🌀 The Virtue of Your Shopping Cart

{{rh_onboarding_line}}

You add a canvas tote bag to your basket. Made of organic cotton. Features a minimalist font. Twelve pounds more than the plastic version. You don't need it as you already own three. But this one has a message. It says: I care.

We live in an era where what you don't buy has become just as much a status symbol as what you do. Thrifted jeans convey values. A luxury handbag signals to others. Both are performances. The question isn't whether we signal through spending, but whether we realise we're doing it at all.

For many with ADHD, a simple "no" can feel like a world-ending nightmare. This is Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD), and it makes navigating daily life painfully hard.

Developed by clinical psychologists, Inflow helps you understand and navigate RSD triggers using science-backed strategies.

In just 5 minutes a day, you can learn to prevent unhelpful thoughts and build deep emotional resilience. Stop spiraling and start reframing your thinking with a custom learning plan designed for your brain.

Take the free assessment today

In the highlands of South Sulawesi, Indonesia, the Toraja people have a unique relationship with wealth. They don't save for holidays or retirement. They save for funerals.

Torajan funeral ceremonies, known as Rambu Solo', can last for days and cost the equivalent of decades of savings. The main focus? Buffalo sacrifices. Families of the highest status may slaughter hundreds. The rarest and most prestigious is an albino buffalo called Tedong Bonga, which can cost more than a house. The number of buffalo sacrificed directly reflects a family's dignity.

The anthropologist Mary Douglas claimed in The World of Goods (1979) that consumption is never entirely personal. Goods represent the visible side of culture. What we spend on, whether funerals in Toraja or farmers' markets in Brooklyn, reveals who we are and what we value.

In 1899, economist Thorstein Veblen introduced the term "conspicuous consumption," which describes the idea that we purchase expensive items not for their practicality but to signal status. A gold watch tells the time just as well as a plastic one; the difference lies in the audience.

However, Veblen depicted only part of the picture. Today, we also participate in what might be called conspicuous non-consumption: showcasing the things we decide to reject.

The philosopher Simone de Beauvoir provided a valuable perspective in The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947). She described what she called "the serious man", someone who links meaning to external constructs like money, status, or ideology, and then confuses these constructs with universal truths. The serious man doesn't just value wealth; he believes everyone should.

The same trap applies to thrift. When frugality becomes part of one's identity, and not buying things turns into a form of status, we've simply exchanged one version of the serious man for another. De Beauvoir argued that true moral freedom involves making choices without needing the world to endorse them.

Enter #UnderconsumptionCore, a TikTok trend that gathered over 44.9 million posts by mid-2024. Creators display their old hair dryers, worn-out trainers, and modest wardrobes. The message: I don't overconsume.

It's a direct response to haul culture, the endless shopping sprees, TikTok Shop affiliate links, and influencer excess. The motivation behind it is genuine. Young adults face record levels of student debt, inflation, and growing climate anxiety.

But here's the paradox: a trend against consumption developing on a platform designed to promote it. As Dr. Jimil Ataman told BuzzFeed, "These platforms are algorithmically designed to commodify our attention and persuade us to consume, because that is how they make money."

Critics have also noticed something troubling: much of what is labelled "underconsumption" is simply ordinary middle-class life. Wearing the same trainers? Using one bottle of shampoo at a time? For millions, that's not a fashion choice. It's Tuesday.

The writer Arundhati Roy once described consumers as "zombies mesmerized into equating mindless consumerism with happiness." The core of underconsumption suggests the spell might be breaking even if the counter-spell is still being cast on the same stage.

📜 Quote: "Instead of supposing that goods are primarily needed for subsistence plus competitive display, let us assume that they are needed for making visible and stable the categories of culture." — Mary Douglas, The World of Goods (1979).

📊 Study: A 2024 Clever Real Estate survey found 74% of Americans admit to overspending, with 84% justifying unnecessary purchases by telling themselves, "I deserve it."

🎨 Artifact: The canvas tote bag: originally a simple grocery carrier, now serves as a statement of moral identity, highlighting the bookstore you support, the cause you care about, or the brands you choose to avoid.

😂 Meme: "Underconsumption core is just being normal. We used to call this 'being broke.'"

🤔 Prompt: What's the last thing you bought that was really about telling others something about yourself?

Have you noticed your spending habits shifting towards either displaying more luxury or appearing more thrifty? Hit reply and tell us. We’re genuinely interested in what the balance looks like.

Every culture on Earth has used objects to communicate. The Toraja do it with buffalo. We do it with tote bags and TikTok videos. The medium changes, but the impulse remains the same.

The true question isn't what you purchase or abstain from buying. It's whether you selected it freely or if the performance selected you.

If this made you see your shopping cart differently, share Culture Decoded with a friend who'd appreciate the reframe.

Subscribe to Culture Decoded for weekly insights on modern behavior.