Rethinking Consumer Society: The Transformation of Generation Z’s Consumption Practices under Digital Capitalism

Against the deepening backdrop of digital capitalism, consumption has ceased to be merely an activity for satisfying individual needs and has increasingly evolved into a core mechanism of capital accumulation and the reproduction of social relations. Grounded in Marxist political economy and drawing on the theories of commodity fetishism, symbolic consumption, and digital labor, this paper explores the structural transformation of contemporary consumer society. It argues that the platform economy, as the dominant form of the cultural industries and a key cultural technology, has rendered consumption increasingly productive and labor-like. Consumers are continuously incorporated into processes of value creation through their everyday practices, which are simultaneously acts of cultural participation and identity formation within a symbolic economy. Within this context, the consumption patterns of Generation Z exhibit a shift toward rational, low-price, and interest-driven forms of consumption. Through analyses of low-price platforms, food delivery price wars, and the interest-based economy, the article contends that this “rational consumption” is not a rupture with consumer logic but a strategic adaptation. It represents participation in a story-driven symbolic economy where “interests” are often curated cultural narratives. Moreover, anti-consumerist discourse is re-encoded within algorithmic systems, functioning as a new mechanism for intensifying engagement. The article, therefore, argues that critique must move beyond individual choice to address labor relations, data ownership, and the power structures of platforms—the core cultural technologies and financial architectures of digital capitalism—thereby re-situating consumption as a political-economic and culturalissue.