Lifestyles may be considered as group identities. Marketers use demographic and economic approaches in tracking changes in broad societal priorities, but these approaches
do not begin to embrace the symbolic nuances that separate lifestyle groups. Lifestyle
is more than the allocation of discretionary income. It is a statement about who one is
in society and who one is not. Group identities, whether of hobbyists, athletes, or drug
users, take their form based on acts of expressive symbolism. The self-definitions of
group members are derived from the common symbol system to which the group is
dedicated. Such self-definitions have been described by a number of terms, including
lifestyle, public taste, consumer group, symbolic communityand status culture.