Liquid Consumption as Experience: A Deweyan Reinterpretation

This article reinterprets liquid consumption through an experiential lens grounded in Bauman’s theory of liquid modernity and Dewey’s theory of experience. Existing research on liquid consumption has largely emphasized on structural characteristics such as ephemerality, access-based consumption and dematerialization, while offering limited understanding of how consumers experience liquidity in everyday life. Addressing this gap, the study conceptualizes indulgence as a manifestation of liquid consumption expressed through voluntary procrastination and wishful consumption. Drawing on Dewey’s framework, the article explains how consumers experience liquidity through the dimensions of interaction, continuity and situation to illuminate how consumers negotiate fluidity, temporality and uncertainty across contemporary marketplace environments. The article further develops an inquiry framework for future consumer and service research related to materialism, loneliness, well-being, surveillance and digital consumption. By shifting attention from structural properties towards lived and situated experiences, the study contributes to a richer understanding of contemporary consumption in increasingly transient and digitally mediated marketplace contexts.