Trashy or Classy: ‘Underconsumption Core’ Is TikTok’s Latest Controversial Trend

Log into any social media platform and you’ll be bamboozled by advertisements and influencers screaming BUY, BUY, BUY! Buy this “holy grail” beauty product and that water tumbler and the Birkin lookalike that will just change your life. This current late-stage capitalist dystopia has one goal: That we should buy as much as possible. And buy, we do. But this summer, the antithesis to overconsumption took off on TikTok: “Underconsumption core.” Below, I, a sustainability editor and advocate, will break down what exactly the now somewhat-controversial aesthetic *really* means.

On TikTok, videos about “underconsumption core” have gone viral, racking up hundreds of comments and thousands—even hundreds of thousands—of likes. Watch a handful and you quickly notice a pattern: women touting their single pair of sneakers, one face cleanser, lone bottle of foundation (skip the concealer), lonely body wash, outdated kitchens, thrifted closets and secondhand furniture. (Yes, I feel the irony of having linked each of those aforementioned words to buying guides.) The entire schtick is using things until the very last drop or shred of fabric. They’re not buying more than they need, and they’re buying things one at a time. In contrast to the bevy of ubiquitous fast-fashion haul videos we’ve become accustomed to, the contrast is stark—and, many find, refreshing.

Remy Tumin writes in The New York Times that this is “the latest move away from influencer culture. Instead of pristine fridge shelves, makeup bags with the latest products and fashion fads, users are posting simplified closets, secondhand clothes that have lasted for years and minimal makeup and skin care collections.”

Brett House, an economics professor at Columbia Business School, explained in The Times that “underconsumption core” is actually cyclical, and typically occurs in periods of economic hardship. House notes this occurs every ten years or so. Though we haven’t called it an official recession, it’s been a few years of will-they-won’t-they, watching to see if the Federal Reserve will continue to raise or cut interest rates. Layoffs have been widespread, especially across the technology and media sectors. Many people are penny-pinching, and the influencer life defined by excess now feels like salt on a wound. He says that this particular iteration is a response to COVID’s “revenge spending,” which then transitioned to “vibesession,” or the fear of recession that’s hung over our heads the last couple years. Also, we’re just damn tired and jaded from the barrage of ads we see everyday.

Because the admirable goal of consuming less has been turned into an aesthetic we must perform, the trend has sparked a mild class war happening in many of the comments sections on TikTok and beyond. “This…feels like a ‘classy if you’re rich, trashy if you’re poor’ situation,” one viewer commented on a YouTube video by Swell Entertainment, a popular channel focusing on product and media commentary. “Privilege plays a role in trends,” YouTuber Liz Drayna says in her analysis of the fad. We see this happen all the time, particularly in the beauty space with, for example, the clean girl aesthetic and Mamma Mia hair. You need a certain cultural (and thereby socioeconomic) capital to catapult something to trendy status. People have gotten (rightly) prickly over the fact that frugality and living with less are things that those with fewer means have had to do as a mode of survival—and now it’s trendy because an upper-middle class gal is proselytizing the joys of her five-product Chanel makeup routine, which she keeps in a repurposed Diptyque candle. Ultimately, we’re all going to approach it differently based on what’s feasible for us—and that’s OK.

Overconsumption, no matter where you fall on the socioeconomic rung, is harmful to the planet. In particular, fast fashion accounts for ten percent of all global emissions and is the second biggest consumer of water. Every year, 85 percent of textiles end up in landfills. Meanwhile, the beauty industry manufactures 120 billion pieces of packaging each year—and only 14 percent is sent to a recycling facility. Of that 14 percent, nine percent is actually recycled.

It can feel daunting to figure out how to live a more sustainable lifestyle, especially when companies put the onus on the consumer to do the homework. There are also other constraints in regards to time, money and physical ability to make changes. So, what’s the best thing to do? Start small. Try challenging yourself to a no-buy week. Look in your vanity and closet and try to work with what you already have, and only buy to replace things that are empty or truly unusable. Repurpose old clothing into washcloths and rags. Take your pants to the tailor when a seam busts, instead of chucking them in the rubbish bin. Trawl Facebook Marketplace for furniture. And, perhaps my favorite trick: Practice gratitude. I’ve recently challenged myself to write out ten things I’m grateful for every day for 365 days. Unsurprisingly, it’s helped me focus on things that are going well in my life—instead of spending my time roving on others’ social media pages feeling discontent. Even if practicing gratitude is all that you do for next week or month or year, you might be surprised. Slowly, perhaps, the urge to buy, buy, buy will fade.