User:Isabella.Neto001/sandbox

According to the postmodern sociologist Jean Baudrillard, the individual is trained into the duty of seeking the relentless maximisation of pleasure lest he or she become asocial. Therefore, "enjoyment" and "fun" become indistinguishable from the need to consume. Whereas the Frankfurt School believed consumers were passive, Baudrillard argued that consumers were trained to consume products in a form of active labour in order to achieve upward social mobility. Thus, consumers under capitalism are trained to purchase products such as pop albums and consumable fiction in order to signal their devotion to social trends, fashions and subcultures. '''Not only are they trained to be involved in pop culture by purchasing products and following trends but they are also involved because of their affect on pop culture and the media itself. There is a well known theory within the pop culture community called the Cultural Diamond. The theory states that consumption (consumers), production, society, distribution, and art all affect each other. In the book Sociology of The Arts, Victoria Alexander discusses this theory and explains how "it examines the relationships among creators, distribution networks, artworks, and society” and that the Cultural Diamond represents the idea that “cultural objects are filtered through—and affected by—the people and systems that create and distribute them."''' Although the consumption may arise from an active choice, the choice is still the consequence of a social conditioning which the individual is unconscious of. Baudrillard says, "One is permanently governed by a code whose rules and meaning-constraints — like those of language — are, for the most part, beyond the grasp of individuals."