Today, you wake up, put on your pair of jeans with a Labubu hanging on the side, go to the private equity owned cafe to pick up a strawberry matcha latte you ordered on Uber Eats. You walk over to your job, whatever that may be, and clock in for your eight-hour shift. After a long day you take the train home, but on the way to your apartment you see a dessert shop with a poster on the wall plastering the words, “NOW SERVING DUBAI CHOCOLATE.” You have 20 bucks in your pocket, so you decide “why not?” and you splurge and buy yourself this sweet treat. When you get into your apartment and jump onto your bed, you scroll through Amazon looking to buy a new Funko Pop from the recent trending movie you saw until you get tired and go to sleep.
Nowadays, it feels like so much of our life is subsumed in trends and consumerism and everything comes and goes far too quickly. While trends always come and go and the cycle of consumerism always eventually centers its sights on something else, it seemed like the cycle used to last a decent amount longer as compared to now. As well, it feels as though the quality of products and meaning behind trends being produced nowadays has simply gotten worse. Many people may chalk this up to being older and “not understanding the new generation” but I feel that there has been a genuine decline in what is trending. There is less durability in what we buy since many of the manufacturers know that the sales will probably decline after 3 or 4 months.
With the prominence and influence of social media over the years, consumerism has experienced a supercharge in a harmful way. Again, overconsumption is not a new phenomenon and is one of the driving factors of late-stage capitalism, but this drive from social media is new. Social media algorithms are doing the influencing of what things people consume by telling them what’s “in” and what they need to be buying to be cool and desirable. What is also happening is what I would like to call ‘ironic consumerism.’ engaging in trends and what is currently the big new product to buy but doing it in a detached, ironic meme-ified way. However, in their attempt to criticize and mock consumerism, they play right into it. Since the introduction of social media as a key aspect of our lives and culture, it is close to impossible to separate yourself from this toxic cycle. When I say ‘separating yourself’ I do not mean not buying anything, but rather being conscious of what is happening and how you are being exploited.
I believe that people can move past hyper-consumption from capitalism and shop for themselves independently and consciously. If you want to escape the cycle of consumerism, think to yourself “do I need the current trending item?” Or “do I need to buy hundreds of action figures to prove that I’m a real fan of the video game or anime that I like?” Your identity should be built on who you are and what you enjoy, not on what you purchase; and your consumption should be based on who you are as a person, not the other way around. Also, the cycle of consumerism is horrible for the environment since many of those items end up in landfills. For example, 30 million dollars worth of Funko Pops were dumped into landfills which are profoundly bad for the environment. The message I want to send in this writing is live for your own pleasure and not for what social media tells you to do. You do not need the trending new item to be a valuable person and you do not need to collect as many action figures and collectibles as possible to prove you are a real fan of whatever media franchise you enjoy.
It’s important that we believe that there is a possibility for a post-consumerist world, it will simply take some work to get there. You can start by working on your own consumption habits, remembering what you value as a person when you purchase things, and making sure that you find value in what you are doing with said goods. For example, if you are a diehard collector, you may find passion and value in having an old collectible that you want to preserve for the sake of history and to possibly pass down to your kids someday. There is value in that because it goes beyond simply owning a collectible or having that thing. I like to think of the things that I buy as something I have a relationship with. If you do not feel like you have some sort of attachment to the item, even if it is a small attachment, then there might not be much worth in you buying it, and you might want to think deeper into your decision. Because social media focuses on things for around a month before they are forgotten, people do not have that level of attachment. People buy it either because they see other influencers wearing it or in this ironic, meme-ified way and then they either throw it away to rot in a landfill, or it collects dust on a shelf or in a basement. One way to prevent the things you buy from going to waste is, again, to feel like you have some level of attachment to what you own. Not only is this good for preventing this cycle, but it also is good for people to have things that they personally cherish and love.