How to Resist Consumerism

We do our best.

When I was in my early twenties, I was trying really hard to be cool and glamorous and attractive (to men). I had a pixie cut inspired by Winona Ryder at the 1996 Oscars. I wore chandelier earrings and snug sweaters and full skirts that stopped at the knee. My favorite aspirational place to shop was Club Monaco, where I could occasionally afford to buy something if it was super on sale.

Aiming for glam, c. 2003. I loved that oversized watch and those red bead earrings and that pearl necklace. (And that grandma!)

Then one day I met a woman around my own age who did not appear to be trying to look cool. She was a friend of a friend. Her haircut struck me as kind of meh, her jeans and her sweater too, but she had a really cute home with all kinds of cool old stuff in it. She was a talented crafter and maker, the kind of person who’s just always creating art with no particular purpose and who owns lots of piles of you-never-know-type materials: fabric and carabiners and wood scraps and craft paper and salvaged tiles. She told me that she tried to never buy anything new and inwardly I was like, “WHAT?” I was confused, but also impressed.

I was doing a Masters degree in English literature at the time and reading a lot of feminist theory and getting radicalized about compulsory heterosexuality and the male gaze. Lately I had been starting to feel kind of show-offy with my full skirts and high heels, like I was desperate for compliments or something. The time was ripe for me, both ideologically and aesthetically. I decided to also never buy anything new if I could help it. And it went pretty well!

I’m not saying my motives were pure. I did care about the planet, but I think I cared about being cool at least as much. Still, over the next few years I habituated myself to buying less, buying as much as possible secondhand or getting it for free or making it myself or repairing it. Even though I eventually lightened up and went back to occasionally buying new, my consumption patterns had changed long-term, and my values were following suit. I started out trying to be more like a person who helped rewire my understanding of cool, and over time I made more and more choices that purposely put people and planet first. I don’t think it matters much why I did it.

Image from The Story of Stuff (2007), a mesmerizing, galvanizing 20 minute animated video that takes viewers through the process of extraction, production, distribution, consumption, and disposal and doesn’t pull any punches. I used to show this video to my 9th grade World Studies students and it gave us a lot to think about and explore.

Today’s discussion thread is about the little ways we resist consumerism and capitalism in our daily lives. Much like talking openly about what we give, there’s a risk here of feeling like we’re virtue-signaling. But I want to suggest that it’s useful and important for us to name the ways we disrupt overconsumption and disposability and hustle culture and competitiveness day-to-day. Our individual daily choices may not make much of a dent in corporate profits or carbon emissions, but they just might help shift the culture and create the conditions for policymakers and elected officials and even corporate leadership to make better decisions.

Also, when I started listing out all the things I do to resist consumerism, capitalism, or both, I found out that making such a list is fun and satisfying and makes me feel good about myself. And that’s a good thing not just from a “yay me” perspective, but also because it re-invigorates me to keep up the good work and look for more little shifts that I can make.

I hope today’s discussion thread will function both to affirm us in the ways we’re already showing up for our communities and the planet and to provide new inspiration for anti-consumerist moves we can try. The point isn’t to demonstrate our virtue or to feel ashamed of what we’re not doing, but rather to mutually encourage one another and help make visible what’s possible.

And to be clear, I don’t think it’s possible for anyone living under unregulated late-stage capitalism in a highly unequal world to be pure or have totally clean hands. There’s no way we can do everything right. It’s not even always clear what “right” is. (Here’s one that always stumps me: if I’m going to buy fizzy water at the grocery store, is it best to buy cans or plastic bottles or glass bottles?) We prioritize and make choices. I make a lot of personal decisions aiming to resist consumerism and protect the planet, but I also drive cars and fly in airplanes and stay in Airbnbs and eat meat. I’m one of many relatively new homeowners in a gentrifying neighborhood that used to have a lot more residents of color. I live on land that was taken from Native people. There are no clean hands.

We just do our best.

Okay, so here are the other things I can think of that I do in my daily life to resist consumerism, capitalism, or both. Some are big and some are small, whatever. I’m probably forgetting stuff. Our lists don’t have to be perfect! (And yours doesn’t have to be this long. I just had a long time to think about it. Probably actually nobody will judge you for the length of your list or what’s not on it. We’re all too busy worrying about our ownselves, you know?)

• I boycott the hell out of Amazon and have for years, and this has not reduced the quality of my life in any way. A lot of what they have on Amazon is also available, used, on Ebay.

• I don’t buy gifts for kids – or anyone really (and nobody’s mad at me).

• In the kitchen:

  • We buy and use as little plastic as possible.

  • We wash and re-use plastic bags (hanging them on a multi-tiered pants hanger on the back of the utility room door to dry).

  • We use these green produce-saver bags, which really work.

  • We reduce food waste by rinsing bunches of herbs like cilantro or green onions and then letting them dry and then wrapping them in a paper towel and storing them in a green produce-saver bag.

  • Since we drink tons of fizzy water in my household, we have a countertop fizzifier and we buy our CO2 in big four-packs.

• We use our city’s mandatory municipal compost/yard waste collection, which is awesome.

• Our city has Ridwell, which I highly recommend, and FYI you can get away with sharing with a neighbor!

• We have only one streaming service at a time in our household – or, often, none.

• I use AdBlock Plus on my computer and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

• I turn off AI tools whenever possible.

• I live in co-housing with two other households, and we share meals and power tools and garden supplies and childcare and lots of other things that I can’t think of right now.

• My partner and I ripped out a big part of our lawn and replaced it with a Native plant meadow (with lots of help from my partner’s wonderful parents).

• We have an electric car and a hybrid car, both of which we bought secondhand, for a low price, from friends.

• Whenever I feel moved to give money, I try to obey the impulse, even when I’m pretty broke or what I’m moved to give seems like a bigger amount than is prudent. Usually if I’m feeling compelled to give, whoever I’m thinking of giving to is way broker than me, or else what I’m giving to is a really high-stakes issue for me and everyone I love (independent journalism, electing people who act with integrity, stuff like that).

• I write an anti-capitalist newsletter that includes a free post every week, and I give away free subscriptions to anyone who asks.

• I’m putting my faith in the interdependence retirement plan.

What about you? How do you resist consumerism and capitalism in your daily life?

Also, you may wish to vent in your comment about the ways you’d like to be able to resist that aren’t available to you (e.g., you have no choice but to shop on Amazon, or you can’t afford an electric car, or they don’t have compost pick-up or even recycling where you live, or you would love to not buy stuff but you can’t get your partner to stop buying stuff). Take this any direction you want to, Aunties!

And let’s be kind and generous to one another. Capitalism puts us all in a lot of intractable positions and – one more time – there are no clean hands.

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