According to the wikipedia, Consumerism is the equating of personal happiness with the purchasing of material possessions and consumption.
We all know that consumption and production are related with one another. As we are looking for the relationship between consumerism and culture, we have to know the cathedral of consumption as well as the cathedrals of production. First, we have to know it from our local perspective then we have to see it from the global perspective. Because, every production is now spreading all over the world and people are also used to consume those as a global consumer. Thus, we can see the effect of globalization as well.
As a Bangladeshi, we are used to eat rice as our main food. This is the basic need of the people of this area. Few Bangladeshi is not used to eat rice as main food. Therefore, huge amounts of consumption are created. To manage this huge amount of consumption any country needs to have a big production on this very commodity. We can see a huge production of rice in Bangladesh. Therefore, a culture is automatically created between the processes of this production. I mean, the whole settings of producing rice create a culture. For example, we can see some festivals like ‘NABANNA UTSHAB’ in our country during the later part of this production process.
Other way, Americans are used to eat wheat as their main food. As they are to consume wheat, they are to produce it or import it from other countries. By the settings of wheat production they develop a different culture from those who produce rice. The culture consists of their living style, talks, films, songs, festivals and many other things. For an example: USA, UK, China, India, Russia, Australia and many other countries have their own culture, some common consumption and some unique consumption.
The main question is whether consumption influences the culture or culture influences the consumption.
From my point of view, consumption and culture both influence each others.
Earlier, the culture was mostly responsible for the change of consumerism. Then a culture was created by some religious belief or any kind of belief and it made some rules for the society. The impact was so vast that people were hardly able to get rid of it. Therefore, they used to react in their consumption, production and many other activities.
But, now-a-days culture is getting more dependent on consumption.
For an example: we can see a lot of Chinese and Thai restaurants in our cities and towns. Young generations are very attracted to those restaurants. These types of restaurants are giving them more satisfaction than the native one. Especially these restaurants provide fast foods which were not very common in 15 to 20 years ago. However, these fast foods entered to our consumption.
Some big companies have their franchise in many countries. For an example: Pizza Hut, American Burger, Dominos Pizza etc. The so-called elite class is grabbing these things. They are not just consuming those things but also grabbing a different culture from it. These fast food restaurants are also becoming a dating place for the couples who might have went to any open park or riverside. The consumption of this commodity has changed many things of our culture.
About 15 years ago, satellite channels were not common scenario in Bangladesh. Then people were used to enjoy Bengali songs, drama and films. Whenever the satellite becomes common people gradually started to divert their choices from Bangladeshi programs into foreign programs especially Hindi. The effect of this diversion falls into the culture of any country. Especially, Hindi serials have made our women so addicted that they can afford anything but not to miss a serial.
Sometimes, consumerism is becoming the identity of a person. Example: two friends are talking with one another.
Friend 01: what is your number?
Friend 02: 01711555555. I am the member of GP family. What is your number?
What can we see from the conversation above? A mobile number is becoming the identity of a person. This is the consumer culture at a glance.
Finally, it is very clear that, consumerism has a huge effect on culture. Therefore, it is referred to as culture.
We can remember the statement of Anna Lappe,
"Every time you spend money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world you want."
Photo: web