Is the Consumption of Free Things Still Consumerism?
Is there a tendency to not think of the constant and sizable downloading and following and reading about music as ‘consumption’ and therefore not as ‘consumerism’? Does the fact that most music is now essentially free make consuming it seem less of a bad habit than the purchasing of physical objects? I’d be broke in two weeks if I bought the same amount of sneakers each week as albums I downloaded at no cost (or if I bought all those albums!). This obsessive pursuit of new content and the pushing thereof by media outlets — not just albums and songs, but album art and tracklists and news and tweets — is that not consumerism?
