Hey, this is mine…

36 describes the café environment as having importance as a place for consuming the Mac, thus Belk’s notion of the symbolic consumption process (1988) overlooking not only the buying event but the whole process of “having” and owning the product becomes evident. Furthermore David makes several statements referring to a past when Mac was special and cool.

37 4. Divestment rituals: consist of a cleansing ritual where the consumer attempts to free the

product of the meanings that have been attached to it by the consumer himself, these have importance in the situation where products must be disposed of.

McCracken is of the opinion that the choices consumers make in relation to product purchases put together an important part of the consumers’ self-concept.

Some important critique points have to be made with regards to McCrackens thoughts. First off McCracken believes that it is possible for an individual to attribute entirely personal meanings to a product. In the social constructivist paradigm these cannot be completely separated from common meanings as the personal meanings will always be rooted in the social realm, it is not possible to subtract meanings out of their social grounding. This notion also makes for an elaboration of McCrackens meaning transfer model, because McCrackens theory has a

fundamental linearity to it, the meaning starts in the cultural world and is then passed on down through product and finally to the consumer. In my opinion this model, in the social

constructivist view, should have more circularity to it, where meaning is negotiated socially before it again appears in some institutionalized form in the cultural realm. With this notion in place I believe that McCrackens theory none the less offers some interesting thoughts on the transfer of meaning, that actually do seem to appear in several of the interviews.

McCracken also offers thoughts on how time spent with the product can serve as a ritual for possessing the product, and transferring the value of the product. Seen through McCrackens theory this can be regarded as a grooming ritual where the time spent with a product can lead to close ties between the product-meaning and the consumer. As we have seen in the interviews with both Klaus (26 yr, new U) and Anra (28yr, old U) this seems to be what is happening in the world of these consumers.

Klaus: …I use it all the time, I have it in my bag today, yesterday I turned off but it was the first time in five days it was off. Otherwise, I lie with the constant, I listen to music on it, I watch TV on it, I actually listen to music from it the entire day and then I see a movie on it when I go to bed. I use it constantly, even when I'm not using it I have it in front of me.

Anra: …it's your work and your leisure and your life, I don’t’ have a television so I see everything on my Mac, I read no newspaper, I read only my computer [laughs], then look on the net to see what is happening in the world. It takes many parts of your life and gathers them in one place.

38 These quotes may serve as examples of how grooming rituals help the consumers transfer the meaning of the product.

Numerous examples of possession rituals also appear in the interviews, one example of the cleansing rituals that form part of the possession rituals appear in the interview with Klaus (26yr, new U):

RC: Tell me about the time you got your first Apple product.

Klaus: I remember it came with a courier, I bought on Apple’s website, and this guy knocks on the door, and there he was with my package. I was so sick of my HP PC computer, I just wanted the exact opposite. But it was delivered and I opened the package, I was pretty happy, I did a quick inspection, I like that when I buy something new it looks completely new, I mean I just don’t want there to be lots of scratches or things like that. I was really happy with my Macbook when I opened it, I get really excited when I buy new stuff like that. But I also feel that when I buy something new like my Mac, I don’t want there to be too much stuff on it, I want it to be held as clean as possible for as long as possible. The way it came from the factory is the way I want my product to stay for a while.

RC: Why do you think that is?

Klaus: It is something to do with purity somehow, I have trouble explaining it actually. I don’t want to many programs, to begin with, but as time goes by you install some stuff, that’s inevitable.

Maybe it looks messy if it doesn’t look like it did in the beginning. That’s actually how I feel about most my things, my kitchen, my table, lots of stuff.

In this quote we see how Klaus lets the interviewer understand how it was important to him that the computer he bought had to remain clean for as long as possible. The act of keeping the product clean by not doing anything to it, is of course just as much a conscious decision or a ritual as choosing to do a lot to it. Another interesting part of this quote is that Klaus explains that this ritual is actually something he likes to practice on many other of his possessions. This may be interpreted as though he feels that in the past he has successfully transferred meanings from other products with this ritual and therefore decides to put it in to use again. It may also mean that he is a person who takes his time to familiarize himself slowly with his products, as he mentions that after a while he began to install a few different things on his computer.

39 Other interviewees choose different possession rituals David (34 yr, old U) chooses something that makes him matter or makes him more relevant in relation the product:

RC: Finish this story, you enter a room, the room is filled with Apple Laptops, one of them is yours how do you find it?

David: Well my old done used to have stickers on it from Australia.

RC: From Australia?

David: Yes I had been on a backpacker trip around the world, I am a person who really likes to travel and I had some stickers from when I was in Australia, so I took them and put on my Mac. It gave me such a nice feeling when I saw them.

RC: Okay what about your present Mac?

David: The present one I have not actually done much about, but I'd probably find it as well. The desktop has a personal picture.

RC: Can I ask what’s in the picture?

David: Yes it is me and my girlfriend Maria on a trip to New York. Well okay so actually one could say that I almost did the same to this one as the old one, it is after all, again related to travel, but it's also a big part of who I am.

In this quote we see how travelling is an important part of David’s identity and self-concept, and that in the two products he has owned in some way he has transferred a certain part of his self-concept to the computer in order to possess it and transfer the meaning of the computer to himself. This becomes very obvious when he finishes his sentence by saying that travelling is a big part of who he is.

Another important theme in several of the interviews is that we experience that music and especially taste in music can be a big part of the self-concept, and as the Apple products can be used to store and listen to music, this becomes a widely used possession ritual:

RC: Okay, try to finish this story, you are in a room full of Mac's, but one of them is yours how do you find it?

Klaus (26 yr, new U): It's very funny, I think I would open Itunes, or perhaps look at the desktop, the purity that was there to start with has disappeared because it is used so much. But Itunes could

40 tell much about who you are, I’d go into the music library and therefore I think I would soon recognize my Mac by looking at itunes.

Anra (28 yr, old U): I would look in the music library on iTunes, I would be able to know immediately.

Mark (34 yr, Old U): …I would recognize it instantly at the Base where the programs are, they actually lie in a specific order in relation to how I use my computer, first safari and firefox on the left so FTP programs because I use alot and then skype which also has the web to do so, next is iTunes and iPhoto, because images and music are a big part of my life and sort of go well together, etc.

In these quotes we see how these consumers have used their music habits or taste to describe how they ritually possessed their product, thereby transferring the meaning of the product to themselves by making themselves relevant and important in relation to the product (McCracken, 1986). This is interesting as the rituals of cleansing and spending time are rituals where the consumer makes the product important in relation to himself. For example through

personalization of the product through stickers, pictures or music, makes you important to the product first. Thus consumers can both transfer value directly from the product, or transfer own values to the product and then transferring the value of the product back to themselves as the product is now possessed by themselves. This has been attempted to be illustrated in the figure below, showing the two possibilities or categories found in this analysis of possession-rituals.

Figure 6, own creation

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