From Time Is Money to Life Is Hygge: How Countermythologies Enable Consumer Temporal Resistance

This research examines how market-mediated countermyths enable consumer temporal resistance by analyzing US consumers’ adoption of Danish hygge to challenge the dominant myth that “time is money.” Through a netnographic study combining visual analysis and existential-phenomenological interviews, findings reveal a four-stage recursive process through which consumers utilize hygge to achieve temporal transformation within contexts of acceleration. Unlike temporary oases of deceleration, this process enables an enduring transformation in consumers’ orientation toward time through (1) recognizing temporal myths as constructed rather than natural, (2) finding market legitimation for alternative temporalities, (3) crafting new temporal rhythms and timeflows in everyday life, and (4) sustaining emancipatory timework within dominant structures. This research extends understanding of consumer temporality by demonstrating how counter-temporal myths, mediated by the market, provide resources for sustained consumer deceleration, and introduces “emancipatory mythwork” as the strategic borrowing of alternative cultural narratives to expand agency within constraining structures.