UNCERTAIN PEOPLE BUY MORE STUFF
Manufactured Inadequacy
It’s yesterday. It’s late. I’m tired. I’m setting my phone’s alarm clock before reading myself to sleep. But first I just check my feeds one last quick time.
And I see her. Suddenly the outfit I’ve hung on the back of the door for tomorrow feels lame. In fact my whole morning routine now feels chaotic. My hair, my skin, my life, dull now that I’ve seen hers. I want her bag. And to renovate my kitchen. What’s that product she’s using?
By the time I realise what's happening to me, I’m clicking a shopping link.
It only took a split-second. In my bedroom, in the dark, quietly.
It’s manufactured inadequacy. And it's worth billions.
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Manufactured inadequacy isn’t something I can claim to be neutral about. Or surprised to get stung by like that, late at night. Because I help create it.
It feels gross to say that. But it’s true.
My job (my business) is to help brands grow. I feel like I've sat around enough boardrooms tables, commissioned enough research studies, watched enough focus groups, segmented enough audiences, analysed enough results, written enough growth strategies, and judged enough marketing awards to recognise some patterns.
So I know something no business leader wants you to know: they like it when you feel bad about yourself.
Not too bad. That would probably stop you buying their things.
Just the right amount of inadequate and insecure.
But…no business leader I’ve ever worked with is a horrible person, or even a fun-sponge who enjoys sowing misery. Far from it. They live in (under?) the same capitalist system we all do. It isn’t all as venal as it sounds and the really good ones find ways to make life better, not worse, for their customers. Many would, I’m sure, not instantly recognise nor identify with what I’m talking about here. This isn’t something that’s discussed. Ever. But it’s there, hiding in plain sight.
It’s why no brand invests its marketing dollars in telling you you're great, everything is awesome and you're perfect the way you are. Some will make it seem like that's what they're saying. But they're not. Not really.
Because brand-building, like the capitalism it’s part of, thrives on - relies on - our bad feelings…envy, shame, guilt, and the rest. Happy, contented, secure people are actually pretty rubbish customers.
They're not the ones panic-buying into the latest micro-trend, or scrolling instead of sleeping at 11pm, second-guessing and doubting themselves. They’re not as suggestible. Not as open to transforming or evolving themselves…buying themselves into being, as we discussed last week. Or self-actualising, if you like pyramids.
Like the writer, filmmaker, and activist Astra Taylor put it in her 2023 book:
"Capitalism not only exploits insecurities…it generates them for profit."
And in this economic moment, it's getting worse.
As well-trodden paths to growth soften…saturated sectors, cost of living crises, inflation, diminished consumer confidence and spending power, economic slowdowns, tightening access to capital, underconsumption-core, the sharing economy, tariff chaos, and so on…brands have to work harder to stoke desire for what they sell.
How do they do that?
They manufacture desire by manufacturing anxiety.
Look at the fashion system's accelerated trend cycle. What used to be predictable, set seasons has become endless drops and overlapping micro-trends. The moment you feel settled in your style, confident in your choices, something new arrives to make those choices feel outdated, irrelevant, embarrassing, tragic.
SHEIN is famously now releasing up to 10,000 new items a day. That's not about satisfying consumer demand for 'inspiration'. It's about deliberately creating dissatisfaction and obsolescence.
Or like
said in her still-blistering 2021 Substack essay Beauty Culture Is a Public Health Issue:“Beauty culture positions normal features as “flaws” to be “fixed”. It systematically breaks down self-esteem and installs shame, so that it can then sell “confidence” back to you.”
The more inadequate we feel, the more valuable we are.
So we must be held in a state of forever self-doubting, forever lacking, forever running to keep up.
This all might be obvious to you, or maybe it’s an infuriating realisation. One thing we can be sure of is that it’s been going on since the dawn of consumer culture as we know it.
From those 1960s Betty-Draper-alike suburban housewives (who had it all, but felt nothing) we talked about a year ago in The Problem That (Still) Has No Name…
…to the twelve women wearing the very same ‘fit that morning in London, who sparked my meh-ification theory that’s been written and spoken about so much since (like this and this in
’s )...…to everything that’s been discovered and discussed over the years by the academic community: there’s extensive research on compensatory consumption - our tendency to buy things whenever our sense of self feels destabilised, confused or threatened.
For example Boston University’s Dr. Nailya Ordabayeva wrote in 2015 about people engaging in status consumption when they felt inferior or uncertain about their social standing.
And consumer psychologist Dr. Kit Yarrow’s work sheds light on the logic behind the phrase retail therapy. Her studies found that the act of shopping often serves not just practical needs, but also emotional regulation…by activating the brain's reward centres and temporarily soothing psychological discomfort.
The system doesn't just sell stuff. It sells relief.
Maybe sitting behind it all is what Byung-Chul Han talks about in The Burnout Society: over time we've moved from a disciplinary society that told us what we couldn't do, to an achievement society that tells us everything we can do and be.
But at this point it feels like no matter what we do/buy/wear/have, we're unlikely to ever truly feel like we’re ‘enough’.
Which ofc is on purpose. Because the worse we feel about ourselves, the more we want to spend on ourselves.
This is consumer culture’s dirty secret: nobody really wants to solve your problems, they want to perpetuate them.
Welcome to the insecurity machine, where we manufacture inadequacy.
It's working perfectly. Just not for you.
Thanks for reading/see you next time.
Beth
In other news, a little thank you.
I got a message this week saying Pat Rec is number 29 in Substack’s Fashion & Beauty global leaderboard. I don’t truly know exactly what it means, but I know it’s a big deal given that this side of Substack has become so incredibly popular and thriving.
This list is full of well-respected industry experts and creatives who share actual fashion/beauty recs, news, ideas and links (…which I know are prob very much more interesting and easy to engage with than what I write about) so I’m officially saying thank you for making my strain of cultural analysis-y writing so popular. It gives me hope in these weird weird times of ours. x
Just a note to say how much I appreciate your writing and reasoning — and the way you challenge our pervasive cultural narratives, norms, and expectations - as well as my own!. Your reflections are incredibly valuable: you don’t offer short-term “fixes,” but instead ask penetrating questions that require reflection. In an age where independent thinking is often reduced to vague notions of self-reflection and awareness, I truly appreciate the depth and clarity your work brings.
This is my first time reading one of your posts and certainly will not be my last. I source content for a public health podcast for work and ggthe beauty consumption is a public health issue really activated my brain cells. You deserve to be on that list. This is GREAT!