Buying Nothing in the Age of Advertising Everything
Being online is a treacherous activity and I am convinced my experience of logging on is getting more dangerous by the day. Every website or app requires a subscription now along with an accompanying hostile pop-up informing you that you need to pay monthly to access a majority of its features. Every other TikTok you scroll through is an advertisement for a product that you have never heard of, but suddenly you can’t live without it. Every social media platform has to have a shop feature, riddled with drop-shipped cheap jewelry and unnecessary beauty devices like face-mist drying fans.
The experience of facing a neverending avalanche of ads has been distressing me for a long time now. Some campaigns are so personally targeted, you can’t help but feel what could only be described as fear in even the most unremarkable corners of the internet. I have used flashcards on Quizlet and been faced through sidebar ads of the ghosts of my late night shopping from three days ago, a reminder of the mass surveillance we are constantly under. I flip the vocab words and try to keep my vision from straying to the endless 90s-Coquette-Quiet-Luxury purses cycling through in a box to the right.
My wallet and I can’t take it anymore.
The easy solution is to use all my willpower to buy nothing, no matter how adorable Snoopy merch is (I’ve never cared about Snoopy before– I was converted by TikTok ads for Peanuts branded seasonal pajamas). Recently, I’ve been doing a “low-buy” challenge to stop feeling so crushed by consumerism. There are other names for this challenge like “no spend” or “no-buy”, but the idea is essentially the same: you have a set of rules to cut your spending from categories that are unnecessary in your life, like clothes, makeup, or home decor. Other unnecessary categories, like grabbing coffee or going out with friends, can still be enjoyed, but in moderation, whatever that means for your budget. For me, exceptions that I do choose to allow can be decided more carefully than usual– if I need a new pair of jeans, I can take time to thrift them or find a high quality, more ethical company instead of running to a fast fashion brand to quickly fix the issue. Not buying any unnecessary products, along with making careful and conscious decisions about the things I choose to spend my money on, feels like taking back the limited power I have under capitalism.
However, straying away from shopping is hard, and by that I mean grueling.
I have had a long history of buying “little treats” as both a celebration and a consolation for events in my life, and I’m well aware that I’m not alone in having shopping habits entwined with emotion. In the article “How I stopped buying my way out of everything”, writer Lily Milman describes her own struggles with consumption as she placed more and more online orders during the peak of Covid-19:
I didn’t realize that I was revenge shopping — a term that explains the way people spend compulsively on less-than-necessary consumer goods to make up for lost time after a period of being denied the opportunity to shop. It became hugely popular about a year into the pandemic, with millennials and Gen Z reporting that they were spending $1,016 more per month in 2021 than they were in the summer prior.
Whether you “revenge shop” or chronically buy little treats, one thing is clear: Emotions and shopping have become intertwined.
In a 2017 paper written by Velin Stanev, a professor with the Department of Marketing and International Economic Relations at Trakia University, he discusses what made this deep connection. He believes a shift in how we were sold products in the late 70s started the “age of hyper consumerism”:
“In the age of hyper consumption, marketing communications, advertising in particular, boost the emotional attitude toward consumed goods and services giving priority to gained experience, and sensual change. Sensual marketing and experience marketing dominate and focus on communication techniques and strategies that trigger emotions, sensations and the imagination.”
This switch in marketing plays on what Stanev calls “self-complacency”. I would summarize this concept as a feeling of satisfaction gained from comparing yourself to others based on the products you buy. Stanev argues that this is not always done to gain a higher social status, but rather to keep up with the times so as to not be inferior to others. A famous example of playing on “self-complacency” that he mentions is L’Oréal’s slogan: “Because you’re worth it”.
In the time since this paper was published, we have only seen this phenomenon become more prevalent. A major example of this is the trend of “self-care”. While I do believe that the start of this trend was innocent enough, an attempt to dismantle the stigma against mental health struggles, I have seen self-care turn from infographics encouraging you to take deep breaths and long walks to buying 20 packs of sheet masks and rose quartz face rollers. Honestly, I can completely see how people end up buying these wellness products– they offer a 10-minute spa-like escape from the struggles of everyday life. People aren’t just buying a new facial serum, they’re splurging on a moment of luxury that they deserve. A fancy blow dryer brings both the trendy hair of the moment and the innovation and precision that people need.
Where do we go from here?
If you’re anything like me, all of this is scary. The idea of being watched by advertisers 24/7 so that you can be emotionally manipulated into buying countless useless products is dystopian to say the least. In the face of so many challenges, I would still recommend starting your own low-buy challenge. There are some great YouTube videos that can help lay out some ground rules that you can adopt, like time frames and methods of organizing spending money (watch my recommendations by clicking below). I also find myself enjoying decluttering and low-waste content as these topics actually help with spending less.
If starting a challenge is too daunting, you can ask yourself some simple questions to aid in making more conscious purchases: Do I already have something at home that’s similar? Would I buy this if it wasn’t on sale? Would I buy this if I never saw an influencer telling me about it? How often could I use this? Could I buy this secondhand?
I’ve decided to stop letting my wallet, and myself, suffer. Will you?
