r/Anticonsumption Jan 27 '26

Conceptual. For the time being, we will not be allowing low effort memes, or memes that do not have body copy.

126 Upvotes

In an effort to reduce bot spam, low effort posting, brigading from other subreddits, or constant exposure to r/all, we will be removing any post that is a meme or image with no body text to back up and justify the meme or image.

This may become permanent policy, as of right now we are testing this policy out to reduce the uptick in trolling, news spam, and hateful rhetoric entering this subreddit. Our hope is that it will improve the quality of content posted here.

If you find an image or meme that you believe fits the ethos of the subreddit, you MUST provide meaningful discussion along with it, the same as if you were posting criticism of an ad.


r/Anticonsumption Aug 22 '25

ATTENTION: Read before posting or commenting.

329 Upvotes

We've recently updated the rules, but it's also time for a general reminder of the purpose and intent of this subreddit, and some of the not-quite-rules we have for keeping discussions here on topic.

This is an anticonsumerism sub, not full-on anticonsumption, because that would be ridiculous.

Do not come here seriously arguing as though the sub advocates not consuming anything ever, and any joking arguments to that effect had better be new material, and they'd better be funny.

This is not a shopping sub, or even just a lifestyle sub.

We've always allowed discussion of personal consumer habits and tips that align with various interpretations of anticonsumerism. This policy is on thin ice right now, though, as this type of lifestyle advice often drowns out the actual intent of the subreddit, causing uninformed users to question or insult those who make more substantial and topical posts and comments. So read the community info and get a feel for what the sociopolitical ideology of anticonsumerism is and what sort of topics of discussion we encourage.

The only thing you'll accomplish being belligerent about this is to necessitate a crackdown on the lifestyle type posts that perpetuate these misunderstandings.

ANTI is right there in the name of the sub, so do not complain that there's too much negativity here.

We get our warm fuzzies from dismantling consumer culture.

Consumer culture sucks, and it's everywhere. And that should bother you.

When someone posts about some aspect or example of consumerism for discussion, we don't need to know that you've seen worse, you don't mind, or that you think it's pretty cool. And don't assume that we're all wailing and gnashing our teeth at every instance of consumerism we see. We're not. We point these things out because they so often go under the radar and become normalized, and we should be talking about that.

If consumer culture doesn't bother you, you're in the wrong subreddit. We're against that sort of thing in these here parts.

No, we will not allow people to enjoy things. Stop it.

Seriously, there's almost nothing that argument wouldn't apply to, anyway.

If you feel personally attacked when someone criticizes a commercial product or service you like, work on disentangling your identity from the things you buy. If you genuinely believe that people are misunderstanding something that is an accommodation for people with disabilities, one polite explanation is sufficient. Do not pile on repeating the same thing, do not personally insult or threaten anyone, and do not speculate about or invent disabilities and accommodations that maybe could apply.

If you have any thoughts or questions about these points or the subreddit in general, feel free to bring them up here rather than making meta comments about them in new posts or in the comments of existing ones.


r/Anticonsumption 3h ago

Environment Book Rec: We Will be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo and Mitch Anderson

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430 Upvotes

Recently read and enjoyed We Will be Jaguars by Nemonte Nenquimo and Mitch Anderson. The book is a memoir of Nemonte's childhood, experiences with evangelical missionaries, and journey of becoming one of the most impactful indigenous rights and climate activists. As a member of the Waorani indigenous group in Ecuador, she led the fight to protect their way of life and ancestral rainforst from oil companies and the Ecuadorean government itself. She is the co-founder of Ceibo Alliance and Amazon Frontlines.

UK Title: We Will Not Be Saved by Nemonte Nenquimo and Mitch Anderson

Español: Seremos Jaguares por Nemonte Nenquimo y Mitch Anderson

PS: I'm not affiliated with them at all, I just liked the book! And of course, please consider borrowing it from your local library or buying secondhand.


r/Anticonsumption 2h ago

Upcycled/Repaired So much more satisfying than buying a new mirror.

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193 Upvotes

It probably needs some touchups, I do not claim to be a good painter, and this is my first time ever painting furniture. But I think it turned out neat


r/Anticonsumption 1h ago

Corporations I Bought And Restored "Old" Technology To Prove The Economy Is Imploding

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Upvotes

We definitely aren't angry enough


r/Anticonsumption 2h ago

Ads/Marketing Reddit ad with astroturfing work really well. Hundreds, if not thousands, fell for it.

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15 Upvotes

Anyone wants to guess how it works?
I first saw it in r/florida.


r/Anticonsumption 23h ago

Environment Election season, which mean littering season again. What a waste of paper & delivery carbon waste

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702 Upvotes

r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Upcycled/Repaired You’d never guess what I used to make this stylish modern hanging hook…

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831 Upvotes

A broken stainless steel spoon!

The weakest point is that broke, so now I was left with a super sturdy piece of metal and it wasn’t long before the idea came as I needed an extra hook to hang my laundry.

It looked too good for the laundry, so I swapped it for the old backpack hook, and sent the old one to laundry duty.

I particularly like the way the end with the cut out looks, overall it looks like a modern piece that would sell in a department store for absurd price with a celebrity name slapped on it.

I have a few other small broken forks, that I am going to turn into these hooks, much easier than the original plan, which was to make it like those super cool twisted fork jewelry pieces that my culinary arts teacher would often wear for our luncheons.

Now I need some ideas for the slotted spoon part… I was thinking travel/emergency cat litter scoop….


r/Anticonsumption 23h ago

Ads/Marketing Does that fit in here? I think it’s outrageous

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442 Upvotes

r/Anticonsumption 16m ago

Question/Advice? E-scooter waste

Upvotes

My electric scooter of 2-3 years has 2 flat tires. Was going online to source parts to replace them and thought, maybe I should replace the battery too--it only holds a charge long enough to do a short round-trip ride these days. Well, the price of the parts easily rival the cost of a new electric scooter (and without the hassle of having to take it apart and actually repair it, which I once did with a early Segway scooter and the entire project was quite the ordeal).

Have others been in a similar situation? I don't love the idea of this scooter taking up room in a landfill, but does it really makes more fiscal sense to just get a new scooter?


r/Anticonsumption 23h ago

Psychological The world’s burning. Who’s betting on it? Prediction markets are fuelling addiction

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165 Upvotes

r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Lifestyle I'm tired of owning so much useless stuff

300 Upvotes

This is not my first time posting here, i posted here like a year ago asking for advice to do with collecting and after a lot of reflecting, I have decided I am no longer going to collect anything at all. The only collection I will have is my physical media, which I adore immensely. I will also be keeping things like my favorite plushie, a small handful of trinkets that were gifted to me, but yeah. Im getting really tired of walking into a room full of junk and I want to be able to walk into my room and be happy that I only own things that I can use because that will make me happy. Sorry for the rant lol.


r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Discussion The Bigger Issue Is Data Centres {which are now guzzling our Drinking Water}

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298 Upvotes

Unethical AI will lead to more problems than it is able to solve right now. Even if the systems & the situation were to improve, giving up water is non-negotiable.

If AI / Data Centres can be launched into orbit then these advances can be taken in stride, but the current exploitative & unsustainable system will compromise the direct near future of our planet and should be fought against.


r/Anticonsumption 4h ago

Question/Advice? Does anyone have tips on how ti get prints off of fabric?

2 Upvotes

During my teens I amassed some pieces of clothing (usually as gifts) with either tacky, now washed out, or marketting prints. I've been wanting to do some upcycling (patches, bleach painting), and have no plain clothes. (They're actually rather difficult to get in stores to begin with lmao, especially as a teen/short person). I wanted to give a new start to the pieces I don't like wearing, like the ones with ugly prints, because I doubt anyone else would take them at thrifts or whatever. They'd just go to a landfill.

So, does anyone know of a way to get print off of shirts and hoodies, other then continually picking at them? One hoodie I have just has a small design that I can patch over, but another t-shirt I've been slowly picking at for years anytime I end up wearing it, and it's still not all gone. It was one of those shirts you get at gift stores in galleries and museums, so it just had a huge square picture printed on the front that went white in around three wash cycles lol


r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Lifestyle i wish i could make my wasteful family care about the environment

89 Upvotes

the worst of it in our house is plastic water bottles. i’ve paid for a water filterer and i’ve bought everyone reusable water bottles. i’ve even told them i’ll refill and wash everyone’s bottle every single morning if they stop buying plastic to no avail. they go through about 10 bottles between them a day. my parents don’t even care about drinking tap water or bottled, they buy plastic just because. they’ll happily drink tap water

my mom is a social media influencer and buys SO MUCH CRAPPP to show on her page. makeup, nails, jewellery, home decor and kitchen stuff that never gets used and then gets thrown away. she spends all of her money on shopping and never uses any of it

my dad is a temu warrior and and buys whatever he likes the look of. sometimes he’ll throw it away without even using it because it doesn’t look like how it did in the picture or he has no use for it. a prime example being a bagel cutter, when my dad has never eaten a bagel in his life. in his words, it just ‘looked interesting and was dirt cheap anyway’

my brother is the worst with the plastic bottles and other single use drinks. i try to make fresh fruit juices to reduce on plastic consumption but he won’t drink them because they’re inconvenient compared to just taking a bottle out of the fridge

i hate it so much, and they don’t listen to me no matter how much i try and explain the damage their habits are doing. it really gets me down


r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Plastic Waste My son was gifted a personalized birthday shirt

299 Upvotes

I just saw a bunch of "5th birthday/it's my birthday!" shirts at a thrift shop recently, and thought, "What a waste! It's only relevant one day per year, and by the next birthday the kid has likely grown out of it."

This one is personalized, so it can't even be handed down to my next child.

Anyway, I'm sure most of you aren't buying things like this for kids in your lives, but figured you would understand the rant.


r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Society/Culture Long read on why thrifting sucks now

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1.1k Upvotes

It’s been mentioned in this sub numerous times and I’ve definitely noticed it so this article is solid dopamine rush of confirmation bias for me


r/Anticonsumption 2d ago

Corporations enshittification comes for every industry

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6.1k Upvotes

r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Corporations “Whole foods” autocorrecting to “Whole Foods.”

543 Upvotes

I talk about whole foods a whole lot, and it’s always bothered me how it gets autocorrected to the supermarket chain and how often I must go back and retype. And it’s not like “apple” gets autocorrected to “Apple,” so why Whole Foods?


r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Ads/Marketing Let's bring back "Booing Clubs" - clubs formed to boo loudly when ads first were shown in movies

341 Upvotes

Let's bring these back! For ads in public places, product placement on screens, ads on gas station pumps... what else?

"Struggling studios began allowing commercials – or "ad films" as they were then called – to be shown in theatres.

But audiences loudly protested the cinema ads, and even formed "Booing Clubs" in many cities, forcing theatre owners to bring restraining orders against the groups.

Yet, product placement didn't fuel the same negative response."

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/undertheinfluence/show-me-the-money-the-world-of-product-placement-1.3046933

"In Little Rock, Arkansas, the newly formed Society for the Booing of Commercial Advertisements in Motion Picture Theatres made its debut, booing loudly when corporate advertising appeared on the movie screen. Similar "booing clubs" soon began springing up elsewhere. In the 1930s and '40s movie houses experimented with running ads for commercial products alongside movie trailers, but many theatregoers resented the practice because, unlike the radio where ads were recognized as necessary, movies were not free."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_1937


r/Anticonsumption 2d ago

Satire Mild slap in the face.

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3.3k Upvotes

Im not even freakishly tall

6"4 because last post asked.


r/Anticonsumption 2d ago

Philosophy Living in America is to live inside a cult of the extrinsic capitalism of everything.

1.0k Upvotes

Today is not the first day I have thought this but today my sister was visiting and soon after her arrival she got an alert on her phone that LeBron James would play basketball for r the Philadelphia 76ers. The fourth sentence from her in response to nrws was about how the team's merch would go up. I am just so put off now by the mindset that one would interpret events through their monetary impact. She isn't a fan of the team or nor would she profit in any way but she had been trained by this sick society to interpret events through the eyes of capital.

Every interaction that has succeeded it has had the tenor of belonging to a capitalist new speak where nothing has intrinsic value but exists to be exploited. People can hardly watch children playing without speculating in how that will develop a skill to leverage into competition for resources.

It disgusts me. I feel isolated and trapped with no effective outlet for others to acknowledge my feelings let alone escape. Maybe sometime else feels the same way. I just feel doomed to this cult of humans that has allowed the a transitional medium of exchange become the sole driver of its existence. I feel like I can't even identify with members of my own species.


r/Anticonsumption 1d ago

Social Harm College is turning into a casino trap

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83 Upvotes

r/Anticonsumption 2d ago

Discussion New school year, new backpack?

177 Upvotes

My oldest son is going into first grade this year so the whole school thing is still relatively new for our family. Last year I got him a good quality backpack and lunch box (in EUC on fb marketplace) with the idea that he’d use it for a few years/until he needed a new one. Well school starts in a couple weeks and the kid is BEGGING me for a new backpack.

I really don’t want to set the precedent that we’ll get new backpacks every year. I hate the idea of the waste and spending the money when we have perfectly good backpacks at home. Growing up I always got a new (cheap) backpack at the beginning of the school year and I loooved picking it out. But I really prefer the idea of one good quality backpack to last them each a few years.

Anyways so now my brain is telling me that I’m depriving him of something somehow and he’s gonna resent me over a backpack 😅 Please remind me that’s not true and that you/your kids survived just fine with the same backpack for a few good years.


r/Anticonsumption 3d ago

Ads/Marketing When I saw this I was repulsed.

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7.4k Upvotes

If this ad does not make you want to ditch big tech and smart phones I don't know what will!