The Consumption Trap
by Nguyễn Xuân An Khôi
Credit: Pinterest
Labubu, surprise boxes, and Stanlee cups are among the many recent hot must-haves that drive Gen Z crazy as they try to get their hands on them. Are these needed for the survival of the human body? No. But they sure do look hella good on that IG post once and even better at the central landfill. These consumer products are best at one thing: Being used once and thrown away. When people use more resources than they can recycle, reuse, and need, this is known as overconsumption. Although this occurs at the individual level, overconsumption is most frequently quantified at the national, continental, or global scale. No matter how you look at it, buying plastic toys is unsustainable and wasteful. Suppose we use resources faster than they can replenish themselves (that's exactly what we're doing), we'll eventually run out of resources and lose the place called Earth.
Is overconsumption getting worse? One way to measure overconsumption is to look at the "Earth Overshoot Day" metric, devised by the Global Footprint Network. There's an annual day called "Overshoot day"; it is when humanity's consumption of resources exceeds Earth's regenerative capacity that year. For instance, in 1972, the overshoot day fell on December 31, meaning we were living within Earth's capacity to regenerate. In 2025, however, that day fell on July 24. To put it simply: In 1972, we needed 1 Earth to support our pace of consumption, but by 2025, we'd need 1.78 Earths to provide sufficient resources for us. Of course, some of this increase is due to population growth, as the total number of humans on Earth has more than doubled since the 1970s. But at the same time, worldwide resource extraction quadrupled over that same period.
The engine of overconsumption: Laura Fox, an environmental lawyer and research scholar at Yale Law School, stated, "Capitalism promotes constant growth and rewards consumerism, and that mindset leads to overconsumption and people buying more than what they need." The recent worsening of overconsumption is primarily due to technological advances, especially the introduction of e-commerce and social media, which have supercharged the trend among Gen Z and Alpha. From a supply standpoint, globalization and automation have increased production efficiency, making it cheaper than ever before to produce as much product as possible, as we have seen with the boom of Chinese-made surprise boxes. From a demand standpoint, increased internet exposure has led people to consume more advertisements than they used to and enabled advertisers to reach their target audiences more effectively.
What is there left for us? Are we heading towards a dystopian society? Worry not because we're already at it.
The trend of overconsumption has boosted global economic growth. With the increasing trend of encratification, corporate greed, the normalization of planned obsolescence, the shift away from one-time purchases to subscription-based models ("you'll own nothing and be happy"), and little effort toward recycling through greenwashing, it is unlikely the trend will backstep. Even the most "powerful" government in the world is deregulating policies made to protect the environment and consumers. We will ( CEOs and executives) drown in rising stock prices, increased revenues and market share, new Labubus every week, while overlooking a dying environment, and be happy.
