Stop trying to get me to buy stuff!

taking a conscious step back from rampant consumerism

Were you overwhelmed by all the Black Friday emails and shopping guides? There’s just a lot of content designed to get you to buy, buy, BUY. Literally everywhere I look, someone or something is trying to get me to buy something.

me, exhausted after one in-person shopping trip

In some ways, I suppose this is exactly what the apps are designed to do. It’s designed to make its users buy. The more you can influence someone to spend their money, the more powerful you are. During my YouTube days, I remember reading about how beauty channels have the highest CPM (cost per mille, basically how much YouTube pays you for views) because their viewers were more likely to buy the things shown on ads.

Fast forward to now, I think TikTok shop is at the top of the consumerism game. Every tiny microinfluencer is confessing how their lives have been changed by NAD supplements, teeth whitening powder, or some other random thing I never thought about buying but am now considering. They’re really good at selling.

I’m not gonna lie. The life-changing testimonials and the thought exercise of a twenty-something-dollar item doing the same for me is… thrilling? In a cheap, McDonald’s-Happy -Meal-Toy type of way.

But at the end of the day, it’s exhausting and kind of soul-sucking. I think Black Friday & surrounding shopping days feel especially tiring because it's no longer just in my inbox. It’s on my Instagram feed, on my Tiktok, on the billboards, and even on Substack (!! but how many sale guides does one need, honestly?!) So here are my quick tips for getting over this feeling and making the shopping season feel less…omnipresent.