The Christmas Spirit of Consumerism
Gift guides for him! Gift guides for the gamer. Gift guides 2023. Reading my daughter’s Christmas list! What to ask for if you’re a book lover? My Christmas wish list.
These might be some of the videos you see if you open your TikTok For You Page at this time of the year. Christmas has morphed into an overwhelmingly consumerist holiday. The season of giving and togetherness has devolved into a frenzy of shopping, packages, materialism, and excessive spending, and social media has only made this problem worse.
Though Christmas certainly has meaning for those who celebrate it as a religious holiday, it’s also become a secular holiday and time for joy in the United States. The emphasis on sales and purchases is nothing new — Black Friday is infamous for the beginning of the holiday shopping season, and there are countless incidents of shoppers lining up and inundating stores, occasionally breaking out into fights over a good deal. However, with the rise of online shopping, retailers have been pushing sales months earlier but with worse discounts to maximize their bottom line. This oversized shopping system further demonstrates how the holiday has been manipulated for its capitalist value.
The idol of Santa is almost a consumerist god. Though the intentions of the holly jolly old man are good, the portrayal of him as giving gifts if you’re nice and coal if you’re naughty takes away from the original spirit of Christmas. Instead of being kind to others for the sake of it, children are conditioned to act in a certain way to maximize the amount of gifts they’ll get. This can put enormous pressure on parents who might be unable to buy their children the “best gifts.” Are kids of low-income families “naughty” because they don’t have gifts? On top of parents feeling bad that they can’t provide their children with what they need, they have to convince their children that they’re “good” — even though Santa only brought them a few socks but brought Jimmy across the street a new TV. Modern day Santa ties money to happiness and self-worth.
Social media platforms, like TikTok, fuel this problem. The app and its users have long been criticized for supporting fast fashion and shopping just for the sake of it. “Hauls” and “unboxings” are their own subgenres but this year, Angel Trees, a Salvation Army initiative to give Christmas gifts to low-income households, have become their own niche. While it’s wonderful that influencers are using their platform and resources to buy children who would otherwise go without, it has reached a point where unassuming users fueled by a spirit of giving are criticized for not buying hundreds of dollars worth of gifts. The extremely public nature of “hauls” and “unboxings” results in expectations being raised higher and higher for users’ own Christmas gifts, starting at a very young age. Scrolling on my For You Page, I can find countless videos of parents and other relatives reading their children’s wish list, which include expensive items that are often considered more “adult” gifts — preteens are asking for AirPod Pros, Drunk Elephant Skincare, and much more. Personally, I asked for journals, arts & crafts materials, and books at that age, and many of my peers were similar!
Furthermore, influencers often use Christmas as a way to advance their own self-interests instead of fully participating in the so-called “selfless” nature of the holiday. Making gift guides months in advance, they use sponsored products, TikTok shop commissions, affiliate links, and sometimes their own businesses to earn some extra cash.
In our capitalist economy, it seems unlikely that Christmas consumerism will slow down anytime soon. Thus, we must take it upon ourselves to shop sustainably and ethically.
by ATREYI BASU