ABSTRACT

We provide a critical reading of plastic in consumer culture highlighting its furtive omnipresence and supporting role in enabling the consumption of countless products, services, and brands, including many previously identified marketplace icons. We introduce the term “passengerial icon” to explore how the iconicity of plastic is often characterised by its unobtrusive and inconspicuous presence in consumers’ lives. Like a passenger, plastic most typically accompanies consumers on various experiential journeys rather than drives them. Drawing upon Leder’s concept of dys-appearance, we discuss the “absent presence” of passengerial icons as they tend to fade from consumers’ awareness, remaining present but unseen and unthought about until something about them appears to dysfunction. We discuss the dysfunctional appearance of plastic as catalysed most dramatically by environmental and health consequences. Though plastic’s dys-appearance affects society broadly, it is often hermeneutically and fetishistically handled by individuals through precautionary consumption adjustments rather than collective political action.

摘要

我们对消费文化中的塑料进行批判性解读，强调塑料在促进无数产品、服务和品牌（包括许多先前确定的市场标志）消费方面的隐秘无所不在和支持作用。我们引入“乘客图标”一词来探索塑料的标志性通常如何以其在消费者生活中的不显眼和不显眼的存在为特征。像乘客一样，塑料通常陪伴消费者进行各种体验之旅，而不是开车他们。借鉴 Leder 的外观不良概念，我们讨论了乘客图标的“缺席”，因为它们往往会从消费者的意识中消失，保持存在但不被看到和不被考虑，直到它们的某些东西出现功能障碍。我们讨论了环境和健康后果最显着​​地催化了塑料的功能失调外观。尽管塑料的外观不良对社会产生了广泛的影响，但它通常是由个人通过预防性消费调整而不是集体政治行动以解释学和拜物教的方式处理的。