The Alphabet of Desire: Consumption, Symbols, and Invisible Colonization

We believe we desire freely. That what we like comes from within us, like a kind of personal intuition—almost natural. We choose a city, an aesthetic, a way of life, and assume that choice belongs to us.

But desire doesn’t appear out of nowhere.
It is learned.

It takes shape through images, stories, references, aspirations. It is molded by what we see repeated, by what is celebrated, by what is validated. And, above all, by what others have already learned to desire before us.

We rarely stop to ask where what we want actually comes from. Why certain things attract us so clearly—and others simply don’t exist within our emotional radar. As if they had never been an option to begin with. Perhaps desire isn’t as intimate as we think. Perhaps it isn’t a pure impulse, but a construction. A language.

And like any language, it has rules, hierarchies, and structures that we learn long before we are aware of them. A silent system that organizes what feels spontaneous. That defines what is worth wanting—and what is not even worth considering.

Because what we desire doesn’t just speak about us.
It speaks about the world that taught us how to desire.

If desire is learned, then it isn’t entirely ours. And that idea, however uncomfortable, is not new. Jacques Lacan put it plainly: desire is never autonomous. It is always the desire of the Other. We don’t simply desire an object; we desire what that object represents in someone else’s gaze. What it validates, what it promises, what it brings us closer to—if only symbolically—to a version of ourselves we believe is more complete.

Years later, René Girard expanded this idea with his theory of mimetic desire: we don’t desire things, we desire what others desire. The object itself is almost secondary. What truly matters is the relationship.

Put simply: we learn to want by watching.

Watching what is celebrated, what is displayed, what is repeated. Watching who holds attention, who is validated, who seems to have access to something we don’t—at least not yet. And suddenly, that perfume is no longer just a perfume. That trip is no longer just a destination. That lifestyle is no longer just a preference. They become signals. Codes. Promises.

Take a brand like Chanel. It isn’t desired solely for the quality of its products—though it has it—but for everything it embodies: elegance, history, status, a certain idea of refined femininity. What is being purchased is not the object itself, but the symbolic position that object occupies.

Or something far more everyday: an aesthetic café, with soft light, marble tables, and perfectly curated cups. The coffee itself is almost irrelevant. What is desired is the full experience: belonging to that visual universe, that narrative of calm, of taste, of a life well lived.

Desire, then, stops being an individual reaction and becomes something deeply relational. It doesn’t emerge in isolation. It circulates. It is replicated, adjusted, transmitted. And in that process, something learned begins to feel natural. Because in the end, we don’t desire isolated objects.

We desire what we believe those objects say about us when someone else is looking. And if we learn to desire by watching, then the next question becomes inevitable: Who decides what is worth looking at?

Desire is not only constructed. It is also ranked.

Not all aspirations occupy the same place. Some are presented as universal, refined, “correct.” Others are pushed aside, made invisible, as if they never carried the same symbolic weight. And that difference is not accidental.

Jesús Martín-Barbero spoke of cultural mediations—those invisible processes that transform global messages into local meanings. We don’t consume what we see directly. We reinterpret it. But that reinterpretation is not always free.

In turn, Judith Williamson showed how advertising does not sell products, but meanings. It translates objects into promises: status, love, success, belonging. And in doing so, it organizes a system in which certain desires appear more valid than others. This is where desire stops being merely learned and starts being imported.

Because many of the things we long for do not originate in our own context. They come from narratives built elsewhere—under different logics, different histories, different centers of power. Think about it without romanticizing it too much.

The “dream” trip is rarely to Central America. It is to Paris, to Italy, to London, to Japan. Not because these places are inherently superior, but because they have been narrated as culture, as sophistication, as transformation. Meanwhile, what is local is reduced to landscape—to background, to something that is lived in, but not idealized.

The same happens with the body.

For years—and still now—the dominant ideal has been a very specific one: thin, contained, shaped by features that align more closely with European standards than with diverse realities. This is not a coincidence. It is an aesthetic repeated until it becomes norm.

Even what is now perceived as “quiet luxury” operates within learned codes. Brands like Loro Piana or The Row do not shout. They do not need visible logos. They rely on subtlety: noble materials, neutral palettes, precise tailoring. And yet—precisely because of that—they are perceived as aspirational. Because even discretion was designed as language.

The same is true for something as ordinary as coffee. It is no longer just a drink. It is an aesthetic experience: the cup, the light, the space, the silence. What is consumed is not the coffee itself, but the narrative surrounding it. None of this is accidental.

Desire is not only learned.
It is also organized.

And more often than not, that order responds to structures that come from elsewhere. To stories repeated until they feel natural. To codes we internalize without questioning. Which is why, when we believe we want something, it is worth asking—even if it feels uncomfortable—whether we truly chose it, or simply learned to recognize it as valuable.

If desire is learned and also ranked, then we are not dealing with isolated impulses. We are dealing with something far more structured: a system.

Because the objects we desire do not function on their own. They do not exist in isolation. They relate to one another, reinforce each other, contradict each other, and organize themselves into coherent sets that ultimately construct something larger: a narrative.

Jean Baudrillard makes this clear: in contemporary consumption, objects no longer derive their value from function, but from their sign value—that is, from what they mean within a system of relationships.

We don’t consume things. We consume differences, associations, codes.

An object gains meaning depending on what it is paired with, the context in which it appears, the other signs that surround it. Which is why desire is never just “I want this.” It is “I want to belong to the universe where this makes sense.” And that universe has rules.

It is not the same to wear a Chanel perfume within a coherent visual narrative—noble materials, a clean aesthetic, a certain kind of architecture, a certain rhythm of life—than to place it in a context where those codes do not exist. The object is the same, but its meaning shifts entirely.

Because what is really being consumed is not the product itself, but the relationship between that product and everything that surrounds it.

This is where Roland Barthes becomes essential. He suggests that objects function as a language—like words within a broader structure that we organize almost unconsciously. The way we dress, the spaces we inhabit, the brands we choose, even the places we travel to… all of it begins to operate as a form of writing. A way of saying who you are—or who you want to be—without having to explain it. And what’s interesting is that we don’t invent this language from scratch. We learn it. We replicate it. We adjust it. But we rarely question it.

Because when desire becomes a system, it stops feeling imposed.
It feels natural.

As if it had always been there… waiting to be chosen.

The question, then, is no longer just what we want, but why we enjoy wanting it. For Slavoj Žižek, the issue is not that the system tells us what to desire. That would be too obvious. What is far more unsettling is that it teaches us to enjoy the process of desiring itself. To find pleasure not only in the object, but in anticipation, in construction, in fantasy.

We don’t simply want to have something.
We want to want it.

And in that almost imperceptible shift, one of the most powerful dynamics of contemporary consumption takes hold. Because desire is never fully satisfied. There is always a gap between what we imagine and what we eventually obtain. And instead of breaking the cycle, that small frustration restarts it. It keeps us moving.

We desire, we obtain, we get closer… but never completely. And so we desire again. Not because the object failed, but because the system requires desire to remain active.

It is an elegant loop.
Almost perfect.
And deeply productive.

Think about how launches, collections, and trends operate. It is not just about offering something new. It is about reactivating desire—about reigniting that spark that makes us look, compare, imagine. The object matters, yes. But the experience of desiring it matters more. Because that is where everything holds.

In that feeling that what’s coming next—the next release, the next object, the next version—will finally be enough. Even though deep down, it never fully is. And perhaps that is the most uncomfortable thing to admit: that we don’t just participate in this system…we enjoy it.

The algorithm.

That loop of desire—that dynamic in which we want, obtain, and want again—does not happen in a vacuum. Today, it has an infrastructure that sustains it and refines it almost without us noticing: the algorithm.

For a long time, we thought of it as something external—a mechanism that influences what we see from the outside. But the relationship is more intimate—and far more uncomfortable.

The algorithm does not invent desire.
It observes it.

It registers it silently, organizes it, repeats it. It learns from every small gesture: what you linger on for a few seconds longer, what you save, what you return to without thinking. And with that information, it begins to feed you an increasingly refined version of what you seem to like.

It doesn’t show you just anything.
It shows you what you were already beginning to desire.

But in that process, something subtle happens.

Desire stops expanding and begins to narrow. It becomes more coherent, more predictable, easier to sustain. Contradictions disappear. Friction fades. The unexpected is filtered out. And what remains is a clean narrative—almost too perfect—of who you are, or who the system has learned you to be. The more you interact, the more it adjusts. And the more it adjusts, the less you choose. Not because anyone is forcing you, but because everything begins to align with a precision that is difficult to question. Desire stops being exploration and becomes validation—a constant echo that returns the same thing to you, each time more perfectly presented.

That is where the algorithm stops being just a reflection. It begins to function as a trainer. It reinforces patterns, accelerates associations, eliminates noise. It doesn’t tell you directly what to want, but it shows you, again and again, what you have already learned to recognize as valuable… until that is all that seems to make sense. And then the system disappears. Because you no longer feel guided. You feel like you are simply choosing better.

Perhaps we never desire from zero. Perhaps we are always responding to something that was already in circulation before we arrived: images, stories, codes we learned to read without realizing it. But the moment you begin to see that language—to notice the repetitions, the hierarchies, the structures—something shifts.

Desire stops being completely invisible.
It becomes legible.

And maybe we cannot step outside the system that organizes it. But we can begin to understand it. Because what you desire is never just an object.

It is a story.
A promise.
A position within a symbolic order that someone, at some point, helped construct.

And recognizing that—even if only for a moment— is the closest we get to choosing freely. Because when everything fits too perfectly,
it stops being a coincidence… and starts being design.