I read somewhere. I'm about to make up a fact that I read somewhere. I think I'm about to say something with authority. I think like more than any other generation, like, and I don't know if this has changed since COVID, but like a millennial's young genxers and older genziers are motivated more than anything by convenience. Yes, there's a lot going on in our lives. And I think we don't have a lot going for us. So we don't have a lot going for us. It's really nice.
And we've often convinced ourselves that purchasing something is the best way to fix a problem. Like if we can just optimize part of our process, if I can just have that little shelf between my washer, dryer and my cabinet, like my life is going to be better. And you know what? I don't think that that is untrue. I'll tell you that. I don't think that I think your life is going to be better.
Yeah, your whole life, the part of your life where you're searching for laundry pods and like a lint catcher. Yeah, it's going to be a lot of that part of your life is going to be a lot better. This is the Culture Study Podcast and I'm Anne Helen Peterson. And I'm Caroline Moss. I am the host and founder of G.D.X. Just Baudet, which is a online community based on product recommendations.
It's amazing. It's like my favorite thing. Like you are always so strongly featured in my Instagram stories. And like, like it's just a delight. I love it very much. And I'll also say that it's like a way of thinking about buying things that is like thoughtful. You know, it's not just like, here's a sale, here's a sale, here's a sale.
And we'll talk more about this later. But like it is very much about getting you the right thing instead of getting you the cheap thing. Is that a good way to describe it? I think so, yeah. And you are just a really good shopper and good recommender. Like it's just your perfect person to lead this this community. I'm so happy that particular talent of mine is finally paying off.
Don't you feel like that's something that we used to say about like our mom's generation? Like there was always like a friend in the mom group that was like the good shopper? Yeah, for sure. Was it your mom? No, no, no, no. My mom either. She doesn't like shopping. She knows my wife is not like shopping. She's not like shopping. Maybe it's a generation maybe I just like, I love shopping.
I loved the mall more than anything. I still love a mall experience. Like when I go down to Seattle, one of the most relaxing things that my friends and I do is go to like the outdoor kind of bougie mall. This is called the U Village. And there's like overpriced wine that you can have while you're sitting outside and then stroll from like anthropology to like the overpriced kids store, you know what I mean?
It is it's like an American pastime that's gone by the wayside. And so like whenever we get a chance to pick it back up, there's an element of nostalgia I think for our generation. Like you know, that was the first place we got some true autonomy was the mall. But again, I don't really go back often. But when I do, I'm always like should do this more. This is fun.
Well, and now you live in New York and there's not really much mall experience. It's a whole the whole place is a mall. I mean, it's a that's true. When I go to New York, one of my favorite things now is to like go down to Soho and just like walk into shops and touch things. Like I remember when I was there a couple of months ago, I was like I have several hours.
I'm going to go to museum and then I'm going to take the train down to Soho and I'm going to touch some things that I've had in my online cart. Yes, it was amazing. How was the experience? Yeah, it was great. It was great and like solidified, you know, I talked to a salesperson. I was like, how waterproof is this? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. Okay, so tell us all about she thinks just bought it. Yeah, so she thinks just bought it started as actually as a podcast.
Yeah, almost five years ago in the fall of 2019. I just wanted to talk to people about what they were buying. Like tell me the last thing you bought. I'm just a nosy person. I want to know like what people are shopping for. I don't know how much they paid. I want to know what motivated the purchase and what ended up being so fun about it was it kind of became this place where people brought some of like their most unsexy purchases that they were really excited about.
So I remember like someone brought like a drain plug. Like finally I found a drain plug that like fits my specific bathtub. So that when I take a bath and it hits that emergency like oh no, overfill level. It will let it go up like two more inches before it drains. And she was like so excited and we sold so many drain plugs from that. It was like the infomercial for drain plugs.
But it actually spawned into this online community on Facebook and on Instagram. And in a newsletter that grew because I think while wire cutters of the world and consumer reports of the world are really great. Most people aren't really looking for the best of something. They're looking for something that works for them.
And what does it matter if something is the best if it's not the best for you. And so I've taken sort of the ethos of like the researching and the shopping and like where do you get the best deal and who's selling it. And what do the reviews say and brought it to sort of like a forum where if you're buying a stroller and you live in a city and you don't have a car.
You can say I'm looking for a stroller. What should I get. Nothing out there is really going to help you. But in G-Tanks you go and you say like I'm looking for a stroller. What should I get. And what you'll get. Back is community members saying like okay like I'm also a city mom. So what's really important to me is that these wheels can take mileage right.
And whereas like some other parent who's like I'm never really walking with the stroller but I'm constantly folding it up and throwing it in the back of my car. Can I do that without my partner. Can I do it while the baby's like on my hip. And someone will come in and be like okay so that first stroller for the city like won't work for that. But this is the stroller you want for that. And it kind of makes the purchase process a little bit more community oriented.
And you feel a little more confident that what you're going to get is actually going to meet your needs and not necessarily like fulfill check boxes of a bracket of some editor in New York's you know. Stand stand or nothing against the wirecutter at all. But you know what I mean it's just it's like what do I care if someone over here that I don't know says this is the best. I have no idea if this is going to actually work for me. And so I've tried to make that the experience of G-Tanks.
And you know people love love giving recommendations. I find like I see this all the time in the threads that I do for culture study. Like if you ask for recommendations or make a space where people can ask for recommendations or advice. And I think like you know what I always say as a guideline for that. And I know is a guideline for your space too is like your mileage may vary.
Everyone's giving the advice based on what they have experienced and like with an acknowledgement that that's not necessarily going to be universal. And so it's not like the voice of God saying this is the best pair of glasses. This is the best pair of underwear whatever it is. There might be a component and maybe some listeners are thinking this right now that you're like.
Oh the only way that we bond with each other is by like talking about what we're going to buy. But oh my gosh think about like how much time do you think our grandparents spent like I'm thinking to my my grandma and her three sisters like. Just like talking about what they were going to buy. It's just that they were doing it as sisters maybe on the phone maybe drinking wheat coffee.
Right. Yeah. Yeah. We're just like. I don't know. I'm making I kind of buy these chips like and all of a sudden right right. They're like oh there's a sale like oh my gosh my grandmother. Oh my god. I'm not a sales. Natoriously when we say it skips a generation like I am my grandmother's granddaughter like my grandmother when she lived alone after my grandfather died like.
If she saw a 10 for 10 box of pasta deal at shop right she was getting it she is one person. She's not going to let 10 for 10. You know what I mean like she's not going to let me pass them. The other thing to add that G real G. think is really taught me is like. If people are out there being a go we only bond over what we buy it's actually more than that it's like consumerism and spending money touches every part of our lives in so many different.
Areas and what I see in the G. thinks Facebook group so much is like there's actually a real tender kind of like human connection like yes it comes down to. I'm looking for something for like x y and z but it's also there's so much like humanity at the core of it which it sounds like kind of funny because it it is you know.
Click capitalism but when we live in capitalism we all have to buy stuff I mean that's like the undeniable truth of the world that we live in is like we have to purchase things that is the system that we have. And I think when you can bring a little bit of power back to the consumer and feel like you're not just blindly.
Like oh that Instagrammer said this is the best so I got like that person said it's the best like you actually and like I don't know like all the Amazon reviews say like x y and z but I don't know who those people are you know what I mean like you want to go to a place where.
I don't know there's so many people who are like I have an elderly parent and like we're trying to make sure that they don't fall like does anyone have experience with setting up a house to meet those needs and there is always going to be someone and who's going to be like I was there two years ago this is what I bought that really helped you wouldn't think to buy it like that's the kind of stuff I think that you really can't get from just searching like best etc like that those sort of human.
Driven experiential anecdotes behind why we buy the things that we buy are the things that make us more informed and then ultimately I think more a little bit more in control of like the stuff we bring into our homes the stuff we bring into our lives in what we spend our hard earned money on.
I also say that I don't think that this group is against reusing or repurposing and no way it's like no don't buy something new go look on Facebook marketplace and see if someone is reselling this like that is it you know like that's that's absolutely part of the.
And I think that you know this the questions that we received today and what we're going to talk about in this episode are in many ways a reaction to the very cold experience of online shopping that feels very like disembodied like you don't know who to trust like you don't have any of the experience of actually going into a space where there's someone knowledgeable to talk to you about the items and then you also and this is like a symptom of our difficulty forming community.
Like you don't have that many people in your real life you know like in my group chat of my friends someone will ask for a recommendation of something and like people of busy lives and sometimes no one answers but if you go to the G thing space what group someone is always wasting time and ready to answer your question me me first and foremost for sure.
Oh but yeah I mean like absolutely absolutely yeah I look forward to these questions because I really do think what I was missing in online shopping was community and so I built it you know yeah like but but I think that you're right there is like a really cold isolating experience that takes you out of your immediate world that you live in this is the trade off of convenience.
Hey everyone it's Ann while we're on the subject of online shopping I'm coming to you to ask you to consider pitching in five bucks a month to keep the show going yes you get perks like the full version of every episode including previous shows we pay walled on Taylor and Travis Beyonce Akatar but you also get the smug satisfaction of knowing your supporting an independent podcast making its way in the world and that makes five dollars a real bargain if you can pitch in and help us to keep going.
I'm going to go to the bottom of the screen and help us to keep going had to culture study pod dot sub stack dot com. Okay thanks back to the show. Alright so these first two questions are about sorting through like all of the shit that we see online so first question is from Sarah. How does that's how legit some online retailers are I get so many ads for a tire that I think I'd like but can't see in person from sellers I've never heard of.
So this I think of this is Instagram targeting selling and it's almost always like drop shipping from pop up companies low quality like it looks really nice when you when you see it in the ad and then it comes and you're like oh my gosh yeah you're like oh my God again I did this really cute ring I literally bought a ring and I was like this is plastic I bought a plastic ring so shoot when I used to be on Twitter sometimes I would say like is this a legit company and yeah it's funny
and hindsight like some companies that are very much legit that I was like like I didn't do this for ever lane but we're talking about like companies that are on like the level of something like ever lane that I'm yeah totally totally there are so many companies you don't know there are so many companies.
I don't blame you I someone did that in the Jthings group that they're like is do we think Bowden is legit we're like Bowden is legit but if you don't know you know how would you know yes so how do you ascertain if a company is legit or is like the quality is going to match what you see in the pictures yeah right I think I think first you know decide what legit means to you is it like am I even going to get these clothes is it like I think like first of all
there are like very actual pragmatic ways to figure this out like trust pilot is a good place to go to like literally just see if this company is real plug it in trust pilot dot com and they'll tell you say even literally type in this is the internet you guys read it exists I don't use it because I think it's scary but like you can literally type in like you know clothing company scam and you will get what you need from Google
remember that you are not living in a vacuum so if you are getting some targeted ad it's getting targeted to a lot of people and someone is already kind of figure this out you can reverse Google image search on whatever image they're showing you but I also think that people sometimes need to step back and I think it's very hard we live in the world of Amazon we live in the world
like a set of convenience and mass produced everything means that the prices don't have to be high but like team move for example you're always going to get like an ad for team where it's like a piece of furniture for $4 and someone will be like oh is this legit and it's like let's just like these are thinking caps for a second if something seems too good to be true it probably is
and I think remember that like it's very easy to make a website it's very easy to steal pictures from places so that's where I would start and a reverse Google image search is your friend I think you would be surprised to where you find some of the pictures that are being used as like proprietary
it's a complicated thing to talk about people's relationship with online shopping right like I think there are people who are very much like I am not going to do any online shopping I'm not going to buy it from any mass producers I'm not going to have any shipping
and how do we hold like that thinking in concert with the fact that online shopping has made so many things available for people who can't get out of their homes for various reasons who can't travel who are in more rural areas like like I am trying to untangle my thoughts about it all the time like I am constantly at once nostalgic for a time when the only clothes that you could get as a teenager were the ones at the mall and it was all the same like Massimo shirt and Calvin Klein sweatshirt
and also I'm like oh that like so severely limited the ways that I could express myself and how it was like okay to be a person in the world right so this is not an episode about the ethics of online shopping this is about how we online shop and so like I'm sure you get this a lot though right like people who are asking you like you're talking about shopping you shouldn't be buying cheap things like this is not sustainable you know
you know I think we all I think yeah it comes up from time to time I think people try to be as thought I think we all try to be as thoughtful as possible I think we also all try to be realistic I love thrifting you know yeah I also love buying stuff it's just who I am
I think it's one of those things to where there are systems in place that end up making the individual feel a lot of the weight of bigger choices I think yeah we can all do our part I think there's always that conversation of like oh I would never buy for a Amazon like that's great that is great
like I have a hard and fast rule I don't buy books or Amazon yeah like never and I think it's a keyboard warrior world where it's like you know people want to be like well I actually don't do this like great okay and I actually don't do this so like okay here we are both of us not actually doing things so now what you know what I mean so yeah I think it comes up a lot but I think also like to ignore the fact that it exists that it's a real that it's it's a billion billion billion dollar industry every
year it is the way we live now is you know I think to ignore that is silly because it's it is what it is and a lot of things have been put into place over the years to create this world in which we are constantly like online shopping online being sold things buying things trying to fix our lives with things but you are totally correct that like the way that we are forced to think about our options in terms of enacting change or like if we could just
change our personal behaviors and shame others into changing their personal behaviors instead of pushing our legislators to make massive systemic changes that will change the entire shape of the economy and how our world works and that doesn't mean that I think like no ethical consumption under capitalism I just mean it's a less productive solution for us to think about how we as individuals can make each other feel bad yeah I agree
okay so next question kind of gets into some of this stuff this one comes from Alexa the process of researching the perfect item by reading online reviews is a method I use to soothe my anxiety especially reviews with pictures thank you to the people who post reviews with pictures this applies to anything the perfect comfy no VPL panties the best no leak water bottle the ultimate tubing mascara somehow a purchase being so thoroughly researched via these reviews makes it seem like a lot of people are going to be in a lot of trouble
simplified version of the content is so advanced and emerged via these reviews makes it seem less impulsive and something more you genuinely need in your life that will be an investment piece in the years to come my question is how much of online shopping culture is just soothing anxiety and why don't more people talk about the shame that this comes with spending more than we can afford on things that we don't need.
often go straight to landfill because it's more economical to do this than to resell them. I'm completely horrified by this. Please talk about it. I think people need to know. Okay, so let's talk about the anxiety part first. Do you relate to this at all? So, yeah, so a few words here peak my tingle-y spidey senses are. The words being perfect, best, ultimate, which is kind of what I try to get away from in my shopping. I think that like anxiety,
first of all, I think anxiety is like deeply individual, right? So if you're somebody who likes control and is trying to, and I say this as someone who loves control, is trying to sort of like, if I have this, then like things will go right. And if I do this, then things will go right. If that to you comes out in shopping, then yeah, that makes sense. I think people do use online shopping as a way of feeling like they have some sort of say in one aspect of their lives, especially people are
age, right? Like we're like a weird generation and like a weird time. We don't really have a blueprint. We are not doing the things that our parents did. We don't live the way that our parents lived. And I think that it can be a little stressful to look ahead and really not know what this world is going to look like in 10, 20, 30 years, but like, hey, look at this ad for this water bottle. I'd be very hydrated if I had this water bottle. And what I see from G-things,
and what I see from my, I think people are very aware of over consumption. I think people are very aware of how much stuff every year that they give away or find and go like, I bought this,
like, what is this? How many clothes in their closet they don't wear? And I think finding that balance of like, well, I still do need that, you know, I do need X. Like, I do have to buy X. Like, the idea of if you research it, if you do everything right, if you spend a ton of time, just like pouring yourself into like figuring out like which item you need to get, then you don't feel that shame of that like impulse purchase. I think that that's a very real thing.
And I think the reason people don't want to talk about the shame that comes with that is because it comes back to money and people don't like talking about money and people don't want to talk about it. There's a lot of shame with finances. There's a lot of shame with having and not having. And Instagram is like a 24 or 7 television channel of watching what people have. And there's not a ton of transparency either around how people have what they have, where they get
it from. You know, like, when people are like, oh, my parents bought me this house, I like them more for it. You know what I mean? I'm like, thank you because at least I'm not sitting here being like, wait a minute, I have a job. How do you get that down? How do you get that house? You're like, well, have jobs. Why don't I have a house? You know, um, planning everyone in an attempt also to win people's attention online. It's like a race to be
the most relatable. And a lot of relatability comes down to like, you know, does your life look like mine? Does your like, look like something I aspire to? All of these things cost money. And if you don't know where the money is coming from, it's coming from somewhere, whether that's like someone's maxed out credit card, whether it's someone's parents that you don't know about, it says a lot of who we are as people, you know, it's like a really intimate form of like showing yourself.
Like, I wouldn't want someone going through my credit card statement. And being like, oh really? Wow, okay. I'm like, oh my, like that would be like my worst nightmare. I mean, like Charlie shames me about this all the time in like a very funny way. He's like, yours would just be so much compost. But see, like if you can tell a lot about a person by their credit card statement, compost doesn't show up on mine. Okay. So just so you know, like mine would be like a lot of target. I
don't be like a lot of target. Um, I think if you feel like online shopping is soothing your anxiety, I think that's actually a very real thing that you can, you can train yourself out of. I talked to a therapist on like, you can seek help for that. That's not stupid or like frivolous. Like that's actually, if you are like identifying that like, oh, when I'm feeling anxious or out of control, like I spend a lot of money online or like their boxes are shipped to my house and I
don't remember what I bought. Like that's actually a real thing. There is someone who you can talk to about that for sure. Right. And identifying it, I think is oftentimes the first step to being able to grapple with it. So strategies that I've seen people do very effectively is like, I can put as many things into my cart as I want, right? And then, but I'm not allowed to buy them in time. But I can't check out anymore. Yeah. And yeah, like however many days, because that works for
me all the time. I'm like, oh, yeah. Like what was I thinking? I don't want that. I love doing much. I love doing the like, if I'm still thinking about it in two weeks, I'll let myself get it. Or right. You know, my friend Nora does a thing every once in a while where she just keeps a running no tap of every single thing she wants. Like every fleeting thought, because it is
really easy. And I'll give you a really funny example of this. Is that like when I moved into my own place last year, after I separated from my ex husband, I was like throwing myself into like all these hobbies. And like, I, there was a commercial on television that was just like a guy, I don't know what I was saying, either commercial or like one of those dance competitions shows were, but a guy was tap dancing. And I was like, I know how to tap dance. Because I tap dance
as a kid. And then I like went on Amazon. And in three seconds flat, bought tap shoes. Like what? Like just was like, this is what I'm going to do this. Like this is going to be a hobby for me. I'm going to like throw myself into the world of tap. I'm going to take tap classes. I'm going to like, I should have just written it down. I'm been like, circle back on this, Caroline. But instead, I went on Amazon. I was like, Kapizio tap shoes, you know, size 10. Kapizio. Yeah. I literally bought
like $70 tap shoes. And then they arrived. And I had forgotten. I bought them. And I was like, okay, this is a lesson for me. Like keep a note, like a note tap would have been perfect for this. Like tap shoes. Because in two in two weeks, in two hours, I would have gone back to that. And then like, no, no, no, no, no. But I think there, you have to set up boundaries also between you and it's friction. It's just friction. Absolutely. Take your, you are putting your credit card
in your phone. You know, if that's the thing for you. But like, there was no way there is, I realized after that moment, no matter what line of work I'm in, even if it is this line of work, like there should not be a way for me to pull out the computer that I keep in my pocket. And in 4.2 seconds, have a pair of tap shoes on their way to my house. I realized in that moment, I need to set up friction. I need to set up some boundaries. I need to set up some like checkpoints.
We all do it, you know. And I think that either there's not, not a lot of people who want to talk about it because we all do it. And it's actually so normalized. It's probably that mixed in with a little bit of like, this is embarrassing shit. Really is. Two things I'll say is that I think that some of the search for the perfect thing is bound up in like, millennial perfectionism. That's not unique to millennials, but I know it as like a particularly, like if I just work harder,
then I will do the thing that will fix my life. And that includes reading enough reviews, right? So if you just do the research, then things will work out. And the, the right thing will fix the, the whole in your life. Yes, yes. Not true. And that the other thing that has really helped me, and this was true during the pandemic, and this is true living on an island, is being faced-to-face with the reality of what my purchases like require of people.
We have a month every year where the ferry goes out of service. And so all of the mail, all of the packages have to be hauled onto the passenger ferry. Wow. In like a wagon. And so whatever you buy, the postperson is dragging it over in a wagon. We're not talking about like in a giant truck, like Amazon going around, like it is going around
in a wagon. I think that that has helped me just to be a little bit more mindful. And this also brings us to this last kind of add-on to the question, which is that once you have the knowledge in your head, and Amanda Moll wrote about this very vividly last year, about what actually happens to your returns, which is that most of them are junked, then it has personally made me so much more conscious about like, oh, I'm just going to order the entire catalog and try them all on at home
as my like personal styling area. Right. You know what I mean? Like I just, I can't do that anymore. So I spend a lot more time trying to get to the right size, or the right thing. And sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't, but it just has made me more mindful because I can't unknow that knowledge. Yeah. And I want to also add on to that, that again going back to like system of change
versus shaming individuals. There are two people I follow on Instagram, dumpster dive king and the trash walker who are often bringing awareness to sort of corporate policies that allow stores to throw out either their returns or, and these are like IRL, you know, Birken mortar stores, that either are they're allowed to throw out their returns or they junk like old seasonal stuff and they cut up the clothing so no one can wear it. They slash the soul of the shoes to know
can wear them. And there are a lot of laws trying to get passed about sort of, because all those companies can write the lost profit as write-offs, right? So it's a money maker for big corporations. But there are laws that are trying to get people trying to pass laws that sort of put a stop on companies being able to, you know, basically burn the return and call it a loss so that they can
make up for the money on their taxes. So if that's something that really concerns you, there actually are like things in place that you can be vocal about so that hopefully there's change to that in the future. And I'll also say that you can shop companies that are very good about their resale market, like have a secondary market and also their remainders and their returns. Okay, we're going to do this one really quickly because it's something that I think about constantly.
Great. This is about the adrived side effect of online shopping. This is from Hannah. Has email marketing gotten out of control or is it the natural progression of consumerism and consumption? I'm not just thinking about the rush of holiday shopping, but also why I regularly get multiple emails per day for brands like Ulta and Madewell manufacturing urgency. In my experience, these also seem to be coming from brands with a primarily female demographic.
Okay, I don't think this is gendered. No, I get so many emails from West Elm and the difficulty is that like I need my shipping notification so I can't just unsubscribe utterly. But like if someone, if an alien was looking at my inbox, they would think my best friend was West Elm, right? Like that's who I get the most correspondence from. And part of it is because they're part of a larger brand conglomerate. So it's not just from West Elm, it's West Elm kids, it's pottery barn, it's
all of these pottery barn teen. I get so many pottery barn teen. And I think that the reason they send them is because they work. They work at a low percentage, but they work in some capacity. And so the only thing you can do is figure out how to unsubscribe. Yeah, I would say you should replace email. You should use the shop app. Not a put not a pull. I'm not getting sponsored, but they actually, they have access to like everything that you bought.
All those tracking shows up in the shop app. You don't have to get emails. So like you can see when your things are coming, but that's how you can unsubscribe. My issue is the text messages I get from companies. I love that I can just say stop though. That's nice. I know what I never do. I just like let them sit there. And I'm like, oh, I'm bad. It's like I've turned my text. My text in box has turned into my email inbox, just like things I don't reply to and things I don't read.
No, save and my friends look at me and horror. They're like, how do you have a hundred and fifty five unread text messages? And I'm like, well, brands. Okay, so this is my thought on this. In this day and age, I have two like strongly held beliefs about shopping, which is one you should never be paying full price for much. Very little because you don't have to. There's always a deal. Two, everything is readily available. So all of the urgency is manufactured. In less,
you are looking to buy something very specific and you are waiting for the price to drop. I think what people forget is that like just because you have not saved any money if you are spending money on something you don't need, even if it is on sale. You haven't saved anything. And I think that people have a hard time, myself included, but it is a very good practice. And in doing this as a job for five years, I have now actually been able to put a product. I am allowed to skip sales.
I am allowed to not buy things. There are going to be times where it's like, and I had this experience a couple of weeks ago, hey, we are doing the frame TV is on sale. It's $500 off every single size for like two weeks only or whatever. I had to buy a new TV for my apartment. I wanted the frame. I needed to get the frame. I would have been pissed if I missed that sale. It lined up perfectly
with the purchase that I needed to make at the price that I wanted to pay. There is also a part of me that if I didn't need a TV, would have seen that and been like, well, $500 off, like I should get it. So I think that there is urgency that's manufactured. But if you can kind of line up finding the good deal with the thing that you actually need to buy, you will financially make a lot of very good decisions. I think it is the culture of thinking like, oh my god, it's 25%
off till then. I don't need anything, but it's 25% off. Well, guess what? In two months, they'll do it again. And so, you know what I mean? You'll be fine and you'll get what you need then. The urgency is always going to be pushed in your face. You know what you need and when you need it. Melody, you said you have a tip for this? Yeah. Caroline, do you use the honey app? Or not app? Do you use honey, period? I use honey. I use Rakuten. I have them all in place.
But yes. I can't. I'm just like, listen, I use honey for those purchases that like I want eventually because you can set a price drop alert for like notify me when it's 10% off or more. Yes. So like there was this chandelier from Creighton Barrel that I really wanted. And it was never ever ever on sale. It was on my drop list for like three years and then it
finally went on sale. That's a matter. Is there no better feeling? But guess what? There's going to be so many people like bought that chandelier just because it was on sale in that moment and they got like one email about it. You know what I mean? And they're in lies the difference. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, I love that for you. I will also say that any sort of marketing that's like these shoes that always sell out are are back. And like I hate that because if your shoes are
always selling out, that's a supply chain failure. And you're just advertising your supply chain failure. Exactly. If you know, they always sell out. Why are you not stopped? The other marketing tactic I hate is the viral tick talk. We have now harkened back to a place of 2012 where we're like, this is breaking the internet. Nothing has broken the internet. The internet is fine. But yeah, oh God, these shoes that are always selling out. It's like, well,
then maybe you should make more because you know that everyone's buying them. So what's up? What's going on with you guys? And it's also probably manufactured scarcity. They're like, they sold out the ones in this room sold out. Absolutely. Okay, last question. This one's from Megan. It seems like no one but trolls and the truly aggrieved are willing to leave bad reviews. Particularly in spaces where the maker author, whoever are able to see and potentially engage
with the review. While I completely understand and agree with the impulse to spare them a barrage of negative feedback, especially if the product was ultimately just not for you, it also seems to increasingly be leaving a vacuum of constructive feedback that actually helps the right audience find the product or helps the maker improve future iterations. Is this just how it is now? What is the benefit of a system or a society that only functionally allows people to leave five
star or one star reviews? Wow, this is like a philosophical question. I was going to say this is like so deep. This is pass or fail. Like this is there's no gradations. But I think I don't know. First of all, I don't love the stars as like a means of reviewing something just generally because I think they're imprecise out rather. But I understand that like that's how you can aggregate
an overall feeling about something. What's your take? Because the places that I really rely on for clothing and for other items like they do actually have a lot of engaged reviewers. Yeah, I mean I think it really depends. I think on the biggest platforms on the Amazon's of the world and it is sort of like a web MD self-fulfilling prophecy situation. You're always going to find a review that like exactly says what you like if you want a product
you're going to only look at the five star reviews. You know what I mean? Like if you want to if you went to a restaurant and you hate it you want to you're going to look at the one star reviews and be like I those are my people. You know what I mean? Like also like Amazon a lot of the companies will give out like a 20% off code if you leave or if you you know what I mean? Like there's a lot of there's a lot of like quid pro quo review processes in place. I think we know
I think we have to trust ourselves more. I think we have to take everything with a grain of salt. I think there's something right on the money about this idea of like one star reviews are from just truly aggrieved people. I think it's like when you are mad enough that's one of and or if you feel you have been wronged by a product by a place a restaurant a service. One of the few things that you have in your power is to go try to bring down
the business with your review. That's why when restaurants come under fire for you know uh viral news stories that happen like having a garage of like Republican politician who went to that restaurant. Yeah exactly and then you got all these people who have never been to the restaurant leaving one star reviews and I mean it really I mean unfortunately like it actually is a very powerful tool at your disposal because it really can f with the business.
But yeah I think that like we started out I think when that the the scales hit their tipping point reviews were like so helpful like amazing like wow great but ultimately honestly sometimes I think it's just too much information. Is there a better way to do it probably have I thought of it? No have I tried to do it with my own company? Yeah um but but I also am like yeah I think that like you have to really remember what motivates somebody to leave a review and why. So like what kind of
you know what grain of salt am I taking this review that I'm reading with? I also think if you're shopping for something at a site like say Amazon where you're like oh my gosh there's so many
bots there's so many companies how do I ascertain between these two things? Oftentimes not always but oftentimes in those cases it is something that you could go to target or to the hardware store and have someone actually help you and find the thing right yeah and so part of your aggravation is that you want to do something that is optimizing and you are failing to optimize the experience because the reviews are bad and the sorting mechanisms are bad and the label
is bad and Amazon hasn't done anything to control it. So cut bait if you can and I want to very much acknowledge not everyone can always go to the store I grew up in a place without a target it's real like the closest thing that you could do is go to a Walmart and still the in-person
shopping experience at a Walmart is going to be superior to the online experience of shopping at a Walmart and you're just gonna it's gonna be a lot easier like it might seem like it's harder but it's actually easier and I think it's hard that's hard to like get into our heads like even when I lived in Brooklyn there would be things that I wanted to buy online because I didn't want to
schlep to the lows at Guanas and I lived like not far from that lows at Guanas. I lived a block and a half from that lows in Guanas and I did not want to buy things at that lows in Guanas like I mean especially in New York like the denser your city I mean to go to the Costco in Humane. No no I mean it's like a bazillion other problems like I would rather go to a hardware store locally you know family owned hardware store in my neighborhood but how could they like afford the rent
in this place you know so like yeah if I'm if the choices are go to lows.com or go to lows in Guanas and it's gonna take like two hours I'm just gonna go lows.com but then you might get the wrong thing and then you have to go to the post office which is an even more arduous experience in New York and then it's my problem so I think sometimes thinking about why am I shopping this
particular way that feels really bad if it's out of absolute necessity I get it. But if it's not if there are other options that are available to you that maybe the experience of shopping is less
bad and will require fewer returns and less dissatisfaction. Yep and also then just rely on people who have advice about this sort of thing whether it's in a group like yours or a text thread or your parents I mean other people have had the need that you have had in the past so there are people out there even if it's just like asking a question on Instagram with a little like Instagram box you know what I mean yeah people love giving advice exactly someone else has bought this before
someone else you know has bought what you need before. This has been fantastic in the AAA segment asking anything Melody and I are going to answer two more shopping related questions one about shopping for clothes and one about buying a house so if you need that conversation in your life head to culturestudypod.substac.com Caroline where can people find you on the internet if they
want to hear more. You can go on Instagram and follow G-Thinks just bought it POD and then from there there's like a link in that bio that will take you everywhere else you need to be the Facebook group the newsletter old episodes of the podcast including that that drain plug episode somewhere in the beginning but the place to start is Instagram. Is it from you that I found out about the drain plug that like collects all the hair. The shrimp the tub. The shrimp the tub. That was
Bev's favorite puppy toy. We're going to the tub and take out the tub. Yeah I believe it. Life change. Alright thank you so much this has been so great. So fun thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening to the culturestudy podcast. Be sure to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We have so many great episodes in the works and I promise you don't want to miss any of them. If you want to suggest a topic ask a question about the culture that surrounds you
or submit a question for our subscriber only advice time segment. Check the show notes for a link to our substack. If you want to support the show and get bonus content head to culturestudypod.substack.com. It's five bucks a month or fifty dollars a year and you'll get ad free episodes an exclusive advice time segment weekly discussion threads for each episode and a link to a special Google form so that your questions go to the front of the line. The culturestudy podcast is produced by
me and Helen Peterson and Melody Raoul. Our music is by pottington bear. You can find me on Instagram and and Helen Peterson Melody at Melodyus47 and the show at culturestudypod. Thank you so much for your support.