Latest social media trend pumps brakes on mindless spending
Cottagecore. Dark academia. Quiet luxury. Coastal grandmother (and its offshoot, coastal granddaughter). Y2K style. Tomato girl summer. For many social media users — from the online obsessed to the casual scroller — niche aesthetics and micro-trends like these have taken over timelines, encouraging the embrace of hyper-specific personal brands built around consumerism.
A new trend — known as "underconsumption-core" — is encouraging social media users to pump the brakes on their spending habits, purchase only what they truly need, use what they already have and reject influencer culture that encourages them to mindlessly spend, spend, spend.
Over the years, underconsumption-core has been known by many names, including minimalism, slow living, mindful consumption and being eco-friendly.
"I consider (underconsumption-core) a low-waste aesthetic, if we're going with the Gen Z terminology," says Abigail Harvey, founder of Fount and Fill LLC, a community refillery and resource for low-waste living based in Lancaster County. "It's being thrifty where you can, trying to live sustainably, making sustainable switches in your life that make sense and help reduce plastic or harmful chemicals in the environment."
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For Lancaster County resident Amanda Lee McCarty, founder and host of Clotheshorse podcast, this social media trend speaks to larger, more complex issues around our spending and consumption habits. After previously working as a buyer in the fast fashion industry, McCarty started her podcast in 2020 to explore this topic.
"Really, the path forward for a better planet, for a better life for so many people — including ourselves — is that we need to buy less stuff in general, which is not a very glamorous or fun-sounding story on the surface," McCarty says.
"I've been talking about this for years, so I'm glad that (underconsumption-core) is finally a trend," McCarty says. "I've spent a lot of time ... fretting about how social media really drives overconsumption. ... I am beyond excited to see that now we're using social media to move away from that behavior."
"I've really enjoyed seeing the videos from low-waste influencers and environmental activists that have taken the trend and used it for activism and to bring awareness to really good, intentional actions that people can take to be more low-waste and eco-friendly," Harvey says. "Any trend, if you can use it as a tool to communicate with a larger audience, that's a great thing."
'Consuming the basics'
Alexandria Hardy, of Lancaster, had not previously heard of underconsumption-core, but instead considers herself a minimalist.
"I frequently identify as a minimalist, both in terms of consumption and aesthetic (in my) wardrobe and decor," Hardy says. "For me, minimalism is consuming the basics or having just what you need ... not (being) wasteful."
Hardy infuses her minimalist ethos into her home, as well as her wardrobe and other aspects of her life.
"Aesthetically, I just don't enjoy clutter, so at home, I am constantly evaluating a space," Hardy says. "I feel like I'm helping out the environment, but also helping out just my visual eyesight because it's clean, it's not cluttered.
"It helps me stay focused and organized," Hardy adds. "One of my friends termed it a visual calm, and that really resonated with me. ... At home it's just easier to relax ... if you're not looking at piles of things that need to be put away."
Hardy thrifts and shops secondhand often, only purchasing what is truly needed. She often cleans out her own (already minimal) goods, finding new homes for or donating items that she no longer uses. Though Hardy is "a voracious reader," she says that she aims to limit the number of books she owns, instead choosing to utilize her local library's services.
Some might argue that underconsumption-core should simply be known by another term: living responsibly or within one's means, often by necessity.
"This idea that new is better (is everywhere)," McCarty says. "So yeah, it is more responsible to not buy all this stuff all the time, but we're kind of being sent a message otherwise. ... We've been programmed, very early on, to feel that the best thing we can do for ourselves, socially and emotionally, is to have something new. That is work to undo. Even if we take a step back and recognize that, yeah, it's just being responsible."
"More people need (a trend like underconsumption-core) than they realize," says Ashley Stafford, a resident of Lancaster City.
Stafford had not previously heard the term "underconsumption-core," instead referring to this lifestyle as being "de-influence(d)" or "living at your means."
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A long-overdue trend
No matter the name, Stafford believes the push to "stop buying plastic junk" is a positive one.
"It's almost a relief to be like, 'Oh, I can't buy that stuff'... it's almost like reclaiming your time because shopping takes up a lot of time, social media takes up a lot of time," Stafford says. "It takes the pressure off ... for a lot of people to just not buy it, not do it, not take partake in it. I think that's refreshing for most people."
McCarty says that they see the growing popularity of the underconsumption-core trend as a "wave (that) has been building for quite some time."
"I really think it stems from a lot of things that we are coping with in our day-to-day lives right now, like inflation and stagnating wages, student loan debt, and all of the GoFundMe's for people to get health care," McCarty says. "Just this feeling of like, we work so hard and we have so little. How people have coped with that forever has been to use the little bit of money they have to buy things to cheer themselves up ... that's how we're socialized."
Harvey sees underconsumption-core as a way to reach more people with the tenets of slow or low-waste living.
"What this trend is doing is showing how easy it is and how accessible it is. I think, oftentimes that's the biggest barrier," Harvey says. "On the other side of social media, there's this perfect, pristine aesthetic of low-waste living and minimalist living, and it often doesn't look like that for a lot of people ... I think it just makes it a little bit more attainable."
For McCarty, underconsumption-core content could be a way to "harness the power of social media."
"We have seen that even in the past 10 years, maybe, how social media has driven these social trends that do lead to larger conversations and, in theory, systemic change ... That's why I feel really excited about this idea of underconsumption-core — although, it needs a better name," McCarty says with a laugh. "I think this could be a beginning."
