Conspicuous Unconsumption

I recently learned about Thorstein Veblen. Besides having an awesome name and enviable facial hair, he did many funny things. Supposedly he once asked a religious student the value that her church had for her in kegs of beer. He also had a lot of extra-marital affairs, which is especially surprising because of how weird looking he is. He is most famous, though, for making up the term "conspicuous consumption." It is the idea that the demand for luxury goods is driven not by the usefulness of the goods, but by the desire to appear incredibly rich. It is why this exists.

This idea is self evident in modern life. Rappers, for example, are basically poster children for conspicuous consumption.
His goblet attains no extra liquid carrying capability by being diamond clad. In fact, I bet wearing a lot of bling all the time actually makes life more difficult. You probably need a lot of neck strength, for instance. In this way conspicuous consumption is kinda like Darwin's sexual selection. This isn't to say I have anything against rappers. They are so unabashed in their desire to cover everything in diamonds, its kind of refreshing. And hilarious.

After I learned about conspicuous consumption I started seeing how this drive, to let people know you are better than others, and therefore a good mate, is being translated by the new environmental ethos. For a lot of people I know, consumption is out (unfortunately I don't know any rappers). But if you can't show others how fit you are to succeed in society by a useless expenditure of wealth, how else are you supposed to do it?

This is the paradox of what I call conspicuous unconsumption. Just like with paleo-futurism, I thought I invented this term, but some other people on the internet have already used it. At first it seems like an oxymoron. How can you conspicuously not do something?

The most obvious example I can find is in fashion. The whole indie, thrift store, hipster look I see as a result of conspicuous unconsumption. In this case you are conspicuously not buying new clothes. Whats silly is that this look, which started as people buying things from thrift stores because they were cheap, has been commercialized by clothing companies to get into the market of conspicuous unconsumption. This gives you silly things like grunge fashion, and pre-ripped jeans.

Another example I can think of is hybrid cars. If you get a hybrid car you are in essence unconsuming petroleum conspicuously. This drive for conspicuous unconsumption, which made the Toyata Prius so successful, was mocked perfectly on South Park, where the people who buy hybrid cars get so smug they like the smell of their own farts.

Personally I'm all for conspicuous unconsumption. The way I see it, people have a natural drive to impress others and attract mates. I would rather it be harnessed against consumption than for it. In fact I think the anti-consumerism and environmental movements will only really succeed where they can make conspicuous unconsumption effective. Everybody can see you driving a hybrid car, but people can't see if your buying carbon offsets. The more people are able to conspicuously not consume , the more they will do it.