The consumption ritual
Where those hauls end up
“You’re scrolling. Your thumb stops on a woman with forty-two Stanley cups arranged by color on custom shelving like a shrine. A $45 tumbler, designed to be reusable, purchased forty-two times because hydration became an aesthetic. You keep scrolling.
A cooking creator wraps a five-pound block of cheese in bacon, deep-fries it, takes one bite. The rest goes in the trash. Everyone knows. He knows we know. You keep scrolling.
The phone in your hand like a rosary. The altar of the algorithm. An ad every third video like a tithe.
The Labubu dolls. The Temu hauls. The Shein hauls. Twenty-five items of clothing for $57. Clothes so cheap they’re not meant to survive a washing machine.
Your ring camera blinks. A package on the porch. There’s a smudge on the lens, or maybe it’s raining. You don’t remember ordering anything.
Something is wrong. We can feel it.”