Formalism and consumerism share an interesting resemblance: both allow form to overpower substance.
In a broad social sense, formalism turns “looking correct, looking complete, looking sophisticated” into ends in themselves. It replaces substance with a displayable exterior, until the operation itself exists mainly to preserve that exterior.
Consumerism is the dominant form this method takes after entering commodity society and becoming systematized, industrialized, and normalized in daily life. Consumerism has a highly formalized logic of its own. In his account of conspicuous consumption, Thorstein Veblen argues that what people buy is not function but visible status. Going further, objects in a consumer society increasingly circulate not for their use value but as signs. What people consume is distinction: an identity marker that others can recognize.
Real life is displaced by images and scenes made for display. The many forms of “manifesting” seen on Xiaohongshu are an everyday market version of formalism.
In Chinese-language discussions, Chen Zhong describes contemporary formalism as a “coating strategy”: in urban, market, spectacle, and consumer societies, a displayable surface is used to cover an unstable reality. Prosperity on the surface, implementation on the surface, advancement on the surface — while the risks underneath are only temporarily hidden. From this angle, it closely resembles consumerism. New products, staged settings, and signs coat life with the appearance of “living better.”
It is also not accidental that established official discourse places formalism alongside hedonism and extravagance. The latter two are institutional variants of consumerism: resources, time, and attention are spent on visible enjoyment and display; actual needs are replaced by manufactured desires; short-term visible results become more rewarding than long-term substance.
“Form has no value unless it is the form of content.” The same judgment applies to consumerism. When commodities circulate primarily as signs and use value moves to the side, form itself becomes an object for sale.
Style, genre, and packaging are standardized for production, while content is absorbed into consumable forms. Formalism in art can be a revolt against content. In consumer society, however, formalism often turns revolt itself into a marketable style. This is the path by which Punk eventually became a commodity.
But formalism is not the same thing as consumerism. Formalism is older and more pervasive. Consumerism depends on particular material and capital conditions: surplus production, advertising, credit, fashion cycles, and mass media. Their structures are not identical, and formalism covers a wider range.
Some modernist art emphasizes the autonomy of form while rejecting display and waste. Conversely, even “anti-consumption” can be absorbed as a more refined consumer posture. Some modes of consumption increase their density by creating demand for rapid replacement. Taken as a whole, however, modern consumerism almost inevitably produces and depends on a refined formalism.