Game of Signs

VIDEO DESCRIPTION:

Play, download and edit the free video Game of Signs.

Game of Signs focuses on the event of "debutantes" flaunting their wealth by group-buying in Shanghai, China. In October 2020, an online article revealed that 15 fake sociates shared luxury resort hotels with more than RMB 3,000 per night, and for only RMB 200, one could enjoy high-end service and facilities. The "debutantes" even lined up to take photos in hotel bathrobes according to the order of purchase. Finally, they would post these photos showing off their wealth on their social media apps. Is this phenomenon deconstruction or upgrading of the consumer society?

At first, group buying is a new marketing method invented by capitalists to earn more profits. However, with the development of online marketing and community, consumers themselves learn from the characteristics of "flow of resource use rights and realization of optimal benefits" of group consumption and sharing economy and begin to organize in groups to show off their wealth spontaneously. This directly deconstructs the privilege of the middle and upper social classes-the power to consume symbolic value. Also, it is the re-upgrading of the consumer society under the sharing economy.

To solve the problem of surplus commodity value, capitalists use consumerism to stimulate the economy and arouse the purchasing desire of the class that possesses social wealth. Thus the consumer society is born. People's demand for commodities has turned into the demand for "Meaning of Signs". The capitalist class who makes consumerism spread is controlled and alienated by consumerism in return. Therefore, the capitalist spirit characterized by asceticism, diligence, thrift, and honesty gradually fades, and the capitalist class, like the aristocrats, turn to pursue the "meaning of signs" given to their social identity by the expensive commodities.

Today, with the popularisation of Internet technology, even the economy can be shared, and consumerism is in full swing. The public can easily disintegrate the current exclusive "meaning of signs" of the privileged class and share them with the power of the network community at any time. However, when the existing signs no longer have the function of representing the identity of the privileged class, new signs containing higher value will appear in the market again.

In the video, I used chessboards and character cards to show the stratification of society and how consumerism involves people of different classes in the colorful bubble pool it creates. People who trap in the pool will continue to buy and decorate themselves with gorgeous and illusory signs. The meaning of old signs will depreciate and new signs will be put in. This consumer game is constantly escalating and spiraling up, which seems to never end.

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