Lifestyle
Dress by André Courrèges
image sourced here.
Fashion is an important part of people's lifestyles.
Related: aesthetics - behaviour - choice - class - clothing - consumer - consumerism - culture - everyday life - human - identity - life - media - marketing - moral - motivation - orientation - people - philosophy - politics - popular culture - preference - religion - sociology - style - taste - value - youth
List of lifestyles: alternative - bohemianism - conservative - counterculture - jet set - mainstream - modern - outsider - radical - subculture - underworld
Lifestyle magazines: men's magazines - women's magazines
Definition
In sociology, a lifestyle is the way a person (or a group) lives. This includes patterns of social relations, consumption, entertainment, and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview.Having a specific "lifestyle" implies a conscious or unconscious choice between one set of behaviours and some other sets of behaviours.
In business, lifestyles provide a means of targeting consumers as advertisers and marketers endeavor to match consumer aspirations with products.
The word "lifestyle" apparently first appeared in 1939. Alvin Toffler predicted an explosion of lifestyles ("subcults") as diversity increases in post-industrial societies. Pre-modern societies did not require a term approaching sub-culture or lifestyle, as different ways of living were expressed as entirely different cultures, religions, ethnicities or by an oppressed minority racial group. As such the minority culture was always seen as alien or other. Lifestyles, by comparison, are accepted or partially accepted differences within the majority culture or group. This tolerance of differentiation within a majority culture seems to be associated with modernity and capitalism.
Within anarchism, lifestylism is a belief that by changing one's own personal lifestyle, and by retreating from class struggle, an anarchist society can be formed. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle
Consumer behaviour [...]
Consumer behaviour is the study of how people buy, what they buy, and why they buy. It is a subcategory of marketing that blends elements from psychology, marketing, and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_behaviour [Apr 2005]
Demographic profile
A demographic or demographic profile is a term used in marketing and broadcasting, to describe a demographic grouping or a market segment. This typically involves age bands (as teenagers do not wish to purchase denture fixant), social class bands (as the rich may want different products than middle and poorer classes and may be willing to pay more) and genders (partially because different physical attributes require different hygiene and clothing products, and partially because of the man/woman mindsets).
A demographic can be used to determine when and where advertising should be placed so as to achieve maximum results. In all such cases, it is important that the advertiser get the most results for their money, and so careful research is done to match the demographic profile of the target market to the demographic profile of the advertising medium.
A good way to figure out the intended demographic of a television show or magazine is to study the ads that accompany it. For example, The Price is Right most frequently airs from 11 AM to Noon. The commercials on it (besides the blatant use of product placement in the show itself) are often for things like arthritis pain relievers and diapers. This indicates that the target demographics are senior citizens and mothers with young children, both of which would be home at that time of day and see that show. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_profile [Apr 2005]
Human nature
Human nature is the range of human behaviour that is believed to be innate rather than learned. There is much debate over which behaviours are innate and which are learned, and whether or not this division applies equally to all individuals. This debate is also known as 'nature versus nurture'. --http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature
Everyday life [...]
Subculture [...]
A subculture is a set of people with distinct behavior and beliefs within a larger culture. The essence of a subculture, that distinguishes it from other social groupings, is awareness of style and differences in style, in clothing, music or other phenomena [taste]
A culture often contains numerous subcultures. Subcultures incorporate large parts of their mother cultures, but in specific instances they may differ radically. Some subcultures achieve such a status that they acquire a name of their own. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subculture [Jul 2004]
Subcultures were the subject of study of the CCCS. --jahsonic [Jul 2004]
Alternative Lifestyle
Adoption Ahimsa Alcoholism Artist Asceticism Asexuality Atkins Nutritional Approach Baha'i faith Bibliophilia Bigamy Bigotry Bisexuality Bodybuilding Bohemian Breatharianism Buddhism Celibacy Chastity Chetnik Christianity Communal living Criminality Cults Eremitism Farming Feminism Fetishism Free love Gay culture Groupie life Haiduk Heterosexuality Homelessness Islam Leather virginity Lesbianism Marriage Mercenary Metrosexuality Modern Primitivism Monogamy Nicotinism Nomadism Pedophilia Piracy Polyamory Polyandry Polygyny Poverty Prostitution Quadrigamy Quirkyalone S&M Secondary virginity Serial monogamy Single parenting Sobriety Surrogate parenting Transvestism Vagrancy Vegetarianism Wealth Yoga Zen --http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_lifestylesBohemian Lifestyle [...]
A secondary meaning for bohemian emerged in early 19th century France. The term was used to describe a group of artists, writers, and disenchanted people of all sorts who wished to live a non-traditional lifestyle. The term "bohemian" is defined in The American College Dictionary as "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behavior."This often included drugs and poverty, but, overall, many of the most talented men of letters were bohemians. Honoré de Balzac approved of Bohemia, although most bourgeois did not. In fact, the two groups were often cited as opposites. The phrase itself was derived from the name of the Czech province, erroneously considered the homeland of the Gypsies. The term has since become associated with various artistic communities and is used as a generalized adjective describing such people, environs, or situations.
Bohemia was a place where you could live and work cheaply, and behave unconventionally; a community of free souls far beyond the pale of respectable society. Bohemia flourished in many cities in the 19th and early 20th century: in Schwabing in Munich, Germany, Montmartre and Montparnasse in Paris, France, Greenwich Village in New York City, Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, America and in Chelsea, Fitzrovia and Soho in London, England. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bohemian
La Société du spectacle/Society of the Spectacle (1967) - Guy Debord
Society of the Spectacle (1967) - Guy Debord [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
But certainly for the present age, which prefers the sign to the thing signified, the copy to the original, representation to reality, the appearance to the essence... illusion only is sacred, truth profane. Nay, sacredness is held to be enhanced in proportion as truth decreases and illusion increases, so that the highest degree of illusion comes to be the highest degree of sacredness. Feuerbach, Preface to the second edition of The Essence of Christianity]
Stam (2000) notes that "Postmodernism was anticipated without the term in Guy Debord's Society of the Spectacle (1967), where the French situationist argued that everything that had once been directly lived had in the contemporary world transmuted into a representation". (Stam 2000:300) --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_the_Spectacle [Apr 2005]
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