Starbucks recently announced its holiday merch collection, including a cup shaped like a bear – the ‘bearista’. The item is the latest in a year filled with alleged must-haves that see people clamouring to spend their money. In a time when people have to decide between eating and turning their heating on it all feels dystopian. Overconsumption is rampant, but what can we do about it?
It’s three AM, the sun hasn’t even contemplated breaking on the horizon yet, and while the rest of the world is still in dreamy torpor, a line is forming outside your local Starbucks. Why are people hauling themselves out of bed to queue across suburbia, you may ask? To be one of the first to buy the new teddy bear shaped Starbucks sippy cup, of course! Stop asking such silly questions. The teddy bear cup offers so much after all, it is another single-use item that denotes your status as a bang on trend baddie. With its see through body it doesn’t at all mimic the hollowness of overconsumption in 2025, so grab one or risk being behind the trend cycle. Competition is fraught though, so go to whatever means necessary, even if that means verbally abusing a barista being paid minimum wage (yes, this is actually happening). Anything to get your hands on this most essential of items, you want to demonstrate your dedication to the Starbucks corporation after all. Never fear, for if you miss out on the official drop, Temu and Shein have your back, pumping out cheaply made replicas that are there to fulfil your latest whim. Just don’t think too much about the child labour used to produce your new best friend!
Before the teddy bear cup, it was the labubu, before the labubu it was the Stanley cup, and on and on the system spins. With each month, there is but another hot topic we must throw our money at, and with each, there is an army of influencers who make it their literal business to convince us. As the micro-trend cycle becomes ever more rapid, this dizzying rollercoaster of fast paced overconsumption is only going to speed up more and more. It seems that this is where we’re at as a culture. Armies of automotons of capitalism in their droves clamouring for the hottest must-have today, or as I call it, the landfill fodder of tomorrow. At the core of this all is just that, the teddy bear cup that is so desired today will be superseded by the next must-have within a matter of weeks, if not days. What happens to these ephemerally trendy items once the craze has moved elsewhere? They sit in the backs of cupboards, the bottom of wardrobes, and eventually trickle down through one place to the next before finding themselves out in the world, clogging waterways and choking wildlife.
Overconsumption gone wild
The trend cycle is nothing new, since the post-war economic boom of the 1950s, corporations have jostled to insert their products into the public consciousness as the next big ticket item. This cycle has gained speed exponentially, becoming more rapid with the passage of time. Thanks to the rise of the internet, it has become way easier for businesses to push their products in front of more eyes and in front of more targeted audiences. We’ve all experienced a targeted ad for something we’ve window shopped online a few days prior. Perhaps it works sometimes, I know for a fact I’ve been drawn in by tailored advertisements in the past. On the face of things, it may not register as a major concern, after all, you wouldn’t be looking at something if you didn’t have at least some interest in buying it. Businesses need to make money don’t they, why shouldn’t they push their products to people who have some interest in buying them?
A key difference is that the way we engage in consumerism now is not sustainable, both ecologically and socially. Consuming goods has become less about personal desire and more about social capital. Essentially, it is about wanting to be seen to have the hottest item instead of wanting an item because it sparks joy or has a tangible purpose. An example close to home for me is the world of vinyl. I love my collection, and I will cop to owning multiple variants of the same album. Many of my favourite artists, like Taylor Swift, Charli xcx, and Sabrina Carpenter, are notorious for releasing countless repressings of the same album with alternate covers, patterns on discs, or exclusive tracks to drive sales. It is a pervasive tactic to shift units and offer fans who nurture their parasocial relationships like house plants the opportunity to prove their devotion to their artist of choice. Fans who are willing to part with their cash to buy a mountain of records then cash in through the social capital they garner in their respective corner of stan Twitter. This practice clogs up the archaic production channels for records, strongarming smaller artists from making one pressing of their work. It also contributes to a culture of overconsumption that is exploitative of fans and is terrible for the environment.
Go to any corner of the internet, and you’ll see a similar equivalent wherever you land. It may be the latest miracle protein powder, the holy grail skin care product, or the absolute essential piece for your autumn wardrobe. With each, there is likely a horde of influencers with sponsored videos telling you just how much you absolutely need the item in question. All this feeds into a culture of overconsumption gone wild. We have far transgressed the innocence of retail therapy and the novel convenience of online shopping. The pressures placed on the average person to buy are exacerbating preexisting arms of capitalist violence that persist across our society. In a world where hyperconsumerism is the norm, is it any shock that 57% of Gen Z now cite being an influencer as their dream career (according to a 2023 study by Morning Consult).
Overconsumption in context – the cost of living crisis
Putting this cycle of hyperconsumerism into wider context, we cannot ignore the cost of living crisis that we have been enduring for several years. Many people cannot afford their lives without the additional expectation to fork out disposable income on the next big thing. At the start of the year Statista reported that 57% of British households cited the cost of living increase having a noticeable impact on their lives. While this represents a drop from over 90% in the summer of 2022, it still represents over half of the population feeling the pinch. It seems like the least logical time for there to be hordes of consumers clamouring monthly for the trendiest NPC dogwhistle to complete themselves, yet here we are. Perhaps it is exactly because of the cost of living crisis that we see the trend cycle speeding up, and frankly the products being pushed become more and more asinine.
Businesses are aware that people have less money to spend month on month, this means competition is tighter than it is in times of abundance. With this additional pressure is it any shock that businesses are churning out more crap for us to buy with the hope that if they can make something feel exclusive enough that people will jump on it in order to reap the social benefits of appearing to be on trend? There is an economic rule known as the lipstick effect that, by observing the spike in sales of lipstick during recessions, notes that when times are tough people are actually more willing to spend money on smaller treats. Essentially, the cost of living goes up and so does spending. The psychology behind this is that during harder times people are more willing to treat themselves with non consequential things. In and of itself that is not an inherently bad thing, we all deserve to treat outselves afterall. The pervasive aspect of this is businesses are aggressively using influencer marketing, manipulative practices like claiming things are exclusive, and positioning mass-produced single-use items as essentials.
Private corporations do this because to them, you are not a person, you are a resource to tap. They don’t care about your happiness or your wellbeing, just their ability to grift you efficiently enough to sell you things you do not need. In the wake of 42 million Americans recently losing SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits the continual cultural shift toward excessive consumerist trends is not only alarming, but insulting. We live in an age where the disparity between the wealthiest and poorest in society only continues to widen, and things like labubus and teddy bear sippy cups just feel like an infantilising and dystopian distraction. Without sounding too conspiratorial, it is alarming that attention is drawn in such superficial directions, distracting many from the real issues of wealth inequality and corporate greed that continue to drive wedges between us, facilitating a new classist hierarchy based on what we own, rather than connectivity over who we are and what we share.
Hyperconsumerism hurts women and minorities
Capitalism is inherently violent to women and minority groups. Historically, women, people of colour, the LGBTQ+ community, and disabled people have been purposefully excluded from engaging in the economy on fair standing. That is still true today. Our patriarchal capitalist culture has built-in mechanisms to exploit excluded groups for the benefit of making corporations and the people who run them wealthier. One of the most visible examples of this is the beauty industry that, for the last century, has capitalised on misogyny. While beauty products serve as a tool for self-care and self-expression, so much of their origins exist within repackaging sexist beauty ideals and the insecurities they breed as miracle solutions for women to throw their money at. Unsurprisingly, even when a product is touted as the holy grail of the moment, it so rarely is. This does not negate the fact that people can enjoy makeup, I do myself, but it does mean we need to consume it mindfully and rationally.
I am reminded of the years between 2015 and 2019, when I was most actively involved in following the beauty industry. This was the era of ‘2016 makeup’, a style that is remembered as maximalist and when the beauty influencer truly became a pop culture archetype. Over those few years, I remember stressing myself out as I tried desperately to keep up to date with every new release that the army of influencers told me I absolutely needed. Weekly product drops from a myriad of brands clogged all my feeds, and when I couldn’t keep up, both due to sheer volume and finite finances, I genuinely felt bad. When I think back to how much money I spent on liquid lipsticks that dried up, foundations that expired, and eyeshadow palettes that collected dust, I cringe. The overconsumption propaganda got me bad. During the pandemic, the culture shifted toward 20-step skin care regimens. Suddenly, that mountain of makeup was obsolete. As the world opened up again, the culture shifted again to the e-girl trend and cottage core, this was followed by clean girl and on and on the wheel spins. With each new trend lies a mountain of products left unused. The pandemic shook me out of the pressure to constantly buy the next great thing, but that was probably in part thanks to having the time to reflect on the way I was engaging with consumerism in the isolation.
Women and femme-presenting people represent a serious, lucrative opportunity for predatory businesses that want to profit from the sexist, classist, and eurocentric beauty standards that they help perpetuate. The age groups targeted by these predatory practices only skew younger and younger. No more alarming is this than with Shay Mitchell’s recent decision to launch a skincare brand specifically targeting children. If that doesn’t scream dystopian overconsumption, I don’t know what does. This is what our current culture of hyperconsumerism does. It zeroes in on every niche it can, finding where to squeeze yet more money out of people. Particularly pervasive is when businesses exploit niches that they have no first hand experience or understanding of. Businesses (particularly before Trump’s war on inclusion) happily pick up queer identity in Pride Month to capitalise on merch, performing allyship to make another sale. They’ll do the same for any community they can see dollar signs above shamelessly. I reiterate a point from earlier: they don’t care about you, they just want your money.
Overconsumption exploits at all ends
Beyond exploiting identities for profit, the current rapid pace of consumerism is inherently exploitative to workers and the environment. The reality that fast fashion is made by criminally underpaid workers in developing countries is nothing new. We all remember going to Primark back in the day, buying cheap clothing made in Bangladesh or Cambodia by workers paid a fraction of what they’re rightfully owed. With the rise of brands like Shein and Temu, which churn out new products less than a week after designing them, this problem is only becoming more severe. Capitalising on the sheer speed of micro-trends driven by platforms like TikTok, ultra-fast fashion brands are ready to cash in on the desire to blindly follow trends. Brands like Temu have a reputation for branching out from fast fashion, applying the same model of exponential production to electronics, home goods, beauty products and anything else under the sun. These products are often exploitative to the end customer too, given they are often found to be unsafe and do not follow quality assurance guidelines in several countries. Prices are kept low, not to benefit customers but to exploit individuals with less disposable income who want to keep up with the image they see of overconsumption on social media. This is done with no mind to the quality of the goods, the human rights of factory workers, or the irreparable damage to the environment.
The exploitation of factory workers in developing countries is an inherently feminist issue. A majority of people working in sweatshops around the world are women (60% globally, with some regions being as high as 80%). In addition, 250 million children aged between five and 14 work in sweatshops globally. An overwhelming majority of the people who work in sweatshops are grossly underpaid, with some workers making as little as three cents per hour. Workers often work ridiculously long hours over the course of several days, often in defiance of the labour laws of the countries these factories operate within. It is also a common practice to withhold salaries for weeks, and overtime is very rarely paid. If this were not severe enough, women who work in these exploitative conditions are also often at risk of sexual violence, both at work and on their commute. Most disturbing is the fact that doubling the current wages of labourers in garment production in developing countires would only represent a 2-6% increase in prices for the end consumer. Why does this not happen, you may wonder? It doesn’t happen because the businesses that produce their products in developing countries do so knowing that they’re exploiting people and don’t care. As long as we keep buying their mass-produced items, why would they?
In tandem with human exploitation is the irreversible damage that practices like fast fashion have on the environment. As our culture of overconsumption persists in encouraging a hyper-speed trend cycle, landfills get more and more clogged with clothing that is discarded the second an influencer deems it ‘cheugy’. The social pressure to lock in to the trend cycle encourages consumers to discard clothes as soon as a trend passes. This is killing our planet. Look no further than the defining item of the year, the dreaded labubu to see just how much hyperconsumerism is bad for the planet. Labubus are made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a toxic material derived from fossil fuels. Their production is very energy intensive and the materials used release harmful toxins into the environment, this is before we even talk about the harmful non-biodegradable packaging. The psychology behind the blind-box model (not knowing what labubu you get until opening the box) encourages overconsumption and repeat buying. For something that is both functionless and plain ugly, it is also a disaster for the environment. The labubu is not alone in this however, several other products of a similar ilk utilise the same materials and sales tactics to mass produce items that do very little besides hurt the planet and people’s wallets.
Consumerism as a way to find meaning
We are living in pretty bleak times. Our jobs feel pointless and the market to find a new one is polluted with AI job listings that seem to exist only to breed more frustration with the whole system. We are disillusioned with a late stage capitalist system that exploits our time and our bodies, pays us less than our parents for the privilege, and tries to sell us more shit we don’t need at every turn. When we look at the world around us, we just see social division. The political landscape is on a knife-edge, and it feels impossible to do anything to fix it when fascism is on the rise. There are fewer and fewer third spaces for us to connect to others. Is it any wonder then we are turning to the simplistic desire to buy the things that are relentlessly pushed in front of us in a plea to try and feel something?
I won’t act like the vinyl collection I mentioned earlier doesn’t make me feel a little spark of happiness. When Shakira (my favourite artist) released an album last year, I quickly accumulated all four variants on vinyl. When I open my wardrobe to pick out an outfit for work, I don’t reach for a utilitarian shirt and tie. I reach for clothes that help me express myself and feel more confident. A little materialism is human, and it’s healthy; we aren’t supposed to live like a Hindu ascetic on the banks of the Ganges with nothing but a saffron robe to our name. The difference is the utter pace at which we grow tired of one thing and move mindlessly onto the next.
This is the era of instant gratification. AI is essentially killing our brains, removing any ability to research for answers ourselves. Algorithms take the guesswork out of what to watch because they decide for you. This is not helped by the fact that the fatigue attached to existing in brutal late stage capitalism often means that doing the legwork to be an ethical consumer is more mental energy than people can expend. In regard to fashion, there are still not enough size-inclusive brands that are also affordable for people amidst the cost of living crisis. Often it is simply easier to give in to the noise, accept you do need the labubu and try to push down the voice in the back of your head saying it doesn’t understand why.
Being a mindful consumer
At the end of all of this I am left wondering where do we go from here? Corporations aren’t going to change unless we force them to and that requires quite a lot of effort on our part. A glimmer of hope comes in the form of the BDS boycott against Israeli businesses and businesses funding the IDF. In protest of the ongoing Gazan genocide people around the world are voting with their spending habits. By refusing to allow their money to fund the genocide they are demonstrating to the world of corporations that we are so much more than money bags to extract, we are people with values and morals. Similar movements are emerging to boycott Emirati goods and corporations due to their exploitation of Sudan. It has come to light that the UAE’s government is funding the RSF, a genocidal militia involved in a conflict that has claimed over 150,000 lives and displaced 12 million people.
We can be mindful consumers. A lesson I’ve learned is to fight against my own impulsivity, instead sitting with a potential purchase before I make it. Few things sting more in times like these, when we all have less money, than buyer’s remorse. By no means am I advocating for denying yourself of things you truly want, but I implore you not to attach your worth or social capital to them. We are so much more than the hyperconsumerism machine gives us credit for. All the more important now than ever before is knowing that we are defined not by a Starbucks teddy bear sippy cup (that we abused a barista to get), but instead the values we have and the talents we possess. A corporation cannot sell that to you, and it cannot take it from you.
Next time an influencer is peddling the latest teddy bear cup matcha Dubai chocolate labubu to you, ask yourself if you really need it. I’d chance a guess at no, you don’t. Your attention is a resource; spend it like you would money. Don’t give in to the hype of micro-trends. The corporations producing the hottest must-have, the influencer pushing it to you, and the algorithm that shows you their content all seek to exploit you. Your attention and your money are what they’re truly after; don’t give it to them so freely. Even more importantly, when you do want to buy something, do so mindfully. With the holidays on the horizon, it is more crucial than ever to think critically about how you’re engaging with capitalism.
