Sam Bartelt, copy editor

The American economy is currently run by corporate greed and the insistent, unsubstantiated need for consumers to buy more. This creates a conflated dichotomy: the producer producing products that scrape the bare minimum of quality that we would buy and the consumer making this ever-present hedonistic culture that, to live properly, we need to fill our homes with these superfluous products that go “out of fashion” within a month, nay, a week. In Lamen’s sense, we greedily keep buying shit that we don’t need, and greedy companies keep churning out this shit.

Today we’re talking about good ol’ American overconsumption. Overconsumption is the practice of constantly buying new products when you don’t need them, nor have they gotten rid of the old products. We chase this dopamine rush that wasn’t good anymore once we stopped being kids. A lot of parents nowadays will raise their kids on a constantly changing array of the newest toys or technology. Where exactly do the old toys go? In the basement, where they will stay till they are covered in dust and debris and probably broken. Then, if they are found and extremely lucky, they get cleaned and taken to a thrift store where they have a chance of being rehomed. However, most will likely end up in a garbage bag and be taken to a landfill where they won’t decompose for centuries. Now, doesn’t that just make you feel so good inside?

You might be thinking that you’re better now, in terms of not chasing a non-existent dopamine rush, and that you got over that phase in life, but unless you’ve made a conscious decision and effort to consume less, I’ll assume that you haven’t actually gotten better. When most Americans buy random things, they don’t think about where it will end up, or how long they’re going to use it for. They just think about the now, and right now they want it, so why shouldn’t they buy it? As I said, they just don’t need it. 

In the original short film I saw in one of my classes from The Story of Stuff Project, they describe how we actually get said “stuff.” This film describes it as starting with nature, where companies mine and deplete the natural resources, often in foreign places that are poorer countries because the companies see them as “expendable” and “exploitable.” Next, it goes to manufacturing, where it floods the atmosphere with toxic chemicals; again, these are often in places where it tends to be poorer, because people will work for cheaper. Then it goes to the stores where the employees are paid the bare minimum and get barely any benefits. We buy it for cheap because the companies cut costs at every conceivable opportunity. Then these products go to our homes, where they will stay until we force ourselves to get rid of them. We “get rid of it” by often throwing it away, where it tends to either sit in a landfill or be burned, once again flooding the atmosphere with toxic chemicals.

With all this in mind, are the Shein orders, Temu purchases, designer clothes and every new water bottle that comes out such a good idea? Just think about what you’re purchasing for a second. Do you need it? Is it tacky? What are you going to do with it when you’re done with it? Do you need it to be replaced when it no longer works? Next time you go out shopping for clothes, shoes, bedding or any sort of thing similar. Maybe just go to thrift stores.