Written by: Tori Grooms
Capitalist greed can be beautiful. My Smiski collection has grown year by year, and I can’t deny my thrill when a coveted clothing item finally lands in my mailbox. Yet beneath this enjoyment, I find myself questioning: Have our hobbies and interests become vehicles for consumerism, turning even personal expression into trend-following? Do these possessions serve a purpose in my life, or am I just participating in commodified personality traits?
(Perhaps, but those little green figurines glow in the dark, so that must count for something.)
The commodification of having a personality: Is it a hobby or is it just consumerism? In recent years, the Labubu debate has stirred a lot of consumerism allegations, mostly because of their debated appearance, their boom in popularity, and the obsession with acquiring something so hard to get. They were a status symbol; they were sold out all the time, and resellers marked up the price double or quadruple the cost. There was an element of exclusivity that only made them trendier; however, now that the hype has largely died off and the craze is gone, the Labubu is now another relic of hyperconsumption and bandwagoning.
Labubu and collectibles are not the only hobbies that have been commercialized. While it’s easy for some to look down on playful toys, the health and wellness industries aren’t safe either. The Pilates wave makes a great case study. Pilates, “Pilates Girl,” “Pilates Princess” has been thrown around so much that truthfully, I don’t know as much about the exercise as I do the aesthetic—and I’ve taken a class or two. Pilates isn’t a sport; it’s become a lifestyle. At least that’s the way it’s marketed by micro celebrities and online influencers. Pilates is the girl who wears expensive matching sets from Alo or Lululemon and drinks expensive smoothies or lattes outside of class and is hyperfeminine all the time. Pilates is not just a class; it’s a social class, an elite class, a culture. People love to be a part of something they love, the hype, perhaps more than attending the class themselves. Pilates quickly became a buzzword due to its connotation, and it’s now an expensive class that always fills up. Is it possible that people just happen to like Labubus and Pilates? Sure. But how many trend cycles do we need to go through before you acknowledge that you may not like this thing as much as you want other people to identify you with this thing?
Pilates and Labubus have been solidified as epitomes of consumer trends, and it’s easy to attribute them as isolated cases where FOMO and social movement fused together to create hype over “viral” products we may not otherwise be interested in. However, nowadays I’ve noticed that nearly everything—products, sports, food, etc., is now shown off and exemplifies a lifestyle. In a dystopian Black Mirror way, everything is an ad. We have become ads. The internet has sold us that personalities, hobbies, and oftentimes femininity can be bought and need to be bought to be in some sort of in-group.
Years ago, I remember the old jokes and stereotypes about black-coffee drinkers being “highbrow” and sophisticated: their super refined palate, exclusively drinking at local cafes, and complaining about the craftsmanship of chain coffee shops. These days, it seems people love being placed in a box and commodified. In a world where it’s easy to feel insecure and lost in your own sense of purpose, these labels and one-sentence summaries that supposedly encapsulate your entire existence make you feel like you have a concrete personality…which can fluctuate depending on whatever new self-identifier term comes out. “Hey, it-girls, what are WE wearing this spring?” Self-identifying terms have long been a sense of pride in small alternative groups; take goths, punks, and metalheads, for example. However, identifying in a shared subculture involving music, concert conduct, and activism might be quite a bit different than buying a checklist of neutral clothing items and calling it Quiet Luxury. Perhaps this will be my year, and the Zumba Zealots will conquer the Pilates Princesses, Old Moneys, and Clean Girls. Or perhaps we can shift away from filling our empty holes of disassociation with a bought feeling of fulfillment and redirect towards creativity and constructivism.
Featured Image Caption: Smiskis in their natural habitat.
