Pet Peeve: Wasteful YouTube Culture

I would be a hypocrite if I just randomly started bashing YouTube, as I love watching content and also make my own videos weekly. It's a great platform where people can express themselves, share experiences, educate, perform activism and much more. What I don't like about YouTube are the wasteful trends that keep popping up. It's frustrating to see that people produce content that is clearly bad for the environment, and even worse, the viewers seems to love it.

I'm not trying to call anyone out or drag any specific YouTubers, and I do understand that from a business point of view it makes sense for them to make content purely for the views... but it's at the literal cost of our planet. I'm sure you've all seen these types of videos and have an idea of what I'm talking about. Overconsuming products is a huge trend on YouTube (and probably other places) that I see in all kinds of variants. Typical examples are people ordering everything on the menu from a specific restaurant or buying a large number of clothing items from cheap, fast fashion brands.

The scary part of this is when it becomes a trend and people just jump on the bandwagon without thinking about the impact of the items purchased and used only for a single video has on the planet and our limited resources. When people mindlessly buy 15 of the same item from a cheap store that probably uses poorly treated workers to make their products just to test out which one is the best, what do they do with the items after? Or when they buy all the drinks on the menu at specific coffee shops to try them all, they can't possibly finish all of them, nor will they (most likely) recycle all the plastic cups they came in. The same goes for trying all the burgers from a fast food chain or letting the person in front of you at a drive through order you a random meal. Other trends are letting your partner buy your outfits, only wearing clothes from cheap stores for a week or buying everything your dog touches in a pet store.

Not only do a lot of these products get thrown away, they're usually wrapped in a wasteful way and are from unsustainable sources. Although it in a lot of the cases highlights the bad quality of fast fashion and cheap items, it also promotes a bad relationship with consumption. Buying something shouldn't be something you do without thinking about it. Each item you buy in this life has a footprint. This culture is incredibly wasteful, and I don't understand how people seem to think it's okay.

I know experiment videos are very popular at the moment, but it really has gotten out of hand. There are videos of people mixing together every make up or beauty product of a certain kind from one store, melting together every candle from a brand or literally creating something just to destroy it afterwards. There are countless videos of DIY projects with lots of components or silly experiments created just for shock value, that involve buying loads of items that are just gonna be used for this one video. I know that some people base their channels on specific themes, but please try and be less wasteful. If every video you make requires you to go out and buy loads of things, at least try and buy them from sustainable brands or second hand. The amount of plastic and other wrapping that comes with everything people buy for their videos is an issue on its own. This culture is not sustainable.

I absolutely believe that people should be free to do what they want, and pursue activities that bring them joy. This is, however, the time to transition into a more ethical and sustainable lifestyle. The emissions and pollution caused by the production of cheap and fast fashion items, as well as the poor treatment of many of the workers in the industry, are things we should support as little as we can. Please do what you can to make a difference.

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