Maybe you’ve heard of Thorstein Veblen. No? He was the Norwegian-American economist and sociologist who coined the term “conspicuous consumption.” As it turns out, Veblen coined another term that didn’t quite worm its way as deeply into our popular culture. That would be “vicarious consumption.”
It essentially said this: The consumer choices exhibited by one person sometimes work to the credit of another. When we see a butler in a tuxedo, a benefit accrues not to the butler but his “master.” The butler is consuming vicariously for his boss.
