Paige Mori-Prange shares about why we should me more conscientious about overconsumption.
For many teenagers like myself living in Marin, overconsumption isn’t just a common trend — it’s expected. We struggle with navigating through a culture where trends change overnight, and if we’re keeping up with them, we’re usually burning cash. The pressure to buy every new name-brand pair of jeans, and the latest limited-edition sneakers becomes a never-ending cycle, that is way too easy to get trapped in.
We may find ourselves with new shoes that look just like the last pair, or a bottle of serum that we don’t even need. Deep down, I wonder if a part of us know that the purchases are unnecessary and wasteful, or if we’re more concerned with being one step closer to the curated lifestyle that so many strive for in Marin. But this issue goes far beyond Marin.
Overconsumption is a growing problem, but it’s not discussed enough. Everything that we buy uses natural resources like metals, trees and oils. From 1970 to 2010, our global demand for these resources more than tripled. However, this level of consumption simply isn’t sustainable. It has been so normalized to participate in consumer culture, that most people don’t even realize it. I didn’t recognize it myself until I took a step back.
My closet is packed with clothes that I hardly wear, and my vanity holds half-used products that I bought simply because they were trending at the time. At first, I thought it was normal — all of the girls around me were doing the same thing. I never really stopped to question it. But now, I look around and see that all of us are caught in the same cycle of buying way more than we need.