Underconsumption: A Quiet Rebellion Against Consumer Culture

“We’ve been saving this for you,” said Mama with a beaming smile as my Pop gently placed a hefty box at the center of my teenage bedroom. The outside was dusty and scratched up from moving a dozen times but, when they popped the lid open, it was clear the outside of the plastic container shielded the content within from every last scratch. “You’ll finally fit into these.”

Inside were decades-old band t-shirts from their concert-going days — Blue Oyster Cult, Journey, Robin Trower: the Classics. I squealed in delight as I continued digging and found leg warmers, high-waisted acid-washed jeans, and a short black dress with massive shoulder pads. They were incredible — in pristine condition and comfortable as hell. God, the 80’s were cool.

This little collection of now double-vintage clothing I was gifted 10 years ago has outlasted everything else in my closet. Those skinny Edwins have happily fit my legs for a decade, while I wore through countless pairs of RSQs. It struck me with a fair bit of horror that I’d never be able to pass on my version of modern looks to the next generation — to give younger folks my beat-up plastic box of concert shirts and knee-high socks. Because of fast fashion, my choice of dress would die with the season. No one will want the threadbare Forever 21 shirts in 2060 — they’ll be disintegrated into microplastics by then.

Desperate for a change, I searched for a solution. That journey, as most things do these days, altered my algorithms, introducing me to the incredible community of folks my age and younger who have gotten farther along on the journey than I have. They call it underconsumption: the newest trend that counters fast fashion and impulse-purchase culture.

What on Earth is Underconsumption?

Underconsumption is a new, modern trend focused on deliberately stepping away from consumerism. Instead of replacing items as soon as they show wear, people who ascribe to this belief will continue to use them until it is unusable, repairing them along the way or pridefully showcasing the uniqueness of how they’ve worn down their items. In other words, they make do. In addition, these people will attempt to fully use up their products before purchasing more and also minimize the general complexity of their daily routines to limit how much they have.

As such, the idea is often related to minimalism and the ‘buy nothing’ movement from several years back. But, it is a little different. It’s more about evaluating what you already have and treating those items with care until they are unusable, cherishing worn and used items instead of sparkly, brand-new things.

For many of you reading this, this idea will not feel radical in the slightest. You may have experienced poverty at some time in your life that necessitated actions similar to the “trend”. You may have also grown up in a time before fast fashion, where each article of clothing felt like an investment because of its price and how long it lasted. For kids and younger adults growing up today, the idea as simple as this feels radical. Times have changed, indeed. We grew up in the fast fashion era, when Temu and Wish were the only stores we could afford from our allowances and later, our less-than-ideal minimum-wage jobs, in a world where the only third place we could travel to were stores that expected us to spend our money. Making do and not being on the hunt for sales and purchases feels like rebellion when we exist in a culture that promotes the opposite.

After growing up in an environment like that, as so many of us did, myself included, underconsumption feels like activism. Learning to mend, repair, and ‘make do’ feels like a protest against instant-gratification culture. It’s a sort of return to repair and wear out and, in many cases, a practice that has folks take time to learn repair trades like sewing, carpentry, painting, and more.

In short, underconsumption is a trendy movement that highlights how much we young-ish ones wish we weren’t harming the planet with our habits.

Where Did Underconsumption Come From?

Like many trends these days, underconsumption is a TikTok phenomenon. Though the blueprint of the idea has been around for much longer, it gained traction as a result of people feeling disillusioned with the idea of overconsumption and rampant consumerism. That sort of mentality is, not very surprisingly, very rampant on TikTok as of writing this. With a Temu-inspired shop tab and incentives to make money on the site as an influencer, it makes sense that both are present on the site in a sort of culture war against each other.

On TikTok, there are a wide variety of influencers and salespeople who promote the sale of their goods or use of their affiliate links. Seeing a significant amount of these videos, especially from the lens of a desire for sustainability in one’s personal life — or with a healthy dose of climate anxiety — has affected many people, leading to a general yearning for the counterculture of maximalism and late-stage capitalistic buying culture. In a classic counterculture maneuver, many influencers have begun to point out the pitfalls of this way of life — both how it affects us and the planet we’re trying to save. Thus, the de-influencing movement was born. As I write, it continues to grow in popularity and diversify into movements like underconsumption and ‘making do’.

Is it Viable to Be An Underconsumer?

This movement is, in essence, buying less stuff — truly, there’s nothing groundbreaking there. On paper, it’s perfectly feasible! Like all movements and ideas, however, it is possible to do too much. Sometimes, we need to buy stuff. Social media has a knack for pushing new trends hard to the point where everyday people feel pressured to overdo it — in this case, it would be a bit ironic here, truly. The point is to return to minimalism to save money, not to lose ourselves in trend-chasing.

Underconsumption is a romanticization of a very real economic situation many people around the world find themselves in — it’s paramount to recall the intersectionality of adopting this lifestyle, and how necessary it is to make it a personal choice, and not something to enforce or shame others about not adopting. Sustainability is massively important, truly, but not everyone can afford to make sustainable swaps that “limit consumption” in meaningful ways. When you’re paycheck to paycheck, you’re thinking about survival, not about long-term carbon footprint numbers.

So is it viable? Yes, it’s a livable option and can make an impact over a person’s lifestyle and their overall carbon footprint. But, should you choose to try following the principles of this trend — remember that every bit of change is progress. It’s okay to take breaks, make mistakes, and learn as you go when you’re attempting to embrace underconsumption.

If you’re not sure where to start to make this viable for you, I recommend learning how to make small repairs to your objects or finding a service you can pay to do that for you. Either of these can make a huge difference.

Does Underconsumption Really Address an Environmental Problem?

Of course, it’s important to note here that the vast majority of environmental harm isn’t the fault of individuals. Generally speaking, it’s a large corporation problem. Roughly 70% of carbon dioxide emissions are from 100 companies worldwide. Comparatively, the little bits of carbon we each emit are small — even considering the energy requirements most of us have and the amount of driving many of us do.

We can, however, make an impact by modifying how we shop — especially if our culture shifts towards shopping less. We can, effectively, vote as a community (or state, or country) with our currency toward what we want to support monetarily, especially if we can afford to do so. Maybe it is a drop of water in the bucket, so to speak, but it is still a drop. If companies catch wind of how important certain ideologies are to potential customers and their cultures, it can inspire company change. Enough drops of water make floods, after all.

So, no, it isn’t going to be the one action we all have to take to save the planet, but it does have the potential to help. Shifting the economy in such a way to value products that aren’t disposable and are high-quality enough to last a long time can have an impact. At this point, we need every little morsel of action possible. If this is all you have the power to do as an individual, it’s still better than not. Customer preference drives market research — that isn’t without value.

Escaping the Tight Grip of Consumerism

Despite its trendy nature, anticonsumption raises an important point: we should all pause to evaluate the grip that consumerism and impulse-purchase culture have on us all. That urge to purchase and own and collect can easily get out of hand with the accumulation of wealth and income — or, in some cases, despite a lack of this resource.

We don’t need all this junk: especially in the U.S., where so many of us have so much junk that we can no longer fit it in our houses and, instead, elect to store it in U-Store’s and other storage company warehouses.

Maybe we don’t need all that junk and consumerism. Maybe we don’t need the newest and greatest products at all moments. Maybe we don’t need much at all, really. For that reason, there’s value in understanding the movement — though it may be a trend with a shorter shelf-life than some of the purchases it argues against.

Let underconsumption give you a moment’s pause to consider how much you have and how much of that is used — really used — compared to buried deep under your bed or in the back corner of your closet. Let the principles exist when you’re tempted to impulse purchase that hilarious throw pillow. Consider, then, what you can do with what you have, how you can make those once-loved objects work for you once more, and how you can alter your spending habits to make your purchases worth more and last longer.

And also, take heart in knowing that the young people of today care about the planet, and are seeking ways to make a meaningful impact. We need a little optimism about the state of our planet every once in a while.

--

Thanks for reading! :D

Originally posted to Medium.