Brianna Parkins: TikTok says you can buy your way into being a better person

It’s a long trudge through the barren arctic tundra between December and January pay-days but we have made it. We are filled with optimism about better days ahead. Which is what makes us so vulnerable to buying more junk we don’t need.

We’ve spent January indoors because somehow going outside as a fully fledged adult now requires spending approximately €30 every two days. We’re scrolling social media in bed with a hot water bottle and in front of the telly as we ride out the long dark nights. We are watching aspirational fitness regimes, clearing resets, house DIY projects and “get ready with me” routines.

We think if we had the right sunrise alarm clock, matching comfortable but cute gym set, colour-co-ordinated planner and an under-stand-up-desk treadmill we would burst out of bed at 6am, get all our work done by 9am while working from home and hit our 10,000 steps every day while crushing our career goals.

If we bought the green supplement powder we would have more energy, and if we bought the aesthetic lunch box our children might actually open and even eat the contents.

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There is no problem in our life a product might not solve. While in reality we will still remain seasonally affected WFH hobgoblins who roll out of bed at 8.40am to start work at 9am with toothpaste crust on the tracksuit bottoms we robbed from our college roommate 10 years ago. Our children will still only eat three blueberries and we will still be tired, all of the time. Except now we have more things to tidy away, more cardboard boxes sitting in the hall and less money in our bank accounts.

Expecting an aesthetic glass straw set and a new blender to snap us into a disciplined state of smoothie-based health is as rational as buying an empty piggy bank, setting it on the table and expecting it to make you rich.

The industry trying to sell us future detritus we will have to eventually clear out of the attic has never been more powerful. Reckless spending on cheap but fun junk used to be limited to the odd rainy afternoon in Penneys. But now we have 24/7 access to the online equivalent of a never-ending Aldi middle aisle. Plus a constant chorus of people living in our phones telling us to buy it all.

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The dual rise of TikTok/Instagram and online ecommerce behemoths Shein/Temu has seen us convinced we need more things than ever. There are entire genres of content dedicated to consuming – from Amazon “must have” influencers to “unboxing/haul” videos on opening online shopping orders to #cleantok making us all feel like unhygienic freaks for not ironing our sheets on the bed every morning using a hand-held steamer.

The Atlantic’s Amanda Mull in her January piece Home influencers Will Not Rest Until Everything Has Been Put in a Clear Plastic Storage Bin explored how taking things out of the perfectly good boxes they came in and putting them in other boxes purchased separately is the new standard of housekeeping being pushed on TikTok. Don’t mind the essential information on the laundry detergent the poison hotline may need one day, it’s not as aesthetic as these containers influencers get a cut from if you purchase them using their discount code. Because the point of these videos is not home organisation – it’s revenue for someone else and spare room cluttering for you.

We cannot buy our way into becoming better people. We must accept ourselves as the crusty, broke, unaesthetic winter gremlins we are

Social media-driven consumerism has reached new heights post Christmas with teenage girls begging their parents for what are essentially €50 sippy cups to grown women fighting over Stanley Cups in stores.

Trend cycles are on hyper warp speed with audiences able to copy influencers quickly via cheap products from online retailers with stock high turnover and direct access to manufacturers in Asia. Which is why the “mob wife’ aesthetic has women who are usually too afraid to even eat a grape in the supermarket before paying now buying static-creating faux fur coats online to look like a Sopranos extra. That’s after the “clean girl” aesthetic had them living in neutral basics for the past six weeks and “coastal grandmother” in button-down linen over the summer.

So where does this all end? The answer is in the boot of your car in a big plastic bag that’s meant for the charity shop but will live in there for months, maybe years.

Or worse, it could be getting a call from your bank wondering if it was you or a scammer who spent €100 at 1am on a Shein order containing storage boxes, drawer dividers, posture correctors, ballroom shoes and a novelty Christmas cat costume when you don’t even own a cat and having to face your shame in real time. Ask me how I know that happens.

We cannot buy our way into becoming better people. We must accept ourselves as the crusty, broke, unaesthetic winter gremlins we are and spend our money on things that will make us happier for longer than the next bin cycle.