Consoomers - What's the difference between consooming and collecting? Is there a difference?

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

What do you guys think is the difference in being a collector and being a consoomer? Is there a difference?

Are people who collect things like stamps just old-school consoomers?

What crosses the line for you? Do you collect anything and feel its different from consooming?

Collectors don’t break down in hysterical sobbing because they see an ad for a set of coins.

 

[Poppavalyim Andropoff]

What do you guys think is the difference in being a collector and being a consoomer? Is there a difference?

Collectors are completist

Same thing with toys: if you, I dunno, hunt down some rare Hot Wheels car that was released 40 years ago, and then repair and repaint it yourself, you're not a consoomer anymore.

Correct. Now you’ve become a fuckwit that ruined a classic

 

[Professional iPad Hoarder]

I don't get both tbh and I personally like retro games a lot, not to the extent of owning the original hardware (and all the games and modifying the systems like HDMI mods), I have a SNES and N64 with an everdrive each and a handfull of games that I own, I don't get why some collector would pay hundreds of dollars for Conker's bad fur day (the prices on ebay are all over the place) for instance if I can get virtually the whole N64 library in a single SD card.

 

[melty]

I tend to think of collectors as a little better than consoomers but think they have more similarities than they may like to admit.

-Collectors aren't necessarily rich, and plenty collect as an "investment" that may or may not exist. Unless you want to draw a line that it becomes consooming once the person is in debt, even if they are buying fine art or whatever
-Collectors don't necessarily take good care of their things. This can be as simple as living in the wrong climate or not storing things properly, but things tend to degrade in people's homes because they're not experts on preserving things and/or don't want to bother. Sun damage is an example.
-Plenty of collectors collect for the perceived status or community
-A lot of collectors will look to compete sets, even if they don't like the whole set, just to have it. How is this different from pointless consooming? The set doesn't necessarily have an increased value, they're buying something they don't really want just because
-I'm sure most consoomers actually like some or most of the stuff they buy. Plenty of people watch the Marvel movies and like them. If you even vaguely like any media from the past 50 years, there are probably 500 funko pops you could buy and claim you enjoy.
-Not all collectors restore stuff or create anything related to their hobby, but that seems like a pretty good dividing line.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

I tend to think of collectors as a little better than consoomers but think they have more similarities than they may like to admit.

-Collectors aren't necessarily rich, and plenty collect as an "investment" that may or may not exist. Unless you want to draw a line that it becomes consooming once the person is in debt, even if they are buying fine art or whatever
-Collectors don't necessarily take good care of their things. This can be as simple as living in the wrong climate or not storing things properly, but things tend to degrade in people's homes because they're not experts on preserving things and/or don't want to bother. Sun damage is an example.
-Plenty of collectors collect for the perceived status or community
-A lot of collectors will look to compete sets, even if they don't like the whole set, just to have it. How is this different from pointless consooming? The set doesn't necessarily have an increased value, they're buying something they don't really want just because
-I'm sure most consoomers actually like some or most of the stuff they buy. Plenty of people watch the Marvel movies and like them. If you even vaguely like any media from the past 50 years, there are probably 500 funko pops you could buy and claim you enjoy.
-Not all collectors restore stuff or create anything related to their hobby, but that seems like a pretty good dividing line.

-Most collectors tend to have a lot of excess cash, hence why they started making their own mini-museums of their favorite stuff.

-Most collectors I know take good care of their things and store them in a place where sun damage or wear and tear won't hurt their prizes.

-Most collectors collect for their own hobby or personal tastes, (ie. Imelda Marcos and her goddamn shoe collection) the ones that do collect for the perceived status or community are the ones who show off their collections all the time. Most don't.

-Many collectors want complete sets because that IS what they want. That, or they want a complete set to sell to someone in the future, which is more along the lines of scalping than collecting or consooming.

-Most consoomers have a finite love affair with the stuff they buy, then when the thing they bought is no longer popular, they tend to throw that stuff out, whereas a collector tends to keep the shit they bought 20 years ago even if it is no longer popular.

 

[ResurrectedFerret]

-Most collectors tend to have a lot of excess cash, hence why they started making their own mini-museums of their favorite stuff.

-Most collectors I know take good care of their things and store them in a place where sun damage or wear and tear won't hurt their prizes.

-Most collectors collect for their own hobby or personal tastes, (ie. Imelda Marcos and her goddamn shoe collection) the ones that do collect for the perceived status or community are the ones who show off their collections all the time. Most don't.

-Many collectors want complete sets because that IS what they want. That, or they want a complete set to sell to someone in the future, which is more along the lines of scalping than collecting or consooming.

-Most consoomers have a finite love affair with the stuff they buy, then when the thing they bought is no longer popular, they tend to throw that stuff out, whereas a collector tends to keep the shit they bought 20 years ago even if it is no longer popular.

We get it. You collect stuff and arent a consooooooooooomer.

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

We get it. You collect stuff and arent a consooooooooooomer.

I wouldn't call myself much of a collector.

I'm nowhere near rich enough to be one.

 

[ResurrectedFerret]

I'm getting a bit high falutin here but that's only because this kind of thinking is so important to coping with society and most people don't do it. I didn't have it myself til someone else came along and told me roughly what I'm saying now. Repeatedly..

lmao

 

[Arthur Morgan]

Let's use Moviebob as an example, the ultimate consoomer, and his 'love' of Spiderman.

When Sony rebooted the Tobey Maguire movies, Bob was pissed that they weren't continuing the story with a new actor. A collector is happy that they have the full trilogy and will look forward to seeing what comes next. Bob hated the Amazing Spiderman for not being Spiderman 4. When that series was cancelled, he sang with glee. And when Spiderman Homecoming came out, he was pissed again that Disney didn't give Tobey Maguire a truckload of money to come back and continue the story. A collector would have just been happy to see Spiderman interacting with the Avengers. The consoomer is upset he's unable to consoom a new product in the same series indefinitely.

Also, a collector collects as a hobby, They don't define themselves by their love of movies/toys/stamps/books/whatever. They might even be a little embarrassed by it, telling someone who asks with an awkward shrug like they know it's dumb but they love it. Consoomers definitely make being a furry/being a MCU fan/anything like that a huge part of their identity.

 

[The Curmudgeon]

For any of you who have disagreed with me, we'll just have to agree to disagree. This isn't the hill I want to die on, so to each their own. We don't get each other's point of view on this, but that's okay.

 

[StarkRavingMad]

Also, a collector collects as a hobby, They don't define themselves by their love of movies/toys/stamps/books/whatever. They might even be a little embarrassed by it, telling someone who asks with an awkward shrug like they know it's dumb but they love it.

This is pretty much me in a nutshell in regards to my nerdy hobbies.

I have a collection of some stuff. However, I'm always pretty self-deprecating about it. Also, I flat-out made the rule that any and all nerdy shit was only going to be displayed in the basement when we (my husband and I) moved to our new house. I do not want that shit sprawled throughout the entire house. Making a new house look like a giant college dorm room decorated with IKEA furniture is not a remotely respectable look.

I don't think there's anything wrong with buying nerdy shit, but there is most certainly a difference between someone who just treats it as a hobby and someone who treats it as an identity.

Also, as a side note: FunkoPops have become the new Chia Pets in terms of gift giving.

 

[Jones McCann]

A consoomer to me was always just a mindless drone that consumes pop culture. They love marvel, they love modern movies and television, they love anything thats in front of them thats churned out by the modern media propaganda machine. They're overwhelmingly left wing, not because they naturally skew that way but because that's what modern media pushes so thats what they are. They don't have an authentic list of things they want to see changed with society or government, only what the media tells them they want to change (It's not about fixing the banking system or protecting kids from propoganda or commercialism; it's about free healthcare, justice for blacks, immigrants, transexuals). They tend to only like modern music (soulless commercial rap/pop), the only music from the past they like are ones that are featured in modern movies or television (music from the previous era is seen as "out of style"). They tend to be more susceptible to propaganda and advertising. So you see it's less about whether a collector can be a consoomer, all collectors are capable of being a coosumer. It's more about how much they let mainstream narratives and propaganda dictate their thoughts and actions.

 

[Dick Justice]

The more I think about it the more I wonder...are consoomers actually a good thing?
With one exception their downsides can be ignored by simply not associating with them but, the one that can't simply be ignored is that because consoomers are the trailerpark wives of their favorite BRAND™s they will bend over backwards to support those brands disempowering individuals and governments and readily ignore abuses by their favourite brands. This is a bad thing.
On the other hand, their constant consumption effectively props up their economies and enables intelligent people to make and save far more money than they would if everyone was as prudent with their discretionary income as they are. It's like some kind of bizzaro world version of the broken windows fallacy where you have people spending all their time breaking windows just so they can pay to fix them. Is the free money we get worth the individualism we lose?
There's also a thorny ethical question. If someone is predisposed by unfortunate genetics to have a highly addictive personality, are you a bad person for providing them with all the slots, gacha games, and funkos to enable their addiction? What if they're a high functioning addict? What if their addiction legitimately makes them happy? Very tricky.

 

[lolwatagain]

I think "consoomerism" is like obscenity, because "I know it when I see it." It's even more nebulous since there are different flavors of consoomerism beyond "consume product and get excited for next product" Consoomerism, i.e. "values" Consoomerism, where people buy product from a global corporate hegemon because it said "trans rights" or "christian values" instead of the quality of the product.

Best test I can think of for consoomerism is "if it's behavior that would make a marketing executive from a soulless corporate hegemon ejaculate with the force of a thousand suns, then it's probably consoomerism."

 

[Inspector Rex]

As I see it, collecting needs effort and reaserch put into it, and consuming doesn't.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Consoomers are the type that will throw out old product as soon as new product is out until next product comes up.
Collectors are the kinda people that keep shit they like usually, especially if it has sentimental value to them.
From what I've seen, collectors usually only get rid of shit if they need more space/money and half the time aren't the kind of people that will fucking just dump money on an extremely high priced item without reasoning. There are some self described "collectors" that straight up are literally just consoomers that spend extremely high prices on shit for no god damn reason other than social media status.

A good example of how collectors seem to act in general would be Haslab unicron. a lot of collectors were extremely reluctant to pay 500 fucking dollars for a transformer there was a perfectly acceptable $50 to $200 figure of. They literally had to extend the deadline to get it to meet the designated preorder threshold. People that didn't preorder it that are now finding they want it only have one option now. Said option being having to shell out thousands of dollars on ebay from career scalpers for it. Once people ended up getting the figure, it was completely different from what was advertised on all the promo images. The fucking thing lacked paint in specific important areas like the upper teeth and planet maw. This of course caused a lot of the people that paid 500 dollars for the thing to either give away or sell off the ridiculously expensive orb robot. On the other side of things, the first video that was uploaded when the figure finally began shipping out out to people was a possible consoomer making an ASMR video with the damn thing. The comments section was just enraged because they wanted just a normal fucking review video instead of some weird fetish shit getting slapped onto a fucking robot toy review. Somehow this fucker had gotten it before anyone else and the fallout was genuinely fucking glorious to behold.

 

[LinkinParkxNaruto[AMV]]

Is there a difference?

no, both are synonyms and just hoarding product for the sake of hoarding product. Lol at coomlectors in denial.

 

[Fireman Sam]

Sheer brand loyalty and a certain mindset I think would be a good indicator of a 'consoomer' rather than a collector. You could collect shit like board games for example and while they're somewhat trivial a thing to collect. Providing that you're not completely engrossed into it all the time and it hasn't got to the point where your entire house is filled with such an item, where the smallest of community controversies has you awake at night, it could be argued that it's just a simple collecting hobby.
I'd rather collect something with some value like coins, medals, something with a story. When it's just a soulless product rather than an actual item of value then I suppose that's bordering on the 'consoomer' territory.

 

[highlighter_shitposting]

I hide my powerlevel to the utmost degree. I own almost nothing childish out of fear of being labeled a manchild.
Anyone else do this?

Holy shit the insecurity.

Being a collector and consoomer aren't mutualy exclusive. Collector is someone that, well, collects something, consoomer is someone that makes something typically a brand, a significant part of their personality

 

[LORD IMPERATOR]

The more I think about it the more I wonder...are consoomers actually a good thing?
With one exception their downsides can be ignored by simply not associating with them but, the one that can't simply be ignored is that because consoomers are the trailerpark wives of their favorite BRAND™s they will bend over backwards to support those brands disempowering individuals and governments and readily ignore abuses by their favourite brands. This is a bad thing.
On the other hand, their constant consumption effectively props up their economies and enables intelligent people to make and save far more money than they would if everyone was as prudent with their discretionary income as they are. It's like some kind of bizzaro world version of the broken windows fallacy where you have people spending all their time breaking windows just so they can pay to fix them. Is the free money we get worth the individualism we lose?
There's also a thorny ethical question. If someone is predisposed by unfortunate genetics to have a highly addictive personality, are you a bad person for providing them with all the slots, gacha games, and funkos to enable their addiction? What if they're a high functioning addict? What if their addiction legitimately makes them happy? Very tricky.

Are Consoomers good? Yes and no. Like most things, they aren't purely good or bad.

Yes, because they prop up the economy, and can be a good significant boost for jobs, markets, etc., that kind of economic stuff. And of course, the consoomers are actually happy consooming, so it's not like these corporations aren't providing a social service or an outlet for people to be happy.

No, because they encourage bad behavior and tempt others into the path of blindly consuming shit that they'll be throwing out in six months. Instead of collecting things that will be useful for them for years to come, (like say, parts to build a high-end PC) they're encouraged to buy low-end stuff like IPADs and Chromebooks that have less utility at a marketable price, but when those things break down, they buy the next overpriced boondoggle, again and again, instead of just getting something that works for years to come. The eventual result is a mountain of trash that ends up filling landfills, all that wasted equipment and potential, only to be thrown out repeatedly because the next IPAD or Chromebook hit the stores with more bells and whistles.

Basically, CONSOOMER culture is as beneficial or harmful as a Vegas Casino: it's good for the economy, and good for the tax collectors and taxpayers, but bad for the people getting gambling addictions and selling an arm and a leg to get their fix.