This study explores perspectives towards bar visiting of young South Korean Millennial women. By employing in-depth interviews including 2 bartenders and 9 millennial women customers, the findings highlight the Millennial women's bar consumption behaviour: First, the bar space is distinguished from other restaurant spaces due to the nature of its composition and interactions, reflecting that the millennials actively use social media and mobile devices as digital natives to explore new spaces, and the rules already formed in the bar, resulting in the bars’ spatiality, where exchanges between strangers often occur. Second, millennial women show tendencies of 'self-directed symbolic consumption'. They are independent consumers with sophisticated taste and purchasing power and try to form their own image by borrowing the image of space by sharing the experience with social media or acquaintances in the networks. Third, millennial women reveal an ambivalent desire for loose social interactions while enjoying the private space and spending time on their own at the bar. The bar reveals the desire and new consumption attitude of millennial women who have financial means to consume what they want and spend their free time, where allows women to temporarily forget the anxiety felt by women, and relieves daily tension felt in society. As Millennial women's educational level and social achievements increase, their socio-economic status will improve in the next generation.

Authors:
Keebom Nahm, University of Seoul, South Korea

About the Presenter(s)
Professor Keebom Nahm is a University Professor/Principal Lecturer at University of Seoul in South Korea

See this presentation on the full schedule – Saturday Schedule

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