By: Jada Law, Follow South Jersey Intern
SOUTH JERSEY- From Stanley cups to clothing hauls to skincare, you name it, the internet is telling you to buy it. The act of purchasing more than what you need is becoming more glorified than ever, as an abundance of advertisement videos are released every day marketing various products to a set audience.
“I got a cute little set [from Skims], I regret it everyday it was $110,” stated Columbia University student Kennedy Smith.
Bolingbrook High School student Charlotte Smith explained how she constantly sees a jewelry company advertise their sales on the popular social media app TikTok.
“It’s like four pieces of jewelry for $5 and [the videos] are influencing me,” said Charlotte Smith, “and I don’t even need the jewelry, it’s just cute.”
Elmhurst University student, Kassandra Rodriguez mentioned that when she saw a lip stain from the TikTok shop being advertised on the app “it looked like it worked really well but it didn’t end up working. But, I didn’t need it. I already had a bunch of lip glosses.”
“There’s been a bunch of times I got stuff [from clothing websites] and then I saw it in person and it was really ugly,” stated Araceli Rodriguez.
According to an article by Population Media Center, “aggressive marketing campaigns that promote conspicuous consumption fuel societal norms centered around materialism, driving individuals to consume beyond their actual needs.”
With the influx of fast fashion brands, so many produce their items just as fast as they dispose of them. Which ends up causing overconsumption amongst humans as well as over exerting the environment’s resources at the same time.
“I think the over consumption of products has definitely become a problem in society,” said Kennedy Smith. “I knew it became a problem when everybody started buying multiples of reusable water bottles like Stanley cups.”
Charlotte Smith added on to say that overconsumption “is causing multiple franchises to compete against each other to start producing the same stuff. Even though it’s the same thing whether it’s expensive or not, people are going to buy it.”
“Fast fashion cycles so fast and everyone wants to try new trends without thinking about the quality of clothes,” said Rodriguez, “They just throw the clothes away or they donate them when they’re sick of the clothes. But, there’s so much waste of plastic and resources making the clothes.”
The rate at which products are being created, bought, and disposed of is becoming a growing problem for the environment.
An article by UNICEF mentions that “ If everyone were to consume resources at the rate at which people in Canada, Luxembourg, and the United States do, at least five earths would be needed.”
Many concerns were expressed over the state of the environment from the mass load of overconsumption by people.
“Landfills are filled up more than 3 times the amount just because of all the different products that are coming and going, specifically in fast fashion and reusable products,” stated A. Rodriguez.
Kennedy Smith added that “It’s causing a lot of waste and causing climate change to grow even faster.”
With the overconsumption of products nowadays ruining the environment, there are many ways consumers can help restore the earth instead of doing more harm than good.
“To prevent it, we gotta stop making everything sound so cool. Overall, start de-influencing people from buying stupid stuff,” Kennedy Smith said.
Charlotte Smith went on to add that many influencers online need to stop doing brand deals for products that may be of low quality or not as good as they make it out to be.
“They [influencers] are doing it just for money, knowing people are not going to like it. Influencers are just making it worse for themselves,” Charlotte Smith stated.
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