Growing, deepening loathing for hyper-consumer people and families

[Anonymous]

“Live and let live,” OK, but hyper-consumption is harmful to our planet, our wallets, and our society. I am so tired of grown adults who are perpetuating and reveling in over-consumption, glorifying it on social media, making it a problem for other people.

Wow, we get it, you not only decorate for Halloween and pass out Halloween candy, you must make it normalized mass consumption by starting “Boo Baskets” in your neighborhood, organizing multiple trunk-or-treats for kids who already can safely participate in Halloween in their neighborhoods, and generally making Halloween a Christmas-level holiday.

Not only do you go to Disney, but you post lead-up videos of you packing and doing a grand reveal and detail every nanosecond of the actual trip on social media, including buying custom family T-shirts and crap, then getting stickers of your Disney Family for your car, just more more more to end up in landfills.

Christmas, forget about it. Jesus is as real to your children as the Easter Bunny is. Over-decorating, over-posting, over-buying, over-wrapping, forced fun in your office and neighborhood, just more more more. Elf on the Shelf, because wasting food and toothpaste is soooo funny when families are struggling to buy basic groceries. You live in the Capitol an care nothing for the poors in the Districts, we get it.

Your kids birthday party complete with an Amazon wish list, hiring someone to help stage a sleepover, then posting the pics all over social media so all the parents and kids who weren’t invited can see just how very special your little princess is. (And yes, my kid was invited, and went, and I am MORTIFIED that there are pictures of her in her pajamas on the Internet without my consent, more from the perspective of feeling bad for the girls and parents who weren’t invited than anything else.)

It’s just gross. It’s all too much, and a lot of it is driven by miserable people who aren’t actually satisfied with their lives, so they over-consume, post about how fabulous they are, then raise kids to think More is More and Look at Me.

[Anonymous]

OP I know you're just venting and I get it. Having neighbors or colleagues like this when you don't have kids is annoying but tolerable because you don't have to participate in any way. But when it's your kid's friend's family, you sometimes do get dragged into it or at least implicated by it.

To me it's the same resentment I feel at families who give elementary kids phones and social media, turn a blind eye towards their children being unkind or rude, allow unsafe behavior around alcohol or drugs, etc. It makes my job harder.

[Anonymous]

How do you feel about ballrooms?

[Anonymous]

I generally agree with your point about over consumption but I think you’re focusing on the wrong things. We have some Halloween decorations but we bought them 15 years ago and use them every year so the additional pressure on the landfill is minimal.
I’m more concerned by the notion that unless you are completely redecorating your house every 10 years, it looks “dated.” And that “oh that cut of pants you just bought 2 years ago is now dated and out of style so you must go buy totally different pants.” Or the fsct that every single season my kids sport teams makes me buy a New Jersey shirt for them so we have about 60 nylon soccer shirts that cannot be handed down or recycled (plus dozens of crappy trophies that no one wanted). Or the fact that people say basically “oh you might as well trash that furniture of your grandmothers because it’s dated and no one will buy it, the vintage stores are overflowing with that crap” so that everyone can buy something new looking off wayfair or west elm. How many people even bother to use cobblers to fix the heels on their shoes rather than just tossing the shoes when the soles are worn?

It’s just so much waste. Buying a cotton T shirt to go to disney — which you will probably wear lots again a lot as a nice memory of a family trip — is not the issue. Or putting candy in a bag to share with a neighbor—again, totally NOT the issue.

[Anonymous]

I know a lady like this. She is just middle class like me but spends like crazy! She was complaining that her high school daughter's nails and hair costs were out of control and I was like "this seems like an easy fix" and she had 1000 reasons the 16 year old needed this stuff. It's all about appearances, an image. Travel is all over the top all-inclusives. Smartphones for the kids starting at age 9 so they can "make plans without being left out." I completely blame social media.

[Anonymous]

OP this is a you problem but your biggest issue is your social media habit. Stop looking at social media and you can get mad about something else.

[Anonymous]

I do not see it as consumerism as much, OP. In general, what OP is describing is more people desperate to be relevant. The "look-at-me" and "I matter" folks who via social media make up the majority. People are simply desperate to be relevant in some way.

[Anonymous]

I have similar thoughts when I see large amounts of plastic displayed on front lawns that disrupt our endocrine systems with microplastics and will end up killing off species, including ourselves...

...but I also understand that this happens all throughout the year, not just for Halloween or Christmas, so it's not rational to get triggered right at Halloween.

As a scientist, I understand that the human abilities to accurately assess long-term risk and exercise delayed gratification have not evolved as quickly as our incredible talent for technological progress. The growing gap between industrial development and our ability to control our desires are at the root of most modern ills of society. We're hunting-gathering brains swimming in an ocean of tech and AI. It's mind-boggling, when you think about it.

[Anonymous]

This is all so specific...I think my daughter went to the same birthday party too.

[Anonymous]

I would be disgusted by all that too. But where are you seeing all this? I’m not friends with these type of people. Is it just scrolling random videos on instagram of strangers? If so, just stop doing that and you’ll feel better because it won’t be in your face. Social media is just trash. Think hard whether it’s actually contributing positively to your life.

[Anonymous]

The Halloween peer influence and creep is real. It starts with a few strings of orange and purple lights, and then more and more it is blow-ups, full-scale riggings the scope of big Christmas decorations, etc., etc. Yep, those 12-foot skeletons will indeed be in the landfill along with the faux gravestones, the flying witch, and the “garage door banner” that makes your garage door look like Hogwarts.

[Anonymous]

It's not just for social media content.

My MIL does not arrive without presents for my kids. They used to love it. No visit here or there was complete without some gift of a t-shirt or some holiday-themed plastic crap, for which, she would have to put into a holiday-themed paper or plastic bag that she spent money on. I tried to get DH to shut it off but he won't because it gives her pleasure.
I tried for years to have them pay for lessons or something instead of gifting crap for their bday or x-mas, instead, she's always insisted on getting presents that "they can open."

Now, I can sort of understand this with little kids but my kids are now 18 and 21 and she still does it, even giving them things like Halloween-themed pencils!!

I just gave away a lot of the crap she's been showing up with for years.

I think a lot of it has to do with her growing up lower middle-class and not having "things." Now she can afford to buy what she wants and goes crazy. When I see others with similar habits I assume the same.

[Anonymous]

I don’t loathe individual people for simply reflecting what our society/culture values. It is not the individual people that are the problem. Look at our “social” media apps that are really just constant advertising at this point and training us to be hyper-consumers.

[Anonymous]

OP sounds real fun at parties.

[Anonymous]

I love going all out for the holidays. The world can be such a dark and depressing place. It gives me joy to see my kids so excited about setting up our decorations and they love driving by other houses and seeing their decorations. We do use all the same stuff every year and lately anything "new" I buy comes from the thrift stores. Idk... I get your point but I think it should be more so directed at people who change up their holiday "themes" every year or own 15 different colorways of the Stanley cup etc.