Symbolic consumption and conspicuous posting: Creating and expressing self-identity through clothing consumption and social media usage

Abstract: Clothing consumption possesses considerable symbolic functions in creating and expressing consumers' self-identities in the wider society. At the same time, social media also plays a large part in consumers' everyday lives, and it has been suggested that consumers use social media for their identity-creating purposes as well. This study investigates what role social media play in consumers' identity-work and how these fields are interrelated, in order to gain a better understanding of how consumers create their self-identities with the aid of apparel and social media. A qualitative study consisting of fourteen semi-structured interviews with consumers was conducted, as well as a documentary study of relevant content on social media. The findings show that consumers actively use clothing items and social media in order to create, express and present their self-identities. Specifically, both clothing and social media are used as tools for expressing self-identity, as well as for finding inspiration and serving as an influencing factor in consumers' identity-work. In addition, the data suggests that consumers are active in two connected but different worlds; the physical domain that covers their entire life, and the digital world on social media platforms where they only present parts of their self-identities. In the collective pursuit of a flawless self-identity, consumers are using social media in order to convey their best selves in the digital world. Therefore, the term 'conspicuous posting' was created in order to define this type of social media behavior, where content is created by the user in order to convey status and other social signals to others.