In the prevailing stagnation of the platformization of consumer culture, in which the value of products, but also the ways of expressing subjective identities, is increasingly linked to the fluctuations of the functioning of digital platforms, on TikTok, we are witnessing a return of the importance of the local context. In the wake of the success of the representation of Naples on TikTok, a new popular representation of food aesthetics is emerging, as well as a new redefinition of food taste. The culinary traditions that have animated Neapolitan gastronomic culture are being challenged by new digital creators who propose bizarre recipes and redefine the untouchable recipes of Neapolitan cuisine. The digital trend of gourmand gastronomy offers, as I highlight in this study, the possibility of observing consumer culture from a popular culture point of view, without the mediation of the bourgeois point of view.
As Brave New World approaches its centenary, this paper re-reads Huxley's dystopia not merely as a critique of commodified pleasure and technocratic control, but as a speculative mirror of the endgame of Consumer Culture Theory (CCT) and the eclipse of the consumer as a viable subject. We argue that the novel prefigures a post-consumer horizon in which subjectivity is displaced by data, desire by prediction, and agency by code. Taking seriously recent diagnoses of platform power and surveillance capitalism, we contend that like Huxley's vision of consumer culture, CCT's ontological commitments to the consumer are increasingly anachronistic. Re-reading the novel a century on provides the impetus to rethink consumer research beyond the consumer as its "hero in history".
Sharenting is an ordinary yet morally contested feature of digital family life. Existing research has shown why it is ethically troubling, especially in relation to children's privacy, consent, and exploitation. Less clear is how commercial sharenting continues to sustain exchange despite these concerns. We examine sharenting as a market organized around displaying family life. Drawing on Finch's notion of family display and Callon's distinction between hot and cold market situations, we analyze five family influencers' Instagram accounts. Results show that the sharenting market stabilizes when family display remains immersive, desirable, and believable enough to render commercialization tolerable. It destabilizes when the same display becomes commercially overexposed or begins to undermine the parental legitimacy on which its acceptability depends. In this way, this paper shows that recognizable scripts of intimacy and proper parenting become conditions for market stability.
In the context of the ecological transition, various actions are being developed to encourage families to adopt a more sustainable diet. From a family-oriented research perspective, this study focuses on the children-to-parent influence in terms of sustainable food practices. It particularly uses the theory of consumer socialization to understand the role of children in the transition to more sustainable food consumption. This empirical study is conducted through interviews with 28 families (102 participants) to identify how children can shape families' sustainable food attitudes and behaviors, the role of family members in sustainable food consumption, and the mechanisms of reverse transmission of pro-environmental food behaviors.
