Everything is Just Trash
You want it new and you want it now and it doesn’t matter what it went through to get to you so long as it’s delivered before you realize you don’t actually need it. It doesn’t matter what it is, either — all that matters is that, with a click, it is yours. It is the illusion of better living through consumerism. It is add to cart culture.
I understand what propels someone to shop online as a form of self care. I am not going to lie; clicking “buy now” on an eBay listing for $6 worth of Zippo lighter flints just gave me a bit of a thrill. Not only is it a dopamine release, it’s an activity. The virus has only amplified this, as our dopamine levels have flatlined and the activities we used to busy ourselves with have ceased to be.
Online shopping has proliferated in this environment because it has become one of the only diversions accessible to the commoner, those poor souls who can’t afford to jet to a private island with their “tested” friends to escape the monotony of living a life indoors. E-commerce sales rose by over 30% between the first and second quarter of 2020; while small businesses continue to shutter, billionaires exponentially increased the money in their coffers for this reason. When I say “billionaires,” I am primarily talking about the billionaire. He is universally loathed yet still hashtag WINNING. At a shareholders meeting in May he was asked, “As Amazon gets bigger, it’s getting a lot more scrutiny. Do you think that scrutiny could hurt your reputation with customers?” After a pause, he answered, “No.”
When I ask my otherwise woke friends why they still order from Amazon, they shrug as though they are powerless. It’s just too convenient, they say. The prices are just so low, and money is tight.
These people are not crazed consumerists, nor are they sociopaths. They donate. They volunteer. They post multi-part infographics in Instagram Stories about the importance of social justice. They have politics that align with mine, yet on this one subject they are willfully ignorant.
Almost 20,000 front line Amazon workers have contracted Covid since the beginning of the pandemic, at least 10 of whom have died (Amazon, which isn’t exactly known for its transparency, refuses to release the exact number of deaths). Meanwhile their employer reported $88.9b in revenue last quarter, a 40% increase over 2019’s numbers, $5.2b of which was straight profit — the largest in the company’s 26-year history. These workers cannot unionize or strike. They can complain to OSHA, but OSHA doesn’t do anything, nor were they doing anything pre-pandemic, when injury rates at Amazon warehouses exponentially increased with each passing year. These rates are now, overall, double the national average, a fact Amazon takes great pains to try and suppress.
It’s a shame that the majority of people who lament a time in which America still made things, and made them to last, are often operating from a place of xenophobia because they are right. Outsourcing the manufacture of goods overseas has not only dramatically lessened their quality, as they are slapped together under draconian deadlines by people paid an inhuman wage, it also means we cannot see the people who suffer to make them, thus rendering them easy to dehumanize — out of sight, out of mind. Yet somehow the Americans who facilitate the delivery of the unethically manufactured shit we don’t need are also seen as expendable, even though we can literally see them (in order to keep up with demand, 400,000 Amazon jobs have been added since the beginning of the pandemic). They are your neighbors. They are your cousins. Hell, they may very well be you.
America was founded on myth building. Many of these myths we cannot shake, as they are ingrained in the fabric of our being. The idea that what we own says something about us — that we can achieve status and fulfillment through our purchases — is one of the most insidious ones, especially now that one can appear affluent and chic regardless of one’s actual pay grade.
Manufacturing goods in third world countries has provided the working classes of the first world the opportunity to own new items at a low price point — an achievement which, for the majority of history, was impossible. In the early 20th century, your garden variety pauper would only be able to buy one pair of jeans and wear them to tatters; globalization means they can now, with a click, acquire on trend ones for $9.99. These items, however, are built to be disposed of, and they are — 85% of textile waste in the United States, over 60% of which is made with synthetic fabric derived from crude oil, ends up in a landfill. The fashion industry, in fact, contributes to 10% of global carbon emissions, more than maritime shipping and international air travel combined. (If you want to celebrate this victory in pollutants, I suggest procuring a polyester-derived “Not My Problem” shirt from Forever 21. If you’d rather your fossil-fuel infused purchase spread a positive message, add this $64 “Be Good Do Good” hoodie from Urban Outfitters to your cart.)
Side Note: Planned obsolescence is not unique to cheap goods; even high ticket items are now designed to be destroyed. We have become so used to planned obsolescence, we dispose of these costly, oft-electronic items before they’re even rendered obsolete, assuming the bottom will drop out at any moment. I, for example, am writing this on a computer my former employer was literally going to throw in the trash because it was past its sell by date. It works perfectly fine — finer, in fact, than any computer I would be able to purchase “new.” (Americans throw away $55 billion worth of e-waste every year, by the by, averaging 44 pounds per person.)
Not everyone shitcans everything, though, thank Christ. Some wanted it new and they wanted it now but now they no longer want it, as it is taking up space that could be allotted to new things, so they put it on the Craigslist Free Section. I scroll the Craigslist Free Section with the same fervor an image-obsessed fashionista scrolls through Poshmark. I am struck by the fact that the vast majority of people thank me for accepting the items they paid for without compensation.
While many would balk at the idea of taking things from a stranger, assuming anything anyone would want to rid themselves of must be worthless, in many instances the worth of something is simply contextual: were these items presented differently, “curated” by a self-professed authority, they would have a price tag of significantly more than $0. Depop stores proudly pronounce items as “thrifted.” The living rooms and closets of influencers are filled with “vintage” wares. The message is clear: it’s OK to purchase something pre-used, so long as you purchase it.
I regularly see TV ads for The RealReal, an designer consignment shop which advertises itself as “Luxury, the sustainable way,” the implication being that once someone tired of their Hermès handbag they, if left to their own devices, would lop it in a dumpster. This logic, of course, is insane, but without a price, it’s true that an item’s quality is questioned. The only thing free is trash. And I am the son of the son of Sanford, gathering garbage.
I am writing this in skinny jeans I got from a woman who abandoned them because wide length trousers are now in vogue; she was, indeed, wearing palazzo pants when she handed me my bounty, that being six pairs of Levi’s she was simply going to throw away if no one wanted them, their collective retail price numbering in the hundreds of dollars (the average American disposes of approximately 80 pounds of clothing and textiles annually, which occupy nearly 5% of landfill space).
Side Note: I am 5’2’’. If I wore wide legged jeans I would look as though I were drowning in denim. This is another lesson: what is on trend does not always work for you. Not to mention the fact that those who are in control of trends despise you, wanting you to always aspire to an impossible ideal and thus consume more. If you are female identifying, know that the corporations marketing to you actively hate you, and want nothing more than for you to hate yourself with similar aplomb.
We all handle money differently. Most squander it, letting it trickle through their hands like water. By doing this, though, they give it all the more power. It owns them, not the inverse. And it doesn’t just own them, it owns others. I abstain. I’d rather trawl through the trash.
End Note: For approximately one caffeine-fueled hour I entertained the idea of writing this week’s newsletter about my belief that Taylor Swift is just a kinder, gentler Q-Anon for kids, having constructed her own alternate universe in which the constant use of coded messages has manipulated children into obsession. The idea that if you’re devoted enough to a cause you can uncover “secrets” invisible to the naked eye is brilliant marketing, as is the cultivation of a community in which people can share and discuss their findings with other true believers. I realized, however, in order to write the piece I would have to do copious research on both Taylor Swift and Q-Anon, two subjects a thirty-something white woman should keep her distance from. Best just to “write what I know,” that being the fact that capitalism is a cancer.