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‘It is OK to be content with your simple life’: is ‘underconsumption core’ the answer to too much shopping?

Influencers are pushing back against consumerism by encouraging followers to repair or repurpose their stuff. But is this ‘trend’ just what many people call normal life?

“The spotlight that has been put on fast fashion and its damaging impacts, as well as the global increase in desire to buy secondhand … To quote a Brat commandment, directly from the messiah, Charli xcx: you should rewear an item to death ’.” According to Walpita, defluencing, defashioning and other de/core buzzwords have been hinting at this shift in consumer mindset for a while now. “The irony is that there is an element of privilege to choosing to actively lean into underconsumption and turn it into a form of viral, sharable content.” She says there’s also little acknowledgment of the fact that this viewpoint negates the communities, such as those in the global south, where these practices are common (and not necessarily linked to poverty or class) – rather, they are cultural necessities and signifiers of care. “A lot of people are responding [to the trend] by saying this is what it is like being working class,” says Georgina Johnson, editor of The Slow Grind: Practising Hope and Imagination, an intersectional environmentalist anthology.

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