In many ways it’s a typical TikTok : Shelby Orme shows off her bedroom decor, cosmetics collection, and shelves of leafy green plants to more than 275,000 followers. A Norah Jones song plays softly in the background. But there is a twist.
Orme’s bed is on the floor – a bed frame “just seemed unnecessary.” She smiles and waves at the camera through her reflection in a broken mirror that she found in the trash. New plants are propagated from the ones she already owned and her makeup is “depotted” from older palettes.
Orme, a sustainable living advocate, captioned the video “#underconsumptioncore” – a reference to the latest TikTok trend. Like any TikTok vocabulary, the definition of underconsumption core is fairly amorphous. The name plays on what are frequently consumption-oriented TikTok aesthetics like cottagecore or Barbiecore – and the original, millennial root word: normcore.
The difference, however, is that underconsumption core is theoretically based on the idea of buying less and not giving into the influencing that drives these other trends. “The irony lies in the fact that underconsumption is a practice, while ‘core’ refers to an aesthetic,” trend creator and Depop trend specialist Agus Panzoni told . In some respects, this trend flies in the face of what users experience every time they open the TikTok app.
It can be easy to get influenced on TikTok and then immediately spend money: users can simply click on the top-right corner of thei.