Earlier this month, influencer Nikocado Avocado (Nicholas Perry) took the internet by storm when he revealed his 250-pound weight loss. To the surprise of his viewers, the YouTuber had been losing weight behind the scenes for two years, uploading pre-recorded videos in the meantime. Since he grew his YouTube audience of 4.45 million subscribers through mukbang videos, an internet trend where people buy crazy amounts of food and eat in front of the camera, many people are wondering how he’ll maintain his viewers. That type of mass overconsumption gets clicks because the culture of bulk-buying things we don’t need is more prevalent than ever through the push in social media trends.
Many people have critiqued creators like Nikocado Avocado for consuming or acquiring excessive amounts of food while around 1 in 7 American households are experiencing food insecurity. But the mukbang genre is just one internet trend that is reflective of the overindulgent nature of capitalism; overconsumption is a problem that we see in all industries, especially online.
Stanley Cups
A recent example of this is the Great Stanley Cup Craze of 2024. Everyone and their mother invested in the $40-50 water bottle. For some, one wasn’t enough — people began to show off their huge collections, one in every imaginable iteration. The irony is that the whole point of the stanley cup is to be reusable — and yet by purchasing a dozen of the same product, we’re essentially doing the same wasteful behavior that reusable water bottles were created to avoid.
TikTok Micro-Trends
Let’s be real for a minute: TikTok shop is out of control. Having a store baked into an entertainment app is a recipe for impulse buying random items that you have no need for. Seriously, one of the products we stumbled across was a “turn clock”, AKA a paper clock-calendar hybrid that you have to manually turn every minute. Most of these products have zero use or are a reiteration of a product that you already have.
Fast Fashion
The fast fashion industry demonstrates the cyclical nature of spending in the US. Brands such as Shein pump out colossal amounts of clothing (at the expense of the child laborers in the fast fashion world) to match the current fashion trends of the week. But just as trends come and go, so do the products — retiring to the back of your closet or in the nearest landfill. It doesn’t help that the quality of the clothing is poor, and likely to fall apart after a few weeks, leaving you in need of something else to wear. From there, the cycle continues.
Combatting Overconsumption
The best way to avoid excessive and needless buying is to be conscious about your spending. To those of you who don’t identify as savers, don’t panic: conscious spending doesn’t mean refraining from ensuring your needs are met, but instead allows you to think about what those needs even are. So maybe the barista at your local Starbucks has your order memorized — it’s okay to treat yourself, just in moderation. But before you buy something on a whim, ask yourself the purpose it will serve in your life. Do you really need a fifth pair of sneakers?
By paying attention to your buying habits, you’ll be doing both the bank account and the world a favor.
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