Influencer sparks backlash with social media post showing off problematic behavior: 'Saddest thing I've read today'

An influencer splurged on the newest iPhone and then bought a new bag to match it, drawing criticism on Reddit for overconsumption based on a previous social media post.

Influencers often come under fire for promoting endless consumerism, but reactions on the r/Anticonsumption subreddit found a screenshot of this influencer's post particularly egregious.

The photo showed the influencer with the new iPhone in orange next to the matching bag. The influencer complained that she found the color ugly. 

"To justify buying a new phone, I bought myself a new bag to go with it," she captioned the post.

"It made me feel a whole lot better about the color orange, and now I'm obsessed," she continued. "This will be my personality for a bit."

In a longer Instagram post, the influencer argued for the bag's utility and said, "I'm literally gonna wear it all the time, every day." She also confirmed that she bought the orange iPhone and "wanted a bag to match it because I just thought that would be fun/bougie" — a generally harmless thought on its own, with the concern more within the context of a social media account that is frequently focused on showcasing new things to buy. 

Buying or even shopping for flashy new objects can cause a spike of dopamine and make you feel on top of the world for a short time, but once the high of it wears off, you may simply have purchases you don't really need and a smaller bank balance. 

This is not to vilify a bag purchase to match a phone or other garment or accessory, but there is a reasonable concern about social media influencing people to purchase so many bags or other items, such as water bottles, over time that they wind up with a large total gathering dust in a closet or cabinet. If 7 billion people did the same thing, is that a great use of resources?

Influencers can make money by convincing others to use their affiliate codes and purchase their sponsored products. Though they may be a friendly face on your phone screen, they may also be part of major marketing from large corporations.

Even if they aren't sponsored by a specific company or their intentions are truly pure in only recommending products they believe in, it can still become a problem if that veers into influencing toward overconsumption through depicting an aspirational — or "bougie," as this influencer called it — lifestyle.

Would you be more likely to shop at a store that paid you for your old stuff? Absolutely 💯 Only if they make it easy 😎 Depends on the store 🤔 Nope 👎 Click your choice to see results and speak your mind.

The endless production of new items, especially fast fashion and unsustainable products, depletes the planet of resources and can create pollution and toxic chemicals. As trend cycles shorten, more and more perfectly good-quality items end up in the landfill — and these will often not break down for hundreds of years. 

An option for scratching that shopping itch without adding to the overconsumption problem is to thrift. Based on one estimate, thrifters save around $1,700 a year on average, also cutting down on waste by extending the lifespan of an item and better justifying the resources that went into making it.

While the influencer acknowledged a risk of being called "extra" and said "bear with me," and while it's important to keep the whole matter in context to understand that this one example is relatively innocuous on its own, many Redditors criticized her for providing a noteworthy example of out-of-touch consumerism. 

The original poster on Reddit argued that influencer overconsumption is especially problematic "in an economy" where over half the population lives paycheck to paycheck — a point supported by reporting about the global workforce.

"Saddest thing I've read today," one Redditor said about the influencer's remark that her new purchases would become her personality "for a bit."

"Don't like the colour of the new thing you don't really need? Buy it anyway, then buy more things of that colour until you change your mind," one more user commented sarcastically.

"Especially wild cos THERE ARE OTHER COLOR CHOICES," another added. "She only got the orange cos it's the one people are talking about."

Get TCD's free newsletters for easy tips to save more, waste less, and make smarter choices — and earn up to $5,000 toward clean upgrades in TCD's exclusive Rewards Club.