ABSTRACT
The Beijing Olympics could well be described as an important turning point in Chinese history; a diplomatic ‘coming out’ for China in its efforts to announce its arrival on the global cultural and economic stage (Chen, 2010; Xu, 2006). In this article I want to consider an alternative description and interpretation: that the symbolic power and impact of the Beijing Olympics are much more socially and culturally profound than this initial reading suggests. Noting the widely recognised status of the Olympics as a global spectacle, the proposition here is that the way in which the Games came to be perceived externally was, in a sense, incidental and that their deeper and more enduring impact lies in the extent to which the people of China were married, through the symbolism that the Games provided, to a view of themselves as consumers. By mirroring Bairner’s (2012) contention that the sociologist can usefully adopt the methods of the flâneur to promote the sociological understanding of lived experience, this article uses the sociology of consumption as a lens through which it is possible to begin to understand the broader significance of the Beijing Olympics. It is therefore argued that the 2008 Olympics provided a legitimate vehicle for the
consumerist principles, values and ideologies that in turn provided a springboard for an evolving hegemony of consumer culture.
