Consumer Apathy

There are two senses in which the consumption activity of individuals tends to be described as apathetic. The term consumer apathy is sometimes used in marketing studies and financial journalism to classify certain forms of consumption decision making that result in consumers failing to respond to marketing messages. More generally, notions of consumer apathy are invoked in the context of political and ethical critiques of consumer culture, especially those discussing barriers to change in the nature of contemporary consumption in the developed world.

As an occasionally invoked marketing term, consumer apathy is used in a contestably apolitical manner to describe the tendency of consumers to resist changing from one product or brand to another. Similarly, consumers might be described as apathetic if they eschew particular forms of consumption activity (such as online shopping) or refuse to purchase certain products or brands for reasons of unfamiliarity, suspicion, or “laziness.” Used in this manner, consumer apathy merely describes, albeit in pejorative language, a key aspect of consumer behavior: our tendency to consume habitually in the sense of becoming comfortable with known products, brands, and ways of shopping. For marketers, this presents as a problematic of consumer complacency in which the adoption by individuals of new products or new ways of consuming is undercut either by their consumption habits or by a consumer malaise whereby individuals feel overwhelmed by consumer choice and marketing messages and thus stick to familiar consumption practices.

Beyond the realm of marketing there is a much more widespread concern with consumer apathy in contemporary critical literature on consumer culture and among activists and advocates involved in movements for sustainability and responsible consumption. Here, apathy is once again understood as a complacency by individual consumers (and by consuming populations) toward change and alternative action. However, this is interpreted as a political and ethical complacency driven by a refusal to accept and/or act on the need for personal and social change in what and how much is consumed, particularly in wealthy nations. Western citizens, it is argued, routinely fail to “consume with care” despite living in a world where levels of consumption far exceed what is environmentally sustainable and where rich world populations enjoy grossly unequal access to the global production of consumer goods and services.

Contemporary consumption critics and activists identify three key aspects of responsible and sustainable consumption. First, consuming sustainably expresses an ethic of care toward the natural environment; an environment that provides the resources consumed now and in the future and that must accommodate consumer waste. Second, consuming responsibly engages with the local and global ethics of market exchange by recognizing the need for fair terms of trade between developed and developing nations, the importance of maintaining [Page 236]local, small-scale economies, and the imperative to guarantee equal access of people globally to the goods and resources necessary for a flourishing life. Finally, critics argue that we must also attend to the social and cultural implications of uncontrolled levels of consumption, insisting that consumeristic attitudes and behaviors undermine social cohesion by privileging a consumption-based individualism and valorizing material greed.

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