Much of the literature on consumer culture looks into how consumer identities are formed and distributed as a result of marketplace interactions. Consumer researchers assume that, because of its dominant position in society, the marketplace is ‘the’ source from which consumers form their identities. Based on these assumptions researchers have found that consumers gravitate towards the marketplace and its abundant resources to form their personal and collective identities. The basic underlying assumption is that consumers are passive agents who respond in predictable ways to market practices. In this way consumer culture appears to produce a homogeneous society that is easily managed and structured by the dominant societal entities. What, then, are the alternatives, if any, that consumers have at their disposal? And are marketplace prescriptions the only reliable sources of identity construction? This paper addresses the flaws of marketplace assumptions and their consequences and explores the notion of an alternative lens through which to view the consumer landscape.