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Gen Zs are taking to social media to show the ways they ‘under-consume’ material things.
The year is 2010. You’re watching a YouTuber giddily hold up a bag stuffed full of fast fashion and eagerly waiting to indulge in vicarious consumption as they pull out each item one by one.
These early days of “haul culture” arguably began social media’s gradual evolution into the digital candy store of impulse consumption that it is today.
But there’s a new social media trend that indicates an end to social media’s consumption-driven clutches: underconsumption core.
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What is underconsumption core?
The trend that has been sweeping TikTok and Instagram in recent weeks sees creators sharing examples of ways they ‘underconsume’ in their daily lives.
Among the most commonly featured were using decade-old hair tools like straighteners or curling tongs, thrifted home furnishings, and bare-bones makeup routines.
One person even shared that they’d “never bought a towel,” relying only on hand-me-downs.
Underconsumption core is a refreshing change from the images still etched in my brain of drawers full of multiple makeup palettes and every shade from a lipstick collection.
Likewise, it provides welcome relief from the constant exposure to things we can buy, both through overt means like advertorials, and through more organic content that leaves me asking ‘where can I get that?’
'That’s just normal consumption'
Despite initial praise, underconsumption core has come under fire from several creators and commentators now clapping back at the original video trend with a counter argument.
Some argue that using up what you have is just “normal consumption”, refuting the idea that the underconsumption trend is helpful or even necessary.
In some pockets of commentary, it’s become almost a competition for who has the least, isolating anyone with more than one handbag as some kind of outlier problem child.
But while it’s true that not everyone has 15 lipsticks or a perfume collection that looks like a Myer concession, you only have to look to landfill sites to see how widespread our consumption problems are.
It’s not just a handful of people buying too much. It’s a deeply ingrained norm that many of us aren’t ready to admit we’re a part of.
Other commenters have critiqued the trend as simply being the reality those with limited resources experience day to day, highlighting that for many, frugality is a necessity, not a choice.
But, to suggest that high material consumption is solely associated with high disposable income would be to ignore the irrational nature of our financial behaviour.
Rarely do we perfectly calibrate our consumption to fit our means. Many consume more than they can afford – in fact it’s a hallmark of just how irrational financial behaviour can be.
We don’t make purely mathematical choices, we make emotional ones.
'I feel gross, I’m going on a no buy'
For some, the underconsumption trend has helped them see the light on their own spending habits.
One TikToker candidly revealed that they “feel gross” and are embarking on a “no buy” in an attempt to reduce their consumption after seeing how some others live.
Another shared that they’d laid out every product they own and decided to use everything up before buying more, adding the caption: “Underconsumption core will be changing me for the better.”
Ultimately, underconsumption core is a helpful reminder to interrogate our own consumption habits, and begin unwinding our years of enmeshment with consumption and recalibrating our lives to a more modest level of material things.
The problem lies in the fact that conveniences like next day delivery and seemingly endless new solutions to any problem we face have made consumption our default behaviour when we want or need something.
Borrowing has become secondary to owning.
Instantaneousness has become secondary to waiting.
This reality is illustrative of our increasingly individualistic society.
We’d rather just buy something on Amazon than wait two days to borrow it from a friend or coworker.
Underconsumption core may just be a trend, but confronting our own relationship with consumption and the ways in which it has become embedded in the fabric of our lives is critically necessary.
