Table Of Contents
Recently, underconsumption has emerged as a trend on social media. Underconsumption is particularly popular on TikTok and emphasizes using items to their full extent before replacing them, avoiding unnecessary purchases, or maintaining thrifted clothing or household items. This social media trend challenges the dominant consumer culture, critiquing its environmental consequences and encouraging individuals to rethink their consumption choices (Chen & Liu, 2023). Unlike traditional influencer marketing that encourages consumerism, the underconsumption trend seeks to inspire reduced consumption and support for eco-friendly products (Fares & Lee, 2024). The search term ‘underconsumption core’ results in over 50 million videos on TikTok (TikTok, 2024) and famous TikTok accounts that regularly publish underconsumption content attract several thousand followers (e.g., @goingzerowaste 319,000; @sabrinapare 260,000 followers). One of the most popular underconsumption videos on TikTok was published in July 2024 and has over 8 million views and 876,000 likes (@itshardouthereman).
So far, research has paid little attention to the effectiveness of underconsumption content on social media and it is unclear how underconsumption videos and posts affect consumers’ attitudes toward sustainable consumption behaviors. Based on the concept of social proof (Cialdini, 1984) and social cognitive theory (Bandura, 1986), we argue that there might be opposing effects. On the one hand, underconsumption content might lead to reduced consumption and/or shift consumption to more sustainable options, e.g., via increased environmental consciousness or consumers’ need to be less wasteful. On the other hand, there can also be an increase in consumption. For example, watching underconsumption content might reduce consumers’ ecological or climate change anxiety (Acquadro Maran & Begotti, 2021) as they may perceive that somebody else, i.e., the influencer, engages in solving grand challenges, such as environmental decline and climate change. Consequently, there would be no need to adapt own behavior, and we might expect unchanged customer purchase behavior or even an increase in consumption. Our research aims to uncover how social media users engage with, internalize, or resist the messages of sustainable lifestyles and reduced consumption.
Therefore, the study is guided by the following research question: How does underconsumption content on social media affect consumers’ attitudes toward sustainable consumption behaviors? We will use a multi-method design to shed light on the consequences of underconsumption content. With a qualitative study, we will gain in-depth insights into participants’ consumption habits, their use of social media, and their reactions to social media content focusing on underconsumption. Understanding how consumers navigate this contradiction—engaging with sustainability content on platforms mainly used for product and sales promotion—will provide valuable insights into the challenges and opportunities for promoting underconsumption in digital spaces and the underlying psychological mechanisms. In an additional experimental study, we will manipulate the content of a social media posting (underconsumption content vs. regular/consumerist content). By comparing the groups, this study seeks to understand whether underconsumption content effectively reduces consumerism and encourages more sustainable consumption choices. This study will have important implications for both academic research and practical applications. From an academic perspective, it will contribute to the literature on consumer behavior, social media, and sustainability by exploring the intersection of these fields. It will also provide a basis for future research on the influence of social media in promoting pro-environmental behaviors among consumers. Furthermore, our results will have important implications for practitioners. In an era of increasing environmental awareness and digital connectivity, the rise of underconsumption as a social media trend represents a significant shift in how consumption is framed and understood. By examining the interplay between influencers, sustainability, and consumption behaviors, the study will offer valuable insights into the potential for social media to drive meaningful change towards more sustainable lifestyles.
Supplementary Materials
Supplementary material for this article is available online via https://doi.org/10.51300/BRP-2026-7.
Funding Statement
No funding was received for this work.
Conflict of Interest
The author declares that there is no conflict of interest regarding the publication of this paper.
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About contributors
Lisa Hanf
Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
Germany
Sabrina Helm
2Norton School of Human Ecology, University of Arizona,Tucson, Arizona, United States
United States
Ina Garnefeld
Schumpeter School of Business and Economics, University of Wuppertal, Wuppertal, Germany
Germany
