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The story
In the German-language Lemmy community “c/dach,” an article from Bavarian Broadcasting (BR) about the “underconsumption trend” (deliberately choosing not to buy things) sparked a lively discussion.
Commenters were split on whether this is really a new set of values, or just an English rebrand of old-school frugal habits like repairing things, buying secondhand, and making items last. Others took a more down-to-earth view: maybe people simply can’t afford to buy as much anymore, given rising prices.
Underconsumption Trend: What Not Buying Really Gets You
Source: br.de / Read the original article
What people said
Do you have any numbers to back that up, or are you just throwing it out there?
This isn't a trend at all. What's so new about fixing things, buying secondhand, or using stuff that lasts a lifetime?
Journalists are just slapping the label 'underconsumption trend' on that.
I mean, isn't it just that everyone's wallets got thinner, so they can afford less, and as a result they're ending up more deliberate about buying only what they need? 🤷♂️
Either way, I guess slapping a name on anything turns it into a 'trend'…
Violent crime has actually been declining for decades now, and pretty clearly at that.
Well, guess that business plan didn't pan out.
I think 'shitmaxing' has a big future ahead of it! (a jokey slang mashup, riffing on '-maxing' trend terms like 'looksmaxing')
Especially since if you turn everything into a 'trend,' you don't have to confront the actual cause, and you get to avoid noticing that something's gone wrong somewhere.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
“Underconsumption” originally spread on English-language social media as a backlash against influencer “haul video” mass-consumption culture — it refers to an attitude of not accumulating more stuff and instead using up what you already have. The article that sparked this thread is an explainer piece from Germany’s public broadcaster BR, which has now been imported into German-speaking online communities.
The thread split over whether this represents a genuine shift in values or just a relabeling of old habits. Replies 5 and 10 point out that things like repairing items and buying secondhand have always existed, and that this is just a rebranding of what used to be called minimalism or sustainable consumption — bound to be followed by a “yo-yo effect” snapping back to old spending habits. Replies 6 and 11, on the other hand, argue that it’s simply that rising prices have left people unable to afford as much, rather than any real shift in consumer mindset.
Worth noting: these two views aren’t mutually exclusive. Frugality by choice and frugality forced by inflation look identical from the outside — both show up as “not buying” — so when media coverage frames the latter as a “trend” version of the former, it can drift from what’s actually happening. The jabs in replies 12 and 13 — that labeling anything a “trend” lets you skip analyzing the real cause — are aimed at exactly this conflation.
※This article is a condensed, editorial translation of the thread “Underconsumption-Trend: Was Nicht-Kaufen wirklich bringt” from the overseas forum Lemmy c/dach. Our editorial team is responsible for the accuracy of this translation.
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