metaconsumers

Noun

metaconsumer (plural metaconsumers)

1. One who actively shapes the products that they purchase.
   • Some of the implications of the entrenchment of the metaconsumer in the era of postmodernity have been-recently recognized in the field of consumer research by researchers who are at the forefront of major leaps in methodological and theoretical movements in this field.1991, A. Fuat Firat, “The Consumer in Postmodernity”, in Advances in Consumer Research, volume 18
2. One who consumes or seeks out aspects of consumerism; a consumer of the experience of shopping and advertising (as opposed to the products bought).
   • A metaconsumer is not only a consumer of products and symbols but also an active participant in the shopping spectacle.1995, Rob Kling, Spencer C. Olin, Mark Poster, Postsuburban California
3. A person, system, or organization that purchases something on behalf of a group of consumers.
   • Most of these examples assume one producer and one consumer ( or aggregate them into one metaproducer and one metaconsumer ) .1999, Herbert Dawid, Nonlinear Dynamical Systems and Adaptive Methods, page 127
4. One who consumes (destroys) the act or possibility of consumption.
   • If it is possible thus to shift from a generically female consumer to a uniquely male metaconsumer (whose slaughter of the too-desirable peacocks would, however vainly, mark an all-consuming end of consumption itself) , this possibility has everything to do with the trick whereby Thackeray stages...1997, Joseph Litvak, Michèle Barale, Jonathan Goldberg, Strange Gourmets: Sophistication, Theory, and the Novel, page 63