Consumerism in the 1980s

A preoccupation with the purchase of consumer goods and the ideologies that support or endorse that preoccupation

After the social unrest of the 1960s and the energy shortages of the 1970s, adult Americans longed for more settled and more affluent times. When the economy improved in the 1980s, those lucky enough to benefit launched on a program of conspicuous consumption that came for many to define the decade.

The extravagant inaugural festivities accompanying Ronald Reagan’s 1981 assumption of the US presidency were in retrospect a hallmark of the decade ahead. The 1980s heralded the return of formality and ostentation in American society, as well as in dress, in keeping with Reagan’s social customs. High school proms, elaborate weddings in formal settings, coming-out parties, charity balls, and private black-tie dinners proliferated, with women dressing for these events to appear extravagant and lavish. Nancy Reagan’s elegance and Princess Diana’s love of fine fashion were important influences. The predilection for things “natural,” which prevailed in the previous decade, expanded to include the most expensive natural materials: cashmere was preferred to wool, linen was chosen over cotton, and silk clothing was worn everywhere. Ornamentation was the rule of the day, with cabbage roses, animal prints, polka dots, tassels, beads, chains, ribbons, scarves, shawls, and patterned stockings all being consumed and displayed prominently. Binge buying and credit became a way of life, and high-end labels were snapped up. The novelist Tom Wolfe coined the term “the splurge generation” to describe the baby boomers, who, with their children, were avid consumers.

A Culture of Consumption

Since more women entered the workforce in the 1980s than in any other decade, there was more money available to double-earning families to spend, as well as a greater demand for professional clothes. A group of American designers—Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, and Liz Claiborne—offered women padded shoulders and broad lapels to express their new commercial power. Although television was available for home consumption by the 1950s, in the 1980s the clothes worn on programs greatly influenced fashion. A new type of program, the prime-time soap opera, included Dallas and Dynasty—shows that featured the wealthy and extravagant lifestyles of two families of oilmen and cattle ranchers. These shows influenced not only fashion but home interiors as well. Women and men found it difficult to redecorate their homes without an interior designer, and people entered that profession in record numbers.

Auctions of famous artworks reached record prices. By 1987, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers sold for $39.9 million and his Irises for $53.9 million. The Museum of Modern Art in New York began renovations that would double its size, and cities like San Antonio built multimillion-dollar museums. In music, pop, rock, country, and especially rap and hip-hop became popular, as music videos, especially those broadcast on cable channel MTV, exerted an enormous influence on the development and marketing of new music. The digital compact disc (CD) changed the entire industry and made fortunes for music companies.

A study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles, and the American Council on Education in 1980 found that those entering college were more interested in status, power, and money than enrolling students had been in the previous fifteen years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tripled in seven years and quickly bounced back from the 1987 stock market crash, driving a student preference for business management as the most popular major.

New Markets

Social attitudes toward minority groups in the United States remained complex during the 1980s, but overt racism became less socially acceptable. As people of color began to be taken more seriously, companies began to see minority communities as potential new markets for their products. Thus, concepts of multiculturalism began to influence advertising. Although the advertising agencies explained this trend as a desire to include everyone, it constituted the first recognition that many minorities had achieved middle-class lifestyles and had begun to subscribe to the same consumerist values as the rest of the American middle class.

New uses for technology developed rapidly in the 1980s, and the term “consumer electronics” came into use to describe an exploding sector of technology that included personal computers, electronic games, stereo equipment, handheld mobile phones, and many data storage technologies such as compact discs. Although popularity of video games started in the late 1970s, video-game technology developed during the 1980s kept the market hot. Personal computers became popular in households as well as at work, and consumers snapped up Sony Walkmans and Videocassette recorders (VCRs). Apple’s Macintosh computer was introduced in 1984 and became commercially successful, as did other computers of the decade including the IBM PC, Atari ST, and Commodore 64. Microsoft introduced the early versions of the Windows operating system, which dominated the market for several decades following the 1980s.

The film industry boomed in the 1980s, but it became more focused, as Hollywood competed with home entertainment technologies by concentrating on producing a limited number of mass-market blockbusters rather than a wider variety of modestly successful films that appealed to more specific audiences. However, the Sundance Institute opened in 1981 to promote independent filmmakers, and the first Sundance Film Festival was held in 1986, spawning a national craze for film festivals that provided venues and opportunities for new directors who could not compete directly with Hollywood blockbusters. Special effects in movies advanced in sophistication as computer technology developed, a trend that decisively shaped Hollywood’s output history. Film consumers who loved videocassettes frequented the new video rental outlets that became national chains. In 1981, VCR sales rose 72 percent in twelve months. Science-fiction films surged in popularity, best exemplified by Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982), which broke records for gross receipts and became the biggest earner of the decade. Another science-fiction filmmaker, George Lucas, had reaped incredible profits by exploiting the possibilities of film merchandising, creating an extensive line of toys based on his Star Wars trilogy (1977–83). The rest of Hollywood quickly responded to Lucas’s success, creating tie-in merchandise in association with films whenever possible, especially merchandise aimed at children.

Impact

Although other decades—especially the 1950s—were known in the United States for their commodity consumption, the 1980s was one of the first to be marked not merely by consumption but by unabashed consumerism. Baby boomers became known for their self-obsession and demand for instant gratification, and the most common venue for both qualities was the marketplace. Commodities had been marketed throughout the twentieth century as standing for particular lifestyles, but in the 1980s, the purchase of commodities itself became a popular lifestyle. Plays such as Other People’s Money (1988) and movies such as Wall Street (1987) commented pointedly on a culture of greed, while the Reagan administration and its conservative allies trumpeted the benefits to the economy of a middle class freely spending its increased disposable income.

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