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Flexing / Showing Status through Material Goods
What is in this Section
1. Food
As the restaurants in Miyashita are dominated by youth, most of the products are marketed as ‘trendy’ which makes youth want to consume them. These are either name-brand items or aesthetic items. We can see the popularity of the food items in Miyashita Park through the dense amount of consumption by youth. In our fieldwork, we noticed that one of the main activities for youth was consumption of food. Examples include Starbucks, KITH Treats, and the food court. Consuming certain food or drink shows part of one’s identity and allows for socialization among youth. Usually, Starbucks was mostly consumed by women in high school or university. The common patterns we saw were women taking pictures of their Starbucks drink with the store in the background. Additionally, sometimes they would take selfies holding their drinks with the logo present. For KITH Treats, the consumers of this food were more of the street-style group who were fashion oriented. Given that the ice cream is 900 yen, this was a bit of a conspicuous consumption purchase for youth. The food court attracts people who like American food, as most of the restaurants are American. Examples include Taco Bell, McDonalds, Panda Express, and American-Style sushi. Given that these restaurants and food hold the potential for showing one’s status, the food is no longer about how it tastes. It is about taking a picture of the food to show one’s status, to be seen eating that said food. The consumption of food is closely related to the use of social media. As explained in a study done by Christopher Holmberg, “Most of the adolescent users (85%) shared images containing food items. A majority of the images (67.7%) depicted foods high in calories but low in nutrients. Almost half of these images were arranged as a still life with food brand names clearly exposed. Many of these images were influenced by major food marketing campaigns” (2016). All of these food choices are heavily posted on social media and are desirable items to be able to post about. Posting pictures of food or drink from Miyashita Park and also showing it off in person creates a divide between who is trendy and who is not. This can be seen as in-group or out-group. Therefore, as mentioned in the introduction, consumption choices are linked to youth identity formation.
2. Phones
Youths use their phones to actively socialize on the roof of Miyashita Park. Youths will make TikToks with each other, often learning a short dance routine and filming in front of others. This is to ensure that they are using Miyashita Park as the background in their videos. Now, it is a trend to post TikToks in Miyashita Park. The youth recording TikToks want to be seen by other youth in the park. Most people who are making TikToks are doing it purely for fun, they are not dancers - professional or amateur. It is a fun, youth-specific activity. This being said, this attracts many young dancers to the roof top park. Young dancers will practice their routines on the roof and sometimes record it. This is another way to show off to others, as being a dancer is cool this raises the dancers’ status. For young people, this is a positive form of attention both in person and online. In other words, this shows that they are part of the in-group. Most of the consumption in Miyashita Park has become popular due to social media making it into a trend. Another popular way of using phones is by taking photos of their outfits in Miyashita Park. Young people take photos of each other in various areas → Read about Places in Alex’s section which are deemed ‘aesthetic’ by social media. These images are posted mainly on SNS platforms such as Instagram, where people are posing in their best outfits. As we observed in the field site, people in Miyashita Park spent lots of time carefully curating the perfect shot of their food, fashion, or friends. Without the use of social media, these places would be ordinary and not notable by any means. Examples of these areas include a chain link fence or a concrete staircase. → Learn more about the build environment in Nagiko’s section. Without the use of social media and phones these ordinary spaces would not be important places. Using these areas to take photos shows that youth are trying to reflect their identity through food consumption. Both identity and socialization can be seen through both real-life interaction and online content creation. This brings us to the next topic of socialization. Through the use of phones, youth are able to use it as a tool to interact with strangers. In Miyashita Park, we can see this through the interaction of youth where they observe others doing the same thing as them and online - through the interaction of social media posts. → Learn more about stranger interaction from Maya The use of phones and social media is what makes Miyashita Park so appealing to youth as it is always being promoted by other youth.
3. Fashion
Young people tend to choose their clothes style so they can fit in with a group, and share a group identity. Lisa McNeill explains in her paper, “As such, many individuals over consume in pursuit of ideal identities, particularly in periods of heightened awareness of identity development, such as their youth” (2019). It is common for youth to use clothing to try to develop self identify and find belonging in a group. These various style identities had both negative and positive connotations which were signaled by the clothing style and key items of their outfit. If a certain style looks cleaner and proper than another, it is associated with a positive image. If a certain type of fashion is associated with drinking, smoking, and has a rougher image that style has more of a rebellious image. However, having a negative or rebellious image is cool and actually gives someone a lot of status in the social atmosphere of the park. In Miyashita Park, there are many types of groups based on fashion. For example, there is streetwear, gyaru, dancers, international, girly, and casual. Streetwear style involves lots of baggy clothing accompanied by sneakers and casual clothing. For women categorized in the street style, they usually wear a tight top but baggy pants with their underwear band showing. Gyaru style clothing is usually word by high school girls who decorate their uniforms, bags, and hair with keychains, ribbons, and other ornate designs. The key clothing item that stands out for them are leg warmers worn strictly for fashion and not for practical use. Dancers dress similar to the streetwear group however they usually wear hats and their clothing is a bit more moveable as they dance in their clothes. The international crowd includes both foreigners and kikokushijo or Japanese returnees. This group wears American style clothing that is usually very tight, revealing, or both. Their personalities are big and they speak in English loudly. The people who dress in the girly type of fashion are usually women. They wear clothing that is frilly, has flower patterns, or feminine colors. The clothing item that stands out is that they usually are wearing a skirt or a dress. Finally, we have the casual clothing group. This can be anyone who is not in the categories above. The youth in this category don’t wear any clothing that make them stand out. Usually they are wearing pants and a shirt. Their outfit is either black, white, or other neutral tones. Usually groups of a specific fashion type will try to interact with other groups of the same type. This can be seen through flirting, play, social exchanges with the other genders, and conversations with people who have potential commonalities. This shows their confidence in interacting with strangers. → Read more about stranger interaction in Maya’s section on Avoidance and Interaction. The importance of one’s appearance is not just about their fashion choices but the confidence one portrays. Just because one wears a specific type of clothing, that doesn’t mean they are automatically in a group. They must have a certain confidence wearing said style. For example, wearing street wear clothing doesn’t mean one is automatically in the street wear group. The youth must encompass other aspects of being in this group such as the way they talk, their attitude, the way they carry themselves, and the way they interact with strangers. Youth fashion is one way that youth show their identity.
