Trophies of Surplus Enjoyment

Introduction

Contemporary sociological theories have addressed megaspectacles as intensified scenes of consumption (Best and Kellner, 2001; Ritzer, 2008). Mixing entertainment and tourism with retail marketing, megaspectacles are related to a number of other theoretical constructs, including ‘mega-events’ (Roche, 2000), ‘new forms of consumption’ (Gottdiener, 2000), ‘new means of hyperconsumption’ (Ritzer, 1999), subcultures of consumption (McAlexander et al., 2002), and economies of spectacle (Krier and Swart, forthcoming). Megaspectacles have also been analyzed as a manifestation of a broader Bakhtinian ‘carnivalization of society’ (Langmann and Ryan, 2009). Following Bakhtin (1968), contemporary carnivalesque scenes include highly participative, yet often commodified gatherings such as Burning Man (Kozinets, 2002), Mardi Gras (Gotham and Krier, 2008), the Occupy movement (Langman and Lundskow, 2012), music festivals (Flinn and Frew, 2013), and historical reenactments (Belk and Costa, 1998).

This literature shares an underlying assumption about the experiential foundation of megaspectacles as venues of fun and pleasure. To quote Collins, large-scale spectator events are interaction rituals in which attendees desire ‘the experience of being at a successful ritual’ structured to enable ‘the occurrence of strong emotion in a setting where it can be amplified by bodily interaction within the crowd’ (2004: 59). From this perspective, megaspectacles appear as markets of spontaneous enjoyment. By spontaneous enjoyment we mean something akin to jouissance (Lacan, 2006 [1966]: 694–695), ¹ translated as ‘satisfaction’ or ‘enjoyment’ that is immediately realized in situ. Current framings of megaspectacles maintain a commonsense notion that spectators do, in fact, experience intensified jouissance while in these settings, and we anticipated these dynamics during our multi-year study of motorsports megaspectacles. We expected to see high levels of spontaneous enjoyment in the form of carnivalesque activities, excessive public drunkenness, rowdy rebellion, brawling, mixing of genders, classes and generations and participative sexualized display. ² We also expected to find ‘action’ in Goffman’s sense: participants immersed in risky, consequential and fateful activities that gave them the opportunity to prove ‘character’ by willingly undertaking danger and peril (Goffman, 1967: 149–270).

While we observed spontaneous enjoyment, conspicuous jouissance and action during the megaspectacles we studied, their magnitude fell far short of their description in the literature. Attendees at these events appeared patently de-animated, physically uncomfortable and passive: spectators more than participants. The conditions necessary for ‘fun’ in social settings, specified by Goffman as unselfconscious joint engrossment and ‘spontaneous involvement’ in shared activities (1961: 37–41, 80; 1967: 113–114; see also Collins, 2004: 48) were typically not met. Instead, attendees were often unfocused and ‘out of play’, disconnected from one another yet awaiting with mild anticipation the occurrence of something worthy of their attention. Further, we observed a preponderance of obviously unpleasant experiences: gruelling walks, extensive wait times, traffic jams, long lines, unsanitary toilets, crowded venues, and uncomfortable environmental conditions. If these negative experiences were subtracted from the pleasures of the event, too little jouissance remained to account for spectatorship in terms of a market for spontaneous enjoyment.

But while spontaneous enjoyment was understated at motorsports megaspectacles, these events were dominated by a different type of market; one that we conceptualize as markets of surplus enjoyment. Unlike markets of spontaneous enjoyment that are structured by sales of in-venue experiences (access to which is obtained by purchase of admission tickets, cover charges, and event passes), markets of surplus enjoyment are structured by sales of trophies in the form of souvenirs, themed apparel, wearable merchandise, and staged opportunities for amateur photography. These trophies were not intended to be enjoyed during the event but when they were taken away from the event and displayed elsewhere. The overwhelming preponderance of trophy markets within the space of megaspectacles and the dominance of activity revolving around trophy hunting masked the relative absence of in-venue spontaneous enjoyment. Spectators at the events we studied seemed so distracted by shopping for symbols of enjoyment that they forgot to actually enjoy. When carried away from the event and displayed to non-attendees, these trophies triggered an illusion of in-venue spontaneous enjoyment that masked the absence of its reality. Thus spectator’s enjoyment was evidential not experiential: megaspectacles did not immediately ‘pleasure’ their attendees, but enabled them to bask voluptuously in the delayed, reflected glory of their trophies fuelled by the envy of those who did not attend.

To summarize, theories of megaspectacle (in all of their varieties) either explicitly or implicitly point to enjoyment within the immediate moment as the primary commodity produced and sold to spectators. Our observations of economies of spectatorship, in which spontaneous enjoyment was scarce and trophies plentiful, challenge this assumption. With liminal pleasures sidelined, the collection of trophies for the purpose of invidious consumption and surplus enjoyment became the central social activity. What drives participation in these events is the hunt for artifacts and documentary evidence that can be used to extract envy from those not present. From this perspective, markets of surplus enjoyment represent a central feature in economies of spectatorship.

In what follows, we develop a sociological model of trophies, trophy hunting and trophy display based upon the theoretical foundations of Veblen (1934 [1899]), Goffman (1967) Lacan (2006 [1966]) and Žižek (2008 [1989]). We argue that trophies are charged with moral energy by in-venue ritualistic activity, transforming them into collective representations of the megaspectacle from which they were extracted (Collins, 2004; Durkheim, 1965 [1915]; Goffman, 1967; Marshall, 2002, 2010; Worrell, 2005, 2008b). We theorize three different ideal-type forms of trophies, each charged with different kinds of moral energy: status trophies (charged with envy of symbolic prowess), action trophies (charged with envy of imaginary risk taking) and trophies of jouissance (charged with envious yet repressed desire for libidinal pleasure). Surplus enjoyment does not arise in the moments in which trophies are charged, but rather emanates from the reflective prestige and envious after-effects of their display. Following Veblen (1934 [1899]), trophies are invidious: they generate few primary gains for possessors, but important secondary gains from the reflected dissatisfaction they induce in others. Trophies are hunted, purchased and displayed in order to disturb the libidinal system of those who view them, forcing these others to envy the trophy possessors’ superior status, character and access to jouissance.

Megaspectacles and the Lack of Spontaneous Enjoyment

The theoretical approaches to megaspectacles that emphasize spontaneous enjoyment most strongly are those rooted in Bakhtin’s (1968) analysis of the writings of Rabelais. Bakhtin developed the concept of the ‘carnivalesque’ to interpret transgressive forms, sexual liberties, and celebratory functions of medieval feasts, festivals and carnival. Many theorists view megaspectacles as modern forms of carnivalesque activities that perform the same social functions as traditional carnival: regenerating social energies, discharging repressed sexuality, relieving aggression, and enabling alienated spectators to experience, however briefly, liminality and communitas (Celsi et al., 1993; Cova and Cova, 2002; Holt, 1995; Langmann and Ryan, 2009; McAlexander et al., 2002; Muniz and O’Guinn, 2001; Turner, 1969; Wang, 1999). Others theorize megaspectacles as large-scale carnivalesque gatherings that allow participants a temporary ‘second life’ to provide reprieve from the repressive constraints of the ‘first life’ of work, school and church (Eco, 1984; Justice, 1994; Langmann and Ryan, 2009). Finally, some theories of the carnivalesque view it more as a repressive than an emancipatory social force and frame megaspectacles as a source of elite social control (Brandist and Tihanov, 2000; Camille, 1992; Humphrey, 2001) or repressive desublimation (Langman, 2008; Marcuse, 1964). This darker view of carnivalesque spaces echoes Debord’s (1988, 2006 [1967]) Society of the Spectacle, where spectacles distract spectators with quickly vanishing pleasure while immersing their consciousness in ideology (Andrews, 2006; Cassano, 2008; Gotham and Krier, 2008; Krier and Swart, 2012; Newman and Giardina, 2011).

Motorsports megaspectacles such as motorcycle rallies and stock car races have a notorious reputation for carnivalesque activity: drinking, fighting and sexual carousing are legendary in these venues and are elemental to their audience appeal. Promotional materials for these events prominently feature imagery of carnivalesque licentiousness as central motifs of event activities. Counter to these expectations, however, we documented little in the way of participatory sexualized activity, raucous transgression or effervescent revelry at the events we studied. Instead, we witnessed a preponderance of decidedly un-carnivalesque behavior: passive, bored spectators engaged in mundane activities as they shopped or manipulated their digital devices. Spectatorship was highly regimented – security workers and staff dictated parking locations, corralled milling, and funneled attendees through a gauntlet of vending. While enthusiasm periodically erupted at races during restarts, military flyovers, or crashes and at motorcycle rallies during concerts or ‘burn outs’, such ‘peak experiences’ represented a small percentage of spectators’ time within the event.

Much of the ‘unfun’ of megaspectacles derives from an extreme level of social density that stretches travel and tourism infrastructure to a breaking point. In the crush of dense crowds, even the most basic activity becomes more difficult. Travelling to venues, traversing immense parking lots, setting up camps, negotiating through scrums of spectators, waiting between scheduled events and other work-like activities consume large blocks of spectator time. The events themselves, held outdoors and exposed to the elements, were often physically uncomfortable. Noise levels were often so extreme as to require earplugs or noise-canceling headsets and precluded conversation and interaction. Security personnel enforced assigned seating, separating spectators into stratified categories (skyboxes, bleachers) while limiting carnivalesque milling. The pleasures of eating and drinking were often curtailed by long lines, limited selection and dubious quality. Sleeping was difficult for many spectators due to cramped accommodation and excessive noise. Meeting other creature needs, especially those requiring toilets, was often difficult, inconvenient or at least unpleasant: we often observed spectators (especially women) queuing in long lines before rudimentary and odiferous facilities.

In addition to the unpleasantnesses of social density, several other factors limited carnivalesque experience at megaspectacles. First, the demographic characteristics of attendees at motorsports megaspectacles differ markedly from the types of people who populate their legends. The legends underlying both motorcycle rallies and stock car racing feature young, risk-taking, devil-may-care outlaws with voracious sexual appetites. Actual attendees, however, represent a graying, risk-averse and generally law-abiding demographic with sufficient disposable incomes to make them appreciate the creature comforts lacking in event venues. Even if they desired to engage in the carnivalesque activities of motorsports legend, attendees often had reputations to protect and relationships to lose. Unable to throw caution to the wind, these establishment attendees were often unwilling to make a spectacle of themselves, thus limiting the spectacle of spectators central to authentic carnivalesque events.

Further, the experience of attendees was often interrupted by the distractions of digital technology. The use of smart phones was ubiquitous and intrusive at all venues we studied. Additionally, major speedways (and other major professional sporting leagues) have introduced their own revenue-generating digital technologies to augment spectatorship, including FanVision, a personalized digital radio and video feed that provides enhanced in-venue coverage to audiences. Such devices individuated spectators, drawing their attention into a variety of particularized data streams, limiting their capacity for interactive behavior and spontaneous enjoyment.

Finally, the spectacle staged at racetracks and rallies was often monotonous and frankly boring. Exciting action seemed perpetually forestalled and spectators were patiently waiting for something to happen. The oval tracks of NASCAR, as many critics have noted, reduce auto racing to a highly repetitive, almost numbing series of perpetual left turns by cars whose livery transforms them into rolling billboards. The most depressed appearing group of people that we observed in our research were racing spectators, ears-ringing, pouring out of the stands at the end of a race, the vast majority having just watched their ‘driver of identification’ get defeated, facing the hours-long slog through jammed traffic before reaching home after a de-animated and disappointing day. Similarly, navigating the epicenter of most motorcycle rallies often involves slow rides through stop-and-go traffic astride hot, loud, vibrating v-twin motorcycles. The bulk of the daytime hours during the event are spent standing in the heat listening to second or third rate musical entertainment, aimlessly milling through vendor stalls and motorcycle expos, or wandering around looking at other people’s rides.

Thus, while carnivalesque fun and spontaneous enjoyment were central to the legend of motorsports megaspectacles, and while signage, advertising and display screens marketed carnivalesque fun as an icon of these events, we encountered precious little of it in our research. Together, high social density, demographic mismatch, distracted attention and boredom limited the carnivalesque qualities and spontaneous enjoyment of megaspectacles. These events lacked high levels of observable fun and conspicuous pleasure. They were populated by a majority of middle-aged, establishment attendees, and permeated with commerce: ‘consumers gone mild’ more than ‘girls gone wild’.

Despite this, attendees functioned as volunteer customer experience managers, defending the legends of spontaneous enjoyment when we pointed out their absence. Attendees covered over the all too apparent lack of immediate enjoyment with stories of legendary fun that maintained the fantasy of spontaneous enjoyment for themselves and others. When questioned, attendees we interviewed consistently displaced enjoyment to other places and times: ‘You should have been at last year’s Daytona 500’, ‘You should attend next year’s Republic of Texas Rally’, ‘You should have been at the Buffalo Chip last night at 2:00 am’. Throughout our fieldwork we were never in a place that was identified by attendees as the epicenter of spontaneous enjoyment. We do not believe that this was due to an error, oversight or lack of luck on our part. Instead, we see this as symptomatic of participants’ desire to maintain the legend of spontaneous enjoyment, which, as we argue below, is crucial to the value of trophies of surplus enjoyment.

Motorsports Megaspectacles as Trophy Markets

To naive observers, NASCAR races, motorcycle rallies and other motorsports megaspectacles could readily appear as vast schemes for the marketing, distribution and sale of themed merchandise; an elaborate traveling flea market full of itinerant vendors working the motorsports circuit. Clearly the built environments of these megaspectacles were optimized for commerce. At major motorcycle rallies, main traffic thoroughfares, crossroads, and parking lots were transformed into vending spaces. Leases for prime commercial property in downtown Sturgis, South Dakota required that they be vacated for the month of August and converted into retail space for Rally vendors because the rental income from the ten day Rally far exceeded that from the rest of the year. Major clubs, restaurants and bars subleased merchandising stalls in front of and inside of their buildings, layering vendor upon vendor in a somewhat disorganized jumble. Recent litigation over the use of the ‘Sturgis’ registered trademark on apparel has drawn attention to the immense scale of the market for themed T-shirts, motorcycling leathers and other apparel as cheap, mass-produced trophies of ‘outlaw biker’ culture. The retail sprawl of the Rally spreads out from Sturgis to encompass the entire western portion of South Dakota and rally-themed merchandise is sold at watering holes for hundreds of miles in each direction.

A similar scene was on display at NASCAR megaspectacles. On race weekends, semi-truck trailers filled with racing-themed and sponsor-branded merchandise rimmed the entrance to speedways. Most prominent were merchandising trailers assigned to popular drivers, each hawking driver-and-sponsor themed clothing and collectibles. Other trailers sold highly visible scanners and ‘FanVision’ systems that provided access to premium racing content. Speedways also served as marketing platforms for major automobile and motorcycle manufacturers, hunting and fishing equipment retailers, and military recruiting. Major restaurant franchises often established satellite storefronts within these events, selling racing-themed food and souvenir merchandise. Further afield, outside of the controlled ring of the speedway, laminations of gray economy, unincorporated ‘Pop Yokum’ vendors lined roads and parking lots selling more downmarket, unofficial and unlicensed wares. NASCAR races, like motorcycle rallies, appear on the surface as an elaborate pretext to generate an intensive market for T-shirts.

If the preponderance of trophy markets makes megaspectacles appear as flea-markets, the omnipresence of amateur photography at these events could readily lead casual observers to interpret them as gatherings of amateur documentary filmmakers. Cameras were quite literally everywhere at the events we attended, and the calculating, dogged, purposeful manner with which participants filled their cameras with images means it is almost impossible to overstate the prevalence of digital image taking within megaspectacular venues. At present, the social media forums that host these images contain millions of amateur images from these events. Further, many of these images inadvertently capture other people taking pictures of the same activity: essentially capturing other trophy hunters within the trophy itself. The general ubiquity of digital photography at these events demonstrates that new social media has at least partially eroded the value of traditional, physical trophies while stimulating demand for new forms of digital trophies.

Omnipresent smart phones not only captured images but enabled their instant transmission to online locations and geographically dispersed people. Again, these devices signal that attendees remain tethered to their everyday social networks even while immersed in spectacle events. In addition, their use provides further evidence that attendees were not immersed in spontaneous enjoyment. Camera-wielding attendees were neither active participants in the photographed scene nor spectators immersed in vicarious, scopophilic enjoyment. Instead, they were fully removed from the scene that they were shooting and occupied a role outside the frame of the shot.

Legend confirming photo opportunities were often actively stage-managed by organizers of the megaspectacles we studied. Carnivalesque behavior was prominently on display, but in commodified not authentic form. At the most notorious venues (motorcycle rallies at Sturgis, South Dakota and Daytona Beach, Florida), scantily-dressed, tattooed, or body painted waitresses and barmaids doubled as professional subjects of trophy photography. Blending the roles of wait staff, model, and sex worker, these women hawked beer and food while posing for pictures with attendees. Being photographed with one of these professionals was one of the most widely sought trophies at large motorcycle rallies, and in several cases, women actually posed next to signs welcoming both photographers and tips. Such commercially supplied simulations of raunch were necessary to spice up notoriously wild events that had gone mild. The growing demographic of aging, upscale, and responsible attendees were reluctant to participate directly in transgressive behavior, but still wanted to document that they were surrounded by it.

These two trophy hunting activities – purchasing themed merchandise and capturing legendary images – point to fundamental alienation from spontaneous carnivalesque interaction (Goffman, 1967: 113–136). In short, having a good time was less important than proving that a good time was had. This distinction is critical to the dynamics of trophy markets. Trophy hunting often blocks spontaneous enjoyment in-venue but generates a different form of jouissance that is extracted from others outside the event. Themed merchandise and images of revelry prove that participants were ‘really there’ – enjoying the extraordinary satisfactions denied to those who were not present. These objects and images function as the envy inducing and status conferring trophies of what Lacan refers to as ‘surplus enjoyment’ (Lacan, 2007 [1969]: 19–20). Organizers of NASCAR events, motorcycle rallies and other carnivalesque spectacles that we observed understood that attendance was motivated by the desire to obtain trophies, and profitably met that demand with simulated photo opportunities and massive volumes of themed merchandise. Thus, from our perspective, the primary commodities produced and consumed in megaspectacles are trophies, and economies of spectacle are structured as trophy markets.

We accept Veblen’s (1934 [1899]) psychologically potent reconstruction of the psychological foundations of consumption as essentially invidious: the psychic life of consumers is infused with envy, both their own envy and the imagined envy of others (see also Cassano, 2009, 2013). Invidious consumption is, at core, trophy acquisition and operates through a series of perverse displacements. ³ First, invidious consumption displaces and inverts pleasure. Trophies are not purchased to be pleasurably consumed but to be displayed to others with the intent of causing them envious displeasure. As theorized below, trophies return the envy extracted from viewers to their owners in inverted form, as surplus enjoyment. Second, invidious consumption displaces and inverts the situation of pleasure. Pleasure is derived not from the moment of the trophy’s purchase, but from the realization of surplus enjoyment in another place and time. Thus, invidious consumption signifies the psychological interpenetration of situations in which immediate conduct is structured by the anticipation of jouissance in future situations. Third, invidious consumption displaces and inverts the subject position of the consumer, who ‘takes the role of the other’ (Mead, 1934: 160–161) or identifies with the ‘other’ in an ‘other showplace’ – literally Freud’s andere Schauplatz, see Lacan (2006 [1966]: 462). The subjectivity of invidious consumers is fundamentally decentered in that their own desires are structured by the desires of others. The hunt for trophies is in essence a search for collective representations that resonate with other people’s fantasies and repressed desires. All of this rather intense shopping during events is for the acquisition of objects that will make others envious rather than directly pleasure the purchaser.

In sum, as economic markets, megaspectacles are structured by the thrill of the hunt, not the pleasure of transgression. As such, trophy markets, trophy hunting and trophy display are central to megaspectacles. Though these events are often theorized as quintessential ‘time off’, bounded regions of transgressive activity that are fundamentally removed from consequentiality and fatefulness (Goffman, 1967: 185), we argue that trophies keep these events tightly coupled to attendees’ everyday life. We find that attendees perpetually reference their everyday lives and remain tethered to their ‘time on’ roles even while staging the vacating of them. People travel long distances, endure discomfort and invest their discretionary income in the pursuit of trophies of surplus enjoyment that will augment their prestige in their everyday lives. As such, these apparently unserious and fun events have incredibly serious, even fateful, consequences.

Trophies and the Sociology of Envy

The sociology of trophies can be traced to Veblen’s Theory of the Leisure Class, where he argued that trophy hunting and trophy display are the essential economic activity of elites (1934 [1899]: 28). Trophies originated as booty extracted by victors after battle (1934 [1899]: 24) and signified the ‘prowess’ of warriors as proof of their exploitative superiority (1934 [1899]: 27). Because perpetual displays of prowess (in battle, sports, debate, fighting) were difficult and costly to sustain, trophies were sought as durable and portable signs of prowess. Trophies served as warehouses of valor, storage batteries of exploitative superiority proven in previous contests (1934 [1899]: 24) that are displayed to obtain prestige when not performing honorific activity. Trophies take the pressure off the demand to prove prowess, literally allowing possessors to ‘rest on their laurels’. Under capitalism, Veblen argued, all property takes on trophy value, signifying prowess, superiority and prestige (1934 [1899]: 28).

The demand for trophies is endemic to modernity because the density, anonymity and mobility of modern life destroys the efficacy of directly associated systems of honor (Veblen, 1934 [1899]: 102–114; see also Simmel, 1950: 409–424). Few know one’s character, but all can see and be envious of one’s trophies. Hence, attendees at contemporary megaspectacles have little incentive to prove their prowess in combat: it is far simpler to purchase a trophy. At best, many spectacles, like NASCAR, encourage fans to identify strongly with a contestant who functions as the fan’s champion within the diegetic reality of the event. Attendees register their identification by purchasing ready-made trophies that mark both their solidarity with the contestant and their attendance at events where prowess was proven. Attendees’ trophies secure, in their term, ‘bragging rights’ for spectators when displayed before envious others in the wake of the event.

The value of commodities is determined in Marxist economics by the socially necessary labor worked up in them (Marx, 2010 [1867]). Veblen’s trophies are an odd economic object, in that their value does not derive from the labor embedded within them but rather from their sign value (Baudrillard, 1996 [1968]) or exhibition value (Benjamin, 2006 [1936]: 106). ⁴ This explains why counterfeit trophies are worthless and even discrediting. Though Veblen was a noted though sympathetic critic of Hegelian/Marxist economics (see especially Veblen, 1906), his theory of trophies was clearly influenced by Hegel’s master and slave dialectic (Hegel, 1967 [1910]: para. 178–196). Veblen’s trophies have value for what they signify: prowess and superiority over others. As such, trophies mediate the Hegelian dialectics of recognition, in which the dialectic between master and slave is short-circuited by trophies that evidence the prowess and status of the master.

Trophies are sublime objects: their materiality is overwritten by their social substance. This sublime substance of social power is ritualistic moral energy, literally a Durkheimian ‘collective representation’ of prowess that has been stored in the trophy, creating a mirror-like surface that reflects prestige onto its possessor when enviously viewed by others (Cassano, 2009; Collins, 2004; Durkheim, 1965 [1915]; Marshall, 2010; Veblen, 1934 [1899]; Worrell, 2008b). The value of trophies varies with the prowess required to obtain them: the greater the vanquished enemy, the larger the field of battle, the larger the ‘audience’ to this battle, the greater the moral energy embedded within. As such, Veblen’s trophies are coextensive with a society’s symbolic structure: like law and language (Lacan, 2006 [1966]; Levi-Strauss, 1963, 1976; Zîzêk, 2008 [1989]), the prestige codes of trophies are obdurate structures that form primary status conferring systems of a society.

Finally, trophies reflect socially sanctioned superiority, forcing an invidious distinction to be made between the trophy possessor’s superiority and the trophy viewer’s inferiority. Veblen’s envy is more than mere Hegelian recognition of superiority, however; the envious trophy viewer manifests destructive desire for the good or goods possessed by the trophy possessor and fantasizes that these objects have been robbed or dispossessed from them. Viewers of trophies are not merely inferior to trophy possessors, but have had something taken from them (social honor, at least, but often something more tangible). Envy has long been recognized as a particularly corrosive, dark emotion; a ‘green-ey’d monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on’, as the triadic form of envy, jealousy, is described by Shakespeare (Othello Act 3, Scene 3). Veblen’s theory of trophies aligns with Klein’s (1963 [1932]) psychoanalytics of envy; both recognize the destructiveness of invidious distinctions in social life and explain the pervasiveness of invidious consumption as a major economic category. By equating trophies with the booty robbed from the vanquished, Veblen fundamentally linked acidic envy to dispossession and exploitation. Similarly, Klein argues that the envious person is driven by ‘destructive impulses’ to either repossess the object or destroy it (Klein, 1963 [1932]: 276–282; Klein, 1975 [1957]: 176–235) . ⁵

Lacanian Objects and the Envy Dynamics of Trophies

Veblen’s analysis of the invidious underpinnings of trophies can be specified in greater detail by viewing them through Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalytic triad of objects (Lacan, 1997: 109–114; Žižek, 2008 [1989]: 206–212). The trophies of megaspectacle instance all three Lacanian forms: objet petit a (imaginary semblance of desire), phallic signifier (symbolic markers of prohibited jouissance) and das Ding (the Freudian thing, a materialization or stain of unsymbolized jouissance) (see Lacan, 1997: 83–100; Worrell and Krier, 2012; Žižek, 1992: 135, 2008 [1989]: 206–210, 2010 [1992]: 1–12). These are not mutually exclusive categories into which trophies can be neatly divided, but ideal-types that are used here to trace envy’s complex dynamics in trophy markets. A single trophy can manifest all three of these dynamics, though often in unequal proportions. ⁶

Objet petit a is an unobtainable object that causes desire, launching desiring subjects into symbolically structured motion. As imaginary fantasy projections, these sublime objects play an essential role in constituting reality as a consistent field of meaning, bridging gaps and masking inconsistencies in the symbolic order (Žižek, 2008 [1989]: 45–49). Though often conceived of in terms of romantic desire, Žižek’s archetypal objet petit a, the primary sublime object of ideology that he analyzed in his first book, is the anti-Semitic figure of ‘the Jew’. The Jew is a ‘fantasy-construction’ or ‘illusion’ that makes the world of symbolic relations appear meaningfully seamless by masking ‘insupportable’ and ‘impossible’ inconsistencies in the anti-Semite’s world (2008 [1989]: 45). The characteristics of the fantasized Jew – financially exploitative, sexually lascivious, dirty – are exteriorizations of the repressed wishes and disavowed desires of the anti-Semite, a pure semblance ‘invested with … unconscious desire’ (2008 [1989]: 48). By projecting their own dark desires onto the out-hated image of the Jew, anti-Semites domesticate their repressed wishes and fantasies, allowing everyday life to maintain a consistent, meaningful texture. When envy-potential takes the form of objet petit a, subjects project their repressed desires onto emotionally cathected fantasy objects represented by trophies. At motorsports spectacles, such trophies represented both positive objects (adored racers, sexually attractive celebrities, idealized folk heroes) and negative objects (scorned liberal politicians, pacifists, illegal immigrants, demonized racial minorities). The potential envy in these trophies is realized when such trophies are displayed before subjects who recognize in the trophy a staging of their own unconscious desire.

Phallic signifiers are symbolic markers of the ‘barred other’, remnants of jouissance that were cut off from subjects when they were installed within the symbolic order (Žižek, 2008 [1989]: 174). These leftovers lack an official place in the symbolic system and circulate from subject to subject in exchange relationships (Žižek, 2010 [1992]: 6–7). Phallic signifiers are ‘little pieces of the real’, literally an excess of jouissance or surplus enjoyment, that mediate between positions in a symbolic network so that relationships between subjects assume the form of fetishistic relationships between things (2008 [1989]: 31). The externalized surplus enjoyment, cut off from the subject, takes on a free-floating life of its own within the subject’s symbolic network. When envy-potential takes the form of phallic signifiers, the enjoyment denied to subjects reappears in expropriated form as someone else’s trophy. Quite literally, the trophy takes the form of enjoyment that has been robbed from the subject, often intermixed with the congealed enjoyment dispossessed from other subjects. These trophies of surplus enjoyment are substantially parallel to Veblen’s invidious objects, and examples of these trophies are analyzed throughout this article.

The final Lacanian object, das Ding refers to a ‘massive, oppressive’ materialization or ‘embodiment of an impossible jouissance’ (2008 [1989]: 208–209). Whereas the phallic signifier takes on the form of a symbol, das Ding cannot be symbolized. It is a materialization of raw jouissance that no signifier can be found to mark. As realized jouissance, it cannot be sublimated into an object of desire. These bizarre, surreal eruptions of pleasure ‘stain’ the world but cannot be domesticated within it, disturbing subjects and social relations with their all too real, pulsating presence.

Our reading of Lacan and Žižek’s descriptions of das Ding leads us to equate this pulsating jouissance with raw Durkheimian collective effervescence, free-floating moral energy not affixed to a totem. Megaspectacles present subjects with amorphous sensations of energized substance whose dimensions, contours and textures they can neither quite imagine nor symbolize. Submersion of the ego within such a pulsating mass teeming with inchoate jouissance both stimulates and repulses the subject. Subjects experience this as a disorienting flood of spontaneous enjoyment (jouissance in Lacan’s multiform meaning) that quickly spends itself in uncoordinated excitations unless focused upon a totemic object. To Durkheim, this is the fundamental function of the totem: it transforms the das Ding of collective effervescence into a lasting objet petit a in the form of the totem. Without the totem, collective effervescence as das Ding immobilizes and stupefies subjects absorbed in jouissance. When transferred to totemic objets petit a, collective effervescence launches subjects in desiring-action upon the pathways of the symbolic network.

Megaspectacles may be the only events in modernity with the capacity to commodify das Ding, to load trophies with this form of potential envy. Motorsports spectacles conjure sensations of noise and vibrations from revving engines, intermingled smells of alcohol, exhaust and fried food that are both sickening yet oddly seductive. Subjects of such trophies find themselves in the presence of coagulated, amorphous sexualized pulsations: greased midget bowling, jello-wrestling, pickle-licking contests, burnout pits, automatic weapons trials, mechanical bull-riding and ceaseless, disoriented milling of carnivalesque bodies. These entities are experienced as an indistinct conglomerate of oppressive, grotesque yet enticing sensations.

In sum, Veblen, Lacan and Žižek theorize the profound role played by bizarre, disruptive objects as a mediating force in social life. Megaspectacles produce and market a class of such bizarre objects, trophies of surplus enjoyment, loading them with disruptive potential envy. The Lacanian objects closest to Veblen’s trophies are phallic signifiers, markers of enjoyment that have been expropriated from subjects and accumulated into trophies of surplus enjoyment, the owners of which become the ultimate ‘subjects supposed to enjoy’ (Žižek, 2008 [1989]: 212). Lacan’s conception is the precise analogue of Marx’s surplus value: and we argue that the two concepts are brought close together within the trophy markets of megaspectacle.

The Mediating Role of Legends in Trophy Markets

In this section, we specify how megaspectacle trophy markets, filled with disruptive objects charged with envy-potential, relate to their legends. Legendary narratives and imagery depicting scenes of spontaneous enjoyment are the primary income producing asset of megaspectacles. Legends operate as a capital fund that is built up when spectacular events are staged and drawn down when mass-produced, geographically distributed trophies are charged with potential envy. Trophies are rarely charged directly during immediate moments of megaspectacle. Instead, each successful staging of a spectacle pays into a legend fund and trophies are charged indirectly as withdrawals from this fund. The envy that disturbs viewers of trophies results from their awareness of the megaspectacle’s capitalized legend – its fund of narratives and images of spontaneous enjoyment – not from their cognizance of the specific event attended by the trophy possessor. In the mutual determination of trophies and legends, trophies are charged by megaspectacles but not necessarily during them.

The outsized, durable trophy markets of megaspectacle develop upon the bankable foundation of their legend fund. By contrast, small-scale events lack generalized notoriety: outsiders to them do not possess a fantasy image of their activity. Trophies from these events are restricted to those vividly depicting sexualized and carnivalesque spontaneous enjoyment, scenes that require no legendary support to stimulate desire. As a result, the trophy markets of small events remain underdeveloped relative to megaspectacle (these small events market trophies of jouissance, see below). The value of trophies is stabilized by the widely diffused awareness of their legend rather than the direct experience of their events.

Veblen’s analysis of goodwill, capitalism’s quintessential intangible asset, provides insight into the hard economic realities of something as soft as a legend (1915 [1904]). As an intangible asset, legends are managed as a fund whose balance depreciates without ongoing investment. Just as Durkheim argued that collective representations erode ‘after the assembly has ended’ and require ongoing ritual action in order to reignite them, since ‘when left to themselves, [they] become feebler and feebler’ (Durkheim, 1965 [1915]: 265), we argue that legends require similar ritual reenactment to prevent their decay. Such investment in the intangible asset of the legend is required to stabilize and protect the solvency of megaspectacle trophy markets.

Unlike corporate brands that are internally manufactured and precisely controlled, megaspectacle legends are difficult to manufacture or to control with specificity. They are diffuse narratives authored by ‘many hands’, like early Bible translations, with obscure origins, indeterminate evolution and imprecise contours all of which lie outside the capacity of any single corporate actor to control. Legends are ‘crowd-sourced’ assets of great value to event organizers, corporate marketers and trophy sellers but these actors can only expropriate, not generate, them. Found in the wilds of social life, legends are sought as a ‘free gift’ to be privatized by marketing managers and domesticated in the service of brands as a sublimated form of primitive accumulation (Marx, 2010 [1867]).

Marketing professionals in our motorsports study varied in their approach to legends. Recognizing the impossibility of managing and controlling legends single-handed, they established complex networks of cross-marketing partnerships to better expropriate, privatize and tame legends. A growing focus of marketing professionals emphasizes the management of customers’ in-venue experience of the legend, rather than management of the legend itself. These customer experience managers seek maximum expropriation of megaspectacle’s legend to augment the value of their brand (Harley-Davidson at Sturgis, Chevrolet at NASCAR races). Benefitting from a legend that they did not create, marketing professionals nevertheless seek to increase legend awareness while managing customer experience, an action we denote as legend work.

Legend work includes a host of activities. Event organizers promote legend awareness with direct marketing campaigns and indirect promotions, including staged or documentary representations of the megaspectacle in film or television programming that double as mechanisms to reinforce and disseminate a megaspectacle’s legend. Event organizers often invest in durable memorials (museums, visitor centers, etc.) to the spectacle to sustain legends between megaspectacular events. Ultimately, the most important investment comes from staging in-venue activities consistent with the legend, at least in appearance. For example, NASCAR’s 2013 marketing campaign focused upon infusing its race broadcasts with images and icons from its legendary past. In 2013, NASCAR commercials featured peak moments in NASCAR history, retro video footage and overlay of current drivers with legendary heroes of the past. Rules changes were instituted to bring current races in line with NASCAR legend: closer racing, frequent crashes and a ‘boys have at it’ policy encouraged rivalries to spill over into pit-row brawls. The Sturgis Motorcycle Rally engaged in similar legend work to manage attendance experiences and public awareness of its legend, marketing and ‘branding’ activity to maintain its legend as an ‘outlaw biker’ venue. Plans were formed to construct an outlaw biker-themed ‘Sturgis Experience Museum’, and the word ‘legendary’ was appended to the names of numerous rally events and venues (Legendary Sturgis, Legendary Buffalo Chip, the Sturgis Legends Ride, the Legendary Sturgis Main Street, Legend Lane, Legends Suites Bed and Breakfast) as well as a host of Sturgis trademarked goods. Such legend work was partially aimed at managing customer experience in-venue by creating the illusion of real-time spontaneous enjoyment. It was also directed at increasing the potential envy of trophies while building legend awareness with non-attendees by confronting them with graphic evidence of missed events that had lived up to their fantasized expectations.

In financial accounting, goodwill represents the surplus of the purchase price of a company over the value of its tangible assets. Goodwill is usually parsed as the prestige value of a brand, the ‘discounted present value’ of future recurring revenues resulting from consumer recognition of logos, registered trademarks, brands, patents and other intangible assets. In Veblen’s time, mergers and acquisitions often resulted in corporations whose value was mostly goodwill, a tendency that has only escalated in recent decades with asset-light corporations floated on speculative financial markets (Krier, 2009). Megaspectacles are rarely organized by a single, hierarchically managed corporation but by cross-marketing coalitions of asset-light, post-Fordist businesses (Edwards et al., 2010; Harvey, 1989), many of which are essentially nests of contracts: light to the point of gas. They invest in few fixed assets and the value of their contracts floats upon legendary brand-recognition or goodwill in the form of legend awareness. As evidenced by recent financial crises, the goodwill of asset-light firms is highly unstable and can vanish overnight (Krier, 2005). Maintaining a vibrant legend is critical to the economic stability of these events and is a central focus of managerial activity.

If a legend becomes devalued, so do its trophies. Just as myths decompose into legends when they become disconnected from a tightly organized ritual order (Levi-Strauss, 1976: 256–268), legends disconnected from actual staged events similarly decompose, generating crises of authenticity or ‘degradation of aura’ (Benjamin, 2006 [1936]: 103–106, 119). For these reasons, organizers of megaspectacles expend considerable resources supporting, broadcasting and protecting their envy inducing legend. Legends provide a fantasy construct that fills gaps and covers inconsistencies of attendee experience within the venue, generating a relatively seamless consistent experience. As such, legends are essential to maintain both the surplus enjoyment produced in events and the surplus value of the goods sold in their trophy markets; this theoretical analogue between surplus enjoyment and surplus value is developed by Lacan (2007 [1969]: 19–20, 44–45, 80–81) and Žižek (2008 [1989]: 50–55).

Legend awareness preloads trophy viewers’ fantasy space with invidious emotion. Hence, the surplus enjoyment of trophies is an after-effect of a legend awareness that preceded the moment when the trophies were viewed. The situations that charge trophies and the situations in which they are displayed are linked, but not tightly coupled in temporal chains, in which one situation immediately feeds into the next (Collins, 2004: 202). Instead, trophy situations may be separated by large expanses of space and time. Such inverted temporality and teleological causation are typical of trophy markets: events that have not yet happened (trophy displays) determine activity in a present scene (trophy hunting and legend work). Hence, subsequent situations cause previous ones, a dialectically reflexive, trans-situational effect that Goffman described as having one’s ‘world played backwards’ (Goffman, 1971: 319).

The codetermination of events and legends provides one answer to a fundamental question of megaspectacles: if they are markets for trophies, why stage the spectacle? Why make huge capital investments that increase the organic composition of spectacle ⁷ rather than simply sell the trophies? Trophies, though tangible commodities, have negligible value unless charged with the intangible asset of legend. Since a spectacle’s legend is an externality that cannot be internally controlled, it depreciates unless ongoing megaspectacle events replenish the legend fund. In an era of new media, evidence of the discontinuity between events and legend can ‘go viral’, spreading instantly and exponentially, threatening the potential envy of the event on a mass scale. Hence the imperative to manage customer experience, providing simulated photo opportunities in venues artificially papered over with legendary images.

Megaspectacles, Rituals, and Trophies as Social Objects

The relationship between myth, ritual and totem in classical anthropology is parallel to the relationship between the legends, events and trophies of megaspectacle. Rituals embody and enact myths while sacralizing totems, overwriting their physical substance and charging them with social energy (Collins, 2004: 81–87; Durkheim, 1965 [1915]; Hubert and Mauss, 1964; Levi-Strauss, 1963: 232–41, 1976: 65–66; Mauss, 1967; Worrell, 2008b). Megaspectacles, despite their highly profane qualities, are sacralizing quasi-ritual events that generate and sustain their legends, while loading their trophies with envy-potential. Megaspectacles are closer to the conception of modern interaction ritual than to notions of pure ritual derived from classical anthropology (Collins, 2004; Goffman, 1967). As interaction rituals, megaspectacles generate social energy by aggregating individuals, aligning them into a momentary moral community and agitating them into collective effervescence (Collins, 2004: 48–49; Durkheim, 1965 [1915]: 250–265). To prevent collective effervescence from dissipating when the crowd disperses, interaction rituals project the group’s precarious current of social energy onto objects or totems, charging them with a moral force that Durkheim equates to ‘electricity’ (1965 [1915]: 215, 322, 419). By connecting ritual energy with ‘something that endures [totem], the sentiments themselves become more durable’ (1965 [1915]: 265). Thus the totem serves as a storage battery of social power (Worrell, 2005, 2008b); ‘energy in a bottle’ (Lacan, 2007 [1969]: 49) that preserves collective effervescence beyond the place and time of its production (Collins, 2004: 87; Marshall, 2010).

The totems of traditional ritual differ from the trophies of megaspectacles in several important ways. A totem operates as an obdurate representation of the collective, making society effectively ‘real’ when its members are not co-present. Totems operate by ‘constantly bringing [collective sentiments] to mind and arousing them … assuring the continuation of this consciousness’ (Durkheim, 1965 [1915]: 265). Both totems and trophies mediate social relationships, totems by objectifying shared identity and reverence for normative system, trophies by objectifying envious distinctions and expropriation of the goods of life. Trophies generate differential, yet interconnected subject positions that are mirrored but inverted. Totems bring people together in moral community while trophies divide social consciousness by extracting surplus jouissance. Trophies force fantasy images to consciousness; images that excite and disturb trophy viewers by flooding their consciousness with repressed jouissance and envy. The impact of trophies for possessors and viewers is not the same: the disturbing invidious energy is dispossessed from the viewer and reflected back to its possessor in inverted form, as surplus enjoyment (plus-de-jouir, mehrlust) (Lacan, 2007 [1969]: 44). Trophies and totems are distinct social objects: each is reflexively charged with moral energy in ritualistic activity. However, totems are collective goods that belong to the group as a whole and generate and preserve social identification (Collins, 2004: 49) but do not produce envy. Trophies, by contrast, are private property that divides collective sentiments, generating envy in viewers and prestige for possessors. ⁸

Megaspectacles produce potential envy that is realized as surplus enjoyment when viewed through the mediation of legends. Megaspectacles vary in their ritual formality, from almost high-church stadium settings (spectator sports, concerts) to disorganized, sprawling venues (motorcycle rallies). Events with greater ritual-formality, as well as those with large numbers of attendees, collective effervescence and focused ritual expression will more effectively charge trophies with surplus enjoyment (Collins, 2004; Marshall, 2010). We would like to suggest four additional propositions regarding the magnitude of surplus enjoyment charged in trophies.

The sacrifice of spontaneous enjoyment. Sacrifice is a central component of ritual and refers to burning that sublimates and transfers moral energy onto objects (Hubert and Mauss, 1964: 19–49). Megaspectacles vary in their level of sacrifice, roughly indexed by the in-venue ratio of spontaneous enjoyment to masochistic displeasure demanded of their attendees. Spontaneous enjoyment at spectacles often dissipates within momentary revels, while the sacrifice of spontaneous enjoyment generates a ‘surplus’ transferred to trophies. As noted above, attendance at megaspectacles is often a veritable potlatch of time, money and comfort. Just as Durkheim, Hubert and Mauss theorized that religious sacrifices are essential to sacralizing objects, we argue that sacrifices of surplus enjoyment are essential to trophies of surplus enjoyment. Events with high levels of sacrifice will load trophies with greater surplus enjoyment. In Marx’s terms, such sacrifice constitutes socially necessary labor-time to acquire a trophy charged with spontaneous enjoyment: the greater the sacrifice required (the more elaborate the ‘war stories’ associated with trophy acquisition), the greater the social value.

The importance of emotional ambivalence. While some theories of ritual emphasize one-sided and uniform emotional intensity or ‘emotional entrainment’ as essential to ritual (Collins, 2004: 119; see also Durkheim, 1965 [1915]: 255–256, 1984 [1893]: 61), the events that charge trophies of surplus enjoyment manifest intense emotional ambivalence (Adorno et al., 1950: 884–889; Freud, 1950 [1919]: 18–74; Marshall, 2010: 65; Smith, 1998; Worrell, 2008a: 9, 19, 91). ⁹ Events infused with intense, uniform feeling-states and unidirectional emotional alignment discharge their moral energy in orgiastic or even chiliastic spontaneous enjoyment: moral energy burns bright but brief in a ‘useless dissipation of energy’ (see Durkheim, 1984 [1893]: 57). In contrast, events infused with intense emotional ambivalence, in which strong positive emotions (pleasure/love) pulsate with equally strong negative ones (displeasure/hate), often sanction the expression of only one of these bivalent poles. Hence, the appearance of group solidarity and emotional entrainment is more widespread than its reality, as group members project an ‘illusion of unanimity’ that masks their ambivalence and underlying diversity (Turner and Killian, 1987: 26). Repression of emotional energy contrary to mandated expression leads to its concentrated projection onto social objects (Freud, 1950 [1919]: 67–71; Marshall, 2010: 73–74). In other words, social objects are charged with the energy of taboo, repressed emotion, not a morally sanctioned, consciously expressed emotion. ¹⁰ Hence, the greater the suppression of emotions and desires contrary to sanctioned expression, the greater the moral energy available for projection onto trophies of surplus enjoyment.

The importance of moral ambiguity. We have argued that surplus enjoyment is produced in megaspectacles but realized upon display of trophies before envious others. These others, the subject of the trophy, must know what the trophy represents, they must be cognizant of the event’s legend. ¹¹ Legend awareness pre-forms the contours of potential envy, but because these contours must lie within the coordinates of the subject’s desire, the insidious impact of trophies will not be uniform throughout the trophy possessor’s social network. While some subjects of the trophy will overtly express their envious response, we suspect that those whose desires are most aroused by the trophy are least likely to express them. In fact, they may well repress or disavow their arousal and openly derogate the trophy with expressions of disgust, disapproval and moral outrage. The arousal of jouissance in the subject is likely to be greatest when the trophy depicts forbidden pleasures, when it gives form to enticing, but disapproved of desires that the subject already expends energy to suppress (Durkheim, 1965 [1915]: 434–461). Because the trophy represents ‘temptation’, its emotional impact will be profound but indeterminately expressed (Marshall, 2010: 69–72). The jouissance released by the trophy may lead to denials, jokes or scorn and other antinomies of moral ambiguity. The envy is experienced by the subject as stolen jouissance that has been dispossessed by the trophy holder: it is this invidious disruption, reflected and inverted, that realizes surplus enjoyment.

Carnivalesque transgression as a short-circuit of surplus enjoyment. Trophies that evidence carnivalesque transgression, especially if direct expressions of sexualized debauchery, are ‘trump cards’ of surplus enjoyment. For such trophies, surplus enjoyment is realized directly: cognizance of the legend need not precede the display of the trophy. Sexual transgression was particularly widespread in the megaspectacles we studied, appearing with great regularity on themed merchandise and in staged photo opportunities. Such trophies transcend the sectoral limitations of most megaspectacular legends by arousing base fantasies and fundamental moral repressions, that are coarse but widely shared. ¹² Such trophies short-circuit the mediating role of legends in the realization of surplus enjoyment, as they symptomatically lie within the coordinates of desire of a broad mass of the population.

To summarize, greater magnitudes of surplus enjoyment are produced and transferred to trophies in megaspectacles when these exhibit: large numbers of attendees; collective effervescence; ritual realization of legends in-venue; mass dissemination of legends extra-venue; ritual formality; sacrifice of spontaneous enjoyment; emotional ambivalence coupled with morally sanctioned expression; moral ambiguity and carnivalesque transgression.

Trophies of Surplus Enjoyment: Status, Action and Jouissance

Trophies of surplus enjoyment are bizarre objects whose value lies in their capacity to invidiously disturb those who view them. Like all commodities in capitalism, the value of these trophies must, at core, result from the socially necessary labor, or abstract labor, embedded within them (Marx, 2010 [1867]). Because the physical substance of trophies of surplus enjoyment (digital images, T-shirts, trinkets and wearable merchandise) require relatively little labor to manufacture or produce, a large portion of their value derives from the socially necessary labor of acquisition. Like the cheap medals presented to winners of sporting events, trophies have value because they are difficult, expensive and time-consuming to acquire and not because they are difficult, expensive and time-consuming to manufacture. The greater the magnitude of abstract acquisition labor embedded within a trophy, the greater the invidious disturbance when viewed. The value of trophies, then, is a strange form of scarcity value or economic rent, but of a non-transferable kind, since acquisition, not mere possession, is key to social recognition. ¹³ The secondary market for second-hand trophies is notoriously weak because the value is entailed and is literally not capable of transfer without changing form. ¹⁴

The magnitude of the invidious impact of trophies upon their subjects is determined, at least in part, by the abstract labor of acquisition, but the quality of that impact depends upon the form of surplus enjoyment that the trophy represents. In our study of megaspectacles, surplus enjoyment was transferred to trophies in three distinguishable ideal-type forms: status trophies, action trophies, and trophies of jouissance. These distinctions were marked by the nature of invidious comparison aroused in the subject of the trophy. While we discuss each of these forms of surplus enjoyment as a discrete entity, it is important to note that any actually existing trophy may represent a blend all three forms.

Status trophies generate envy by forcing recognition of the possessor’s superior social rank, prestigious position, elite standing and wealth. In late capitalism, status trophies signify conspicuous wealth, waste and leisure (Veblen, 1934 [1899]; see also Baudrillard, 1996 [1968]: 212; Bourdieu, 1984: 281; Elias, 2006: 42, 70; Goffman, 1951). For example, an outlaw biker-themed T-shirt, dated by the logo of an annual motorcycle rally, functions as a status trophy despite the negligible cost of the T-shirt as token. As a status trophy, the potential envy lies in its conspicuous display of the superior levels of wealth, waste and leisure necessary to come into possession of it, including wealth to purchase an expensive motorcycle, income to travel and time off work to attend the event. The value of status trophies is affected by the resources and prowess required to obtain the trophy hunter’s position in-venue. For instance, digital images of a NASCAR fan posing beside a race-team’s pit crew signifies the status connections necessary to obtain such premium access, in addition to displaying disposable wealth. Sending a text message with a photograph of oneself at a sold-out venue that was cumbersome to navigate, expensive and time consuming has greater value than a photograph of oneself at a poorly attended high school event. Charged with the megaspectacle’s envy inducing social energy, status trophies mark their possessor’s superiority, reflecting the degraded status of the viewer.

Action trophies generate envy by displaying idealized, socially valued character traits of their possessor, especially courage, gameness, integrity and composure in the face of voluntarily chosen danger (Goffman, 1967: 185). Character, like trophies, is an after-effect of such situations of action (Goffman, 1967: 217). Action trophies signify that their possessors were ‘where the action’ was, and that they engaged in ‘deep play’ for high stakes (Geertz, 1972). In sharp contrast to status trophies, action trophies do not signify conquest, exploitation or status superiority, but simply the courage and fortitude required to willingly face danger. Thus a ‘duel can be lost but character won’ (Goffman, 1967: 246). Middle-class suburbs provide little opportunity for action, their residents constitute a large portion of the market for action trophies redolent of legendary danger, violence, and death. Much of the danger at action spectacles is simulated and maintained within safe bounds. At motorcycle rallies, burnout pits, zip-lines, cage-fighting, and midget wrestling provide safe representations of danger to trophy hunting attendees who trailered their recently purchased, factory-chopped bikes to the rally.

Because action trophies do not signal socially sanctioned status but risky, morally suspect activity like gambling, fighting and other forms of chancy behavior, their envy-potential is more fragile than that of status trophies. More so than status trophies that signal socially sanctioned, symbolic superiority or trophies of jouissance that are charged directly in-venue with conspicuous carnivalesque pleasure and require no legendary support at all, action trophies are highly dependent upon legend awareness as a source of potential envy. For example, the legend of the outlaw biker is essential to infuse motorcycle rallies with action: motorcycle rally T-shirts are emblazoned with outlaw biker imagery and signify that the wearer voluntarily entered an outlaw biker setting rife with dangerous activities, excessive drinking, and unsavory people. Unlike status trophies, action trophies require strategic impression management. Status trophies signify generalized prestige and honor that reflect positively on their possessors even within professional settings (resumes are notoriously padded with lists of status trophies). Action trophies, on the other hand, must often remain separate from professional activities (purged from resumes, Facebook pages, etc.) in order to prevent potentially negative character attributions that would be stigmatizing in many status conferring settings.

Trophies of jouissance generate envy by representing fantasy scenes of enjoyment, usually with sexual overtones, that lie at the core of a subject’s desire. The essence of these scenes is carnivalesque transgression in the form of general laughter, mesalliance and animated, lower ‘grotesque bodies’ (Bakhtin, 1968), the quintessential content of psychological repression in Western society. Hence, desire for such pleasures is often unconscious, or when conscious, openly denied or disavowed. As described above, subjects are most aroused by trophies of jouissance when they depict fantasy scenes of forbidden pleasures that the subject outwardly condemns, but inwardly desires. The greater the ambivalence between suppressed desire and moral condemnation, the more the subject is stirred up by the trophy. The expression of this emotional agitation is somewhat indeterminate: the subject may jokingly distance themselves from the scene, display bemused disinterest, or express horror, disgust, or condemnation, especially when such expressions are demanded by social convention. Megaspectacles produce trophies infused with sexual license, frivolity and libidinal pleasures because such pleasures, though strongly condemned, lie deep within the coordinates of unconscious desire in Western subjectivity. Possessors of these trophies realize surplus enjoyment with a high degree of effectiveness because of the extreme ambivalence of subjects.

Because trophies of jouissance target fantasies that are the lowest common denominator of Western society (Simmel, 1950: 34), their relationship with megaspectacular legends is complex. Crucially, some trophies of jouissance so vividly represent fantasy scenes that they require no foreknowledge of the event’s legend in order to arouse trophy viewers (photographs, videos). In our study, organizers of small-scale motorcycle rallies that lacked mass notoriety ensured that attendees were provided with overt scenes of sexualized transgression to photograph. The resulting images were effective trophies of jouissance that stimulated viewers even without legendary contextualization. On the other hand, the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally’s global legend awareness as a notorious scene of carnivalesque raunch meant that G-rated merchandise and photo opportunities were profitably sold that generated X-rated levels of jouissance when displayed as trophies. Sturgis’ legend was so powerful, in fact, that even the most chaste rally-themed objects operated as trophies of jouissance. Megaspectacles with powerful legends require little to ignite full-blown fantasy construction in trophy viewers: objects that provide some small tangible evidence of libidinal action, such as posed photographs of pastied wait staff, serve as complete trophies of jouissance.

Character attributions of action (bravery, courage, voluntary acceptance of bodily danger) reflect systems of honor associated with Western masculinity: men find action in dangerous risk-taking while women find action in reputation risking settings that test virtue (Goffman, 1967: 209–214, 234). In our study, photographs of women’s sexualized activity was a common artifact of motorcycle rallies, and such scenes were sought by camera wielding men and women alike as trophies of jouissance. For the women who appeared in these images, trophies of jouissance doubled as action trophies, a sign of daring and risk taking as much as of spontaneous pleasure. Like pure action trophies, such potentially stigmatizing objects require strategic impression management.

Conclusion

This article conceptualized markets for a special kind of commodity: trophies of surplus enjoyment. Sociological accounts of spectacles have presented them as sites for the experiential consumption of exciting distractions, fun but fleeting moments of purchased enjoyment that ideologically dupe those who consume them. We acknowledge that megaspectacles sell enjoyment; that their attendees pay the price of admission to access a venue of legendary enjoyment. It is the timing, location and nature of that enjoyment that is at issue. The megaspectacles we studied exhibited subdued in-venue pleasures and surprising amounts of image-making and shopping. Attendees did not just exit through the gift shop but entered through never ending trophy markets whose trade pervaded their every moment. We observed so much activity diverted away from immediate enjoyment into trophy hunting that we were forced to approach megaspectacles from this new angle.

To explain the patterns we observed, we analyzed spectacles as economic circuits that produce trophies of surplus enjoyment rather than sites of ideologically laced consumption. This complex circuit decomposes into several interconnected moments. Megaspectacles produce events that stage envy inducing legends of spontaneous enjoyment. As quasi-rituals, these events produce moral energy, some of which is not dissipated in immediate jouissance but is instead transferred to trophy objects as potential envy. Markets are provided for attendees who hunt for these trophies of status, action and jouissance. Hunting for trophies that will best represent the event’s envy inducing legend is the central focus of activity.

Hence, the value of trophies is begotten outside Marx’s primal scene of wage-labor production in the spectacular wilds of consumer culture. Potential envy embedded in trophies is realized upon display in ‘another showplace’, well away from the time and space of the trophy hunt, to subjects who are aroused by them. Trophies function like funhouse mirrors, reflective but distorting surfaces in which viewers (mis)recognize the owners’ superior status, action and jouissance as their own dispossessed enjoyment. Gazing at trophies, subjects see congealed therein the abundant joys of life that were denied them, that were robbed from them, or that were somehow expropriated as a surplus by the trophy owner. These invidious emotions are strongest when the trophy crystallizes viewers’ desire for secret but forbidden pleasures, those fundamental fantasies that provide structure to subjectivity. Trophies reflect subjects’ profound invidious energies back upon their owners in inverted form: emotional disturbances of viewers are reversed as the owner’s prestige, honor and jouissance.

Megaspectacles and trophy markets are widespread in contemporary capitalism (professional and collegiate athletics, cinema, music concerts, festivals), each event promising to deliver legendary, spontaneous enjoyment to attendees. Yet, in the events we studied, spontaneous enjoyment was less conspicuous than legend would have it or than attendees claimed it was at other times and places. Perhaps enjoyment was more subtle than we, as relative outsiders, could discern. But it was clear that trophy hunting was extensive, that spontaneous enjoyment ‘in the moment’ evaporated as trophy hunting escalated and that many spectators played their enjoyment backwards, planning their event entirely around the acquisition of trophies that they imagined would most effectively disturb the emotions of viewers back home.

Digital technology and social media have overcome the space and time constraints that formerly separated the capturing of trophies from their display, dramatically reducing turnover time within circuits of surplus enjoyment (Harvey, 1989). Social networking sites thrive upon the digital fandoms that develop around spectacular productions, in which networked consumers share in-venue ‘selfies’ as well as derivative fan art, fan fiction and devotional discourse, e.g. ‘NASCAR Nation’, H.O.G. (Harley Owners’ Group), My Little Pony ‘Pegasisters’ and ‘Bronies’, Harry ‘Potterheads’, ‘Twi-hards’, Dr ‘Whovians’, Star ‘Trekkies’. Beneath fandom’s pleasurable surface pulses a dismal joust of trophy hunting as envy inducing images are displayed and instantaneously valorized by others who ‘retweet’, ‘like’, ‘favorite’ or comment upon them. Far from elevating spectators into a carnivalesque sphere, megaspectacles and their trophies digitally redouble the alienation and interpersonal status competition already rampant in everyday life.