‘I never want to own anything again,” messaged my son, packing up after a year abroad. He was experiencing the self-loathing rite of passage that is confronting your acquisitive tendencies; next year, he vowed, he will “live like a spartan”.
I know how he feels. I tell myself I don’t buy much, but as I tidied for a houseguest recently, the bathroom told a different story. How many nail varnishes (I never varnish my nails), micellar waters (my face doesn’t need watering) and oils promising sleep (lies) have I accumulated over the past decade, then dumped in a drawer? Most of us succumb to the unconscious – sometimes wilfully ignored – creep of stuff, only realising how grossly unnecessary it all is when forced to tackle it.
Enter “underconsumption core”. It’s the latest slightly earnest TikTok trend, in which young people extoll the virtues of buying only what you need. Underconsumers come in various flavours. Some present basic frugality tips (cutting up tubes to use the last dregs of product or repurposing jars). Others introduce revolutionary concepts such as “just having one of a thing” (shampoo, handbag), “looking for secondhand alternatives” or “not replacing stuff unless it’s broken”.
I can feel the eyerolls from here – and they have been, ahem, robustly expressed in comments and reaction videos critiquing #underconsumption from two main directions. The first is that users are cosplaying or aesthetically repackaging poverty. Some TikTokers are explicitly satirising this. One video captioned: “Underconsumption core but it’s actually the reality of living below the poverty line,” sarcastically shows off a duct-taped sofa and a milk-crate bed frame.
Certainly, this particular “core” emerged in a climate of real economic hardship. The cost of living crisis continues to bite, especially for younger people, and there is an element of making a virtue of necessity here. Should we stay angry at income inequality and deepening poverty? Of course. But I have seen underconsumption core described as “peaceful”, which makes sense. The disconnect between what you are served on socials and what you are living can be jarring and painful; this goes some way towards reconciling the two.
The second complaint is best, and regularly, expressed as: “Duh, this is normal life.” It’s true: much underconsumption content showcases how people live when they are not filming product-heavy #GetReadyWithMe videos or gleaming pantry reorganisations. No one reaches adulthood without forming an emotional bond with every Dolmio jar that has entered their home, surely, and most bathroom routines feature more well-squeezed moustache-bleach tubes than TikTok would have us believe. I don’t know why reminding people of this should enrage anyone.
Consumer goods companies are powerful and sophisticated, with huge budgets to throw at conventional advertising and influencers to make people want their stuff. Why not try to beat them at their own game? Make it an aesthetic; set it to a dreamy Norah Jones track; make consuming seem less of a good, fun choice. Underconsumption is part of a de-influencing fightback against the dispiriting, destructive churn of hyperconsumerism and it targets influencers’ audiences; it makes sense to use their codes and conventions.
I also sense a distaste and scepticism implicit in these critiques – that young people who were uncritically matching their Stanley cups to their outfits and buying into 20-step Korean skincare routines five minutes ago are suddenly making their own exfoliants and dyeing their clothes with avocado skins. That feels dourly mean-spirited. The kids didn’t create this gross, broken consumerist world; they just have to live in it. Let he or she who is without a cupboard, shelf or shed of consumer shame somewhere in their lives cast the first stone.
And if you already reuse teabags and boil up ivy to wash your clothes, if you have never succumbed to 75% off something unnecessary, congratulations. Maybe an earlier iteration of anti-consumption hit home for you; maybe you are naturally ascetic. But if underconsumption core doesn’t resonate, that is because you are not the target audience. So why not redunk your teabag for a brew, live your life and let them live theirs?
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
