Collecting vs. fast consuming

Abstract

The goal of this article is to show that collectors constitute a specific category of consumers. The article treats consumption through the lenses of high-speed society in which time becomes more and more important and scarce resource that people are constantly searching for. One of the reasons of this scarcity is that producers compete with each other. They want to grasp consumers’ time in order to make them spend it for consumption, and that is why one can speak about acceleration of time. Passionate and active acquiring is a thing that makes collectors similar to consumers, but the act of collecting is, in fact, opposed to fast consumption. It is based on different behaviors than those promoted by contemporary and very fast culture. Therefore, one who collects is engaged in a set of acts that are opposed to the time-consuming acquisitions. Collecting allows people to disengage from consumer culture that wants them to destroy old and acquire new goods. To collect is to selectively try to form a “whole” which constitutes a collection. Collecting reveals one’s assumption that objects are to be unique, not utilitarian, they are to be more than pure commodities. Given that collecting requires a lot of free time that is not used for consumption, it might be perceived as an act that is opposed to fast consumption.