This month’s Frame: using Bourdieu to keep up with the “vibe shift”
A framework that analyses people's tastes to keep pace with changes in consumer behaviour.
We are in a time of flux. In a few short years people all over the world have experienced tumultuous forces of change. To name but a few: the pandemic and its far-reaching impacts on social life, the “Great Resignation” of workers everywhere, global supply chain disruptions and rising fuel costs. All this change extends to changing consumer habits and preferences. It seems that people are behaving differently, buying from different brands, using different products and services—their tastes seem to have shifted.
This change in taste has been characterised in various trends and culture publications as a “vibe shift”—away from one particular aesthetic and way of living to another. Allegedly, the tastes and aesthetic trends that were spread by Millenials are on the way out. These include “Millennial pink”, the look and feel of “bland” DTC companies from the 2010s, and a highly-curated Instagram aesthetic.
Millennial style is being replaced by tastes and aesthetics driven by Gen Z. However, there seems to be a lack of a clear understanding of a) what these new aesthetics and tastes actually are, and b) how they happen. The trend forecaster Sean Monaghan—who helped create the concept of “normcore” back in the 2010s”—emphasises how fragmented everything is, describing people as “going off in a lot of different directions because it doesn’t feel like there’s a coherent, singular vision for music or fashion.”
With an increasingly negative economic outlook affecting people’s buying power, it becomes more important for companies to understand the changing tastes of their customers. This is particularly important for tech companies, who have enjoyed over a decade of growth, but after recent setbacks face a straitened horizon.
If there is indeed a vibe shift, it needs to be analysed with a robust framework, drawn from a solid theoretical background.
The framework
We can adapt ideas from the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu to understand changing consumer tastes. Bourdieu was interested in the mechanisms through which distinctions form in society (as well as the hierarchies which emerge as a result). “Taste” was key to his understanding—and as a result, his ideas can provide a framework for analysing how tastes have changed in recent years.
We can use 3 different social concepts from Bourdieu to help understand taste: capital, field and habitus.
Bourdieu expands the concept of capital beyond money alone (economic capital). Social capital is also important—for example, a professional network of contacts or a friendship group is “worth” something, in that it provides a resource for an individual to fall back on. Last but certainly not least, cultural capital is paramount—this refers to an individual’s skills and knowledge. These different types of capital are often interrelated and reinforce each other—a wealthy person might find it easier to develop a strong network of social connections, and in turn would have access to resources to develop their cultural capital.
“Habitus” refers to the embodied knowledge, skills and dispositions a person accumulates. Examples of habitus include both physical and mental / perceptual elements. Bourdieu called physical habitus elements “hexis”—things like someone’s body language, their gait, etc. The mental / and perceptual elements could include how someone “reads” their environment, or navigates the world, or their way of thinking of themselves in relation to others.
Lastly, “field” is the social arena within which people compete or transact—such as academia, or a trading floor, or a football league. A field has a set of rules that people need to follow, but is not necessarily fixed. Fields can vary, and this is known as “field dynamics”. For example, the field of medicine has changed considerably over the years as new drugs and techniques are developed. The field of F1 racing has changed as new safety measures are enforced.
These 3 concepts—capital, habitus and field—intersect and interrelate, and together help constitute an individual’s taste. Bourdieu used these concepts to analyse French society in the 1960s, developing a theory of how tastes are crucial to the reproduction of class divisions. When people exercise their taste—for example, by choosing to buy a particular drink, or particular type of clothing—they often make similar choices to people in similar fields, with a similar habitus and similar relationship to capital.
Using the framework
Applying this framework to people more broadly gives us a useful set of lenses through which we can analyse how people’s tastes have shifted away from the old “Millennial aesthetics” and better understand what new aesthetics are emerging. It can provide starting points for building new products or strategies to capture new customers, or to try and prevent churn. How have capital, habitus and field changed over the last few years?
Firstly, people’s relationship with economic capital has changed, especially younger people who are entering the workforce. This has been driven by the pandemic and the resultant upheavals in income, work style and lockdowns. When you factor in government stimulus, layoffs, stock market fluctuations and cryptocurrency speculation, it becomes apparent that people’s experience of economic capital feels less secure, and more fluid.
Social capital has also been affected by the shift towards online interactions and relationship-forming. For example, the gaming industry surged in popularity, and is now worth $300Bn. Cultural capital has been affected by the widespread realisation that most white-collar jobs can be done remotely, and workers are gaining a better sense of the value of their skills and expertise.
The pandemic has profoundly affected many “fields” as well. Not just professional fields, which were disrupted by the various factors mentioned above, but also social fields. New social medias, such as BeReal and TikTok, are rising in popularity. They are less “competitive” than older platforms such as Instagram or Facebook. These newer platforms focus on playfulness, entertainment and authenticity as opposed to making popular posts within a defined group of connections.
Lastly, “habitus” has shifted. Especially among younger people, communication can involve memes, gifs and emojis. Social relations too have lost a sense of formality. This is evidenced in the professional realm, where what we wear and where we work have broken down more formal norms. People have a greater acceptance of the imperfect, and no longer feel the need to be super presentable or flawless. As a result, they don’t expect their products and services to communicate flawlessness either.
Using Bourdieu’s framework to understand how tastes are changing, companies can create the right kind of product or speak in the right kind of way. Doing so lets them make the biggest impact with people—even in a changing world.
News
The Power of Not Thinking is now available in South Korea.
We are excited to see Simon Roberts’ book reaching new audiences. For our UK readers, the paperback edition will also be available from 22 July.
