In //From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea//, 101–29. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. West, Paige. 2012. “Village Coffee.” In //From Modern Production to Imagined Primitive: The Social World of Coffee from Papua New Guinea//, 101–29. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
  
 +
 +Woronov, T. E. 2016. “‘Model Consumers’: Beauty Bloggers, Everyday Experts, and Governmentality in Urban China.” In //New Mentalities of Government in China//. Routledge.
 +
 +Xiao, Bang and Sean Mantesso. 2019. “‘You Must Embrace Them’: Inside the Billion-Dollar Daigou Industry.” ABC News, July 30, 2019. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-31/chinese-daigou-changing-influencing-australian-business/11221498.
 +
 +
 +Zhou, Christina. 2017. “Why China Is Tuning in to Live Streams from Aussie Shops.” ABC News, September 1, 2017. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-09-02/daigou-gift-shops-products-for-china/8812336.
  
  
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1002/2022/3.2.1658218121.txt.gz · Last modified: 2022/07/19 01:08 by 127.0.0.1