How social media fuels useless products

Consumerism is getting out of hand. Every day, sophisticated marketing schemes flood our feeds with newly created must-haves. Handheld banana slicers, miniature keyboard vacuums, shower hair catchers. They're cheap, they're novel, they look useful for about five seconds, and then they end up tossed in the trash. A growing slice of social media has turned into a 24-7 shopping channel where cheap products go viral, clutter piles up, and the tactics used to hook us are getting harder to resist. This video is sponsored by Squarespace. I'll share more about why I use them for all my websites later. You know, I don't use social media too much these days, but sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me. And recently, oh boy, did I get a real treat. My algorithm took a hard turn into some of the most absurd, useless, and wasteful products I have ever seen. Suddenly, my feed was a parade of contraptions, a designer cover for your trash bin, the wheel spun bread cutter. detachable wine glass stems an egg yolk separator shaped like a basketball hoop and decorative toilet seat covers when i was a kid it felt like they made something new every day like every day was christmas this bed tent is the perfect way to get more privacy and make date night more cozy this soap dispenser sticks to your wall and holds enough shampoo conditioner and soap to last a year this is a wearable sleeping bag and it's great for staying warm whilst doing your daily tasks what the a wearable sleeping bag it's called a jacket You're looking for a jacket. These products are the spiritual successors to the as-seen-on-TV era, those infomercial gadgets that promise to solve problems you didn't know you had. Simply pour your favorite marinade into the flexible flavorizer, attach the needle, place into the Flavor Pro, and presto! Back then, they were quirky, cheap, and sold through 2AM infomercials with a toll-free number. And despite the terrible production value and gimmicky sales techniques, they worked. I couldn't believe. how juicy these burgers came out. I'm sorry, this is one of my favorite clips. I watch so many infomercials, something about this guy just kills me. Like, this is a paid actor. I can't believe how juicy these burgers came out. I couldn't believe how juicy these burgers came out. Mmm, I can't believe how juicy these. Okay, I'm done. On social media, that same formula works even better. So-called internet entrepreneurs set up their phones, demo cheap products, cut their videos to trending audio, and hit publish. I gotta say, you know, I was a skeptic at first but then I got this and I just realized how valuable this could be for everyone from smoothie shop owners to rabbis looking to increase their productivity. These short clips are made for the algorithm. They're unique, visual, and pitched like magic solutions to frustrating problems in your life. And the sellers hit every psychological trigger they can to get you to buy. Novelty, scarcity, social proof, low-cost impulse buying, and that oddly satisfying feeling that makes you want to watch again and again. Short form, instant gratification, one-page checkouts, Apple Pay, Google Pay, bundles, FOMO. These are all the things that get people riling. Boom, check out. It's not that people are stupid. These tactics are engineered to bypass our rational decision-making. Okay, maybe people are a little bit stupid. It turns out a swipeable video is far more powerful than a 30-minute infomercial. It's bite-sized, shareable, hypnotic to watch, and since buying is easier than ever, this stuff is selling like hotcakes. Speaking of hotcakes, grab this portable hotcake maker now for 50% off in the next week. These ads, they come in hard, they come in fast. They're very convincing. So far, in the last two hours, I have purchased this car vacuum that has apparently NASA-level suction, this balance board, because my balance sucks, and this electric bird feeder, which takes glamour shots of the creatures in your backyard, because they make it so easy. It's just click, click, click, click. Then it's yours. I didn't need any of this when I woke up this morning. This constant stream of micro infomercials is making it harder than ever to be intentional with our purchases. And the views on these videos are insane. Consider that electric crepe maker. It pulled in 135 million views. Click through to their profile and what you'll see is that the same post has been uploaded over and over again. They're fishing for another algorithmic hit. For sellers, this is just a numbers game. Most posts get tens of thousands of views. Some take off. and get millions. And those kinds of numbers can translate into some serious money. But who's really behind these accounts? How do they make money? And how does the whole operation actually work? So the internet has a long history of people turning to get-rich-quick schemes to make a living, all from the comfort of their bedroom. Except now it's getting easier and easier to do. And as the systems and tools for selling get easier, more and more people are trying to strike gold with cheap disposable products on social media. There are a couple different models that people are using to make money from these shitty products. One of the lowest effort and easiest to get into is affiliate marketing. With affiliate marketing, a seller shares a special link to a product and earns a small commission each time someone uses that link to make a purchase. Because that link uniquely tracks which sale came from them. Grabbing attention, views, and clicks becomes the heart of their business. They create content designed to drive traffic and sales, whether it's a YouTube video, a blog post, or a boosted Instagram reel highlighting a product's supposed benefits. I've been doing affiliate marketing for a couple years now, and without lifting a finger, there's content that I'd made a few years ago that's still making me hundreds or thousands of dollars every month from a single piece of content. Amazon runs the largest, most sophisticated affiliate program in the world, with over 900,000 affiliates globally. In the right niche, those small commissions can add up. Categories like home and beauty can pay rates of up to 8% to 10% per sale. Take the Instagram account The Sisters Shoppers, with over 750,000 followers. Their page is filled with nearly 800 posts, each sharing a product they find on Amazon that are, according to them, must-haves. Like this nugget ice maker, this pizza storage container, and this drink dispenser. You know, must-haves. Because we've all felt the strain of lifting the milk out of the fridge, twisting the cap, pouring it on our cereal, and putting it back in the fridge. They post a new product almost every day. Many of the videos wrap up millions of views, with thousands of people in the comments asking for the link. Which, by the way, triggers an automated system that instantly sends you a DM with the creator's unique affiliate link. I don't think affiliate marketing by itself is inherently bad. I use affiliate links sometimes when I recommend a book, a product, or service that I find valuable. Most creators that I know do the same as a way to earn supplemental income. This year I've made about $150 on average per month from it. Most of it coming from a video I did in April where I recommended one of my favorite self-help books of all time, The Courage to be Disliked. This income helps pay our grocery bills, but nothing crazy. And that's because I don't push it or optimize for sales. It's not my business model. What's happening with these must-have accounts is different. It's very unlikely that they're sharing products that they use or find helpful. What's more likely is that they're actively hunting for items that they think will go viral and generate commissions. This is an entire system designed not around recommending genuine products or sharing things that you actually use and find value in, but around manufacturing artificial needs, trying to get people to buy things so then you can make money. And this model is really just the tip of the iceberg for online sellers. Affiliate marketing might get you a 10% cut, but with a little extra effort, some sellers go even further. They source cheap products from factories in China, set up an online store, mark up the price 10, 20, even 60 times the cost, and run the same viral playbook. Welcome to the cutthroat world of dropshipping. Dropshipping is an e-commerce model where you run an online store, but don't keep any of the products in stock yourself. When a customer places an order, the details go to a third-party seller who packs and ships the product directly to the customer on your behalf. You make money by charging the customer more than you pay the supplier, keeping the difference as profit. You can literally run the entire operation from your bedroom without ever touching inventory. Here's how it typically works. You find your next viral product by searching AliExpress. Maybe this elegant toothpick dispenser. You order a sample from the supplier to film content with. Then you set up an online storefront. From there, you launch content, creating satisfying videos of the bird grabbing toothpicks with trending audio. Most likely, you then boost it with paid advertising. Next, you fulfill orders using a dropshipping app to send each order automatically to the supplier, who ships the product straight to your customer, and then finally, you repeat the same process with other shitty products. This model takes some more upfront work, building a website and creating a brand, but the payoff can be much bigger. The Instagram account Olivia finds, with more than 391,000 followers, promotes a different product in every post. At first glance, the account looks similar to the affiliate marketing example I showed earlier. A handheld mop, a bed tucker, A rocking footrest. Just place it under your desk and rest your feet on it. The key difference with this model though is that each of these products are sourced from AliExpress. It took me about two seconds to find the original listed products. So Olivia sells the ham mop for $34.42, but it actually costs $1.68 on AliExpress. The bedtucker sells for $14.94 and costs $3.13. And the rocking footrest, man, that thing looks awesome. That sells for $49.41, but actually costs $7.31. Those are some pretty big markups. As one retired drop shipper, Thomas Despin, put it in a Medium article, we basically markup a product anyone can find. ship it slower than any one of the major e-commerce players, and we call this a business. Now you might be thinking, come on Matt, people aren't actually buying this stuff. There's no way. I mean, it's obviously just a bunch of crap. But then you look at the comments and you see so many people commenting the word foot over and over and over again. By the way, for a limited time, if you comment foot below this video, I'll send you a picture of my foot. At this point you know that I'm not a fan of useless products that serve no purpose, so if I were going to build a website using Squarespace, my sponsor for this week's video, this is what I definitely wouldn't do. I wouldn't invent a product called the self-stirring spatula for times when stirring your homemade curry is just too much for your wrist. I wouldn't go to Squarespace to grab the brilliant domain stircrazyspatula.com. I wouldn't use Squarespace's new Blueprint AI website builder to fill in the details for this completely pointless product and have a full site set up in minutes. And I definitely wouldn't set up an online store, launch a blog, and manage analytics all while my dinner stirs automatically in the background. Instead, I'd use Squarespace to build a website that hosts my content, course, and links, using it to help me run a business in a way that feels good to me. If you want to do the same, then go to squarespace.com to sign up for your free trial. And then, when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com slash Matt D'Avella to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Definitely don't use it to make a shitty product. Please. Please don't do that. Now, before you get too excited, slap a logo on a banana phone cover and open up shop, there's something you should know. While some dropshippers have reportedly made hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars per year, more people end up going bust. Consider some of the comments on the business subreddit about dropshipping. You need to be a customer service black belt to dropship. Margins are low and volume has to be high. You spend most of your time fielding questions about products and late deliveries. The enthusiasm is there for selling, but so is the negativity and ability to adapt to people's needs beyond a salesman's point of view. Most people who make money from dropshipping aren't dropshipping at all, but selling courses on how to do it. The easiest way to spot these people, by the way, is that they do a fast zoom at the beginning of all their videos. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people teaching others how to build these kinds of businesses. Michael Craig, founder of the Coworking Space Dojo, said of these gurus, my main gripe is that you're selling a course for $6,000 to a person from middle America who's put all their funds into this and you're teaching them to sell avocado slicers online with 40 other people who are also selling avocado slicers. While free native content posted directly to Instagram or TikTok can work for creators who already have an audience, most newcomers start with zero followers and have to pay for ads just to get their products seen. That means that a 60 times markup on a toilet seat cover starts to erode pretty quickly once you factor in things like ad spending, payment processing, shipping fees, refunds, and customer service. In the end, a few people sure end up winning big, but the majority spend their time managing unhappy customers and watching their margins disappear. Underneath all this is the unspoken, slow spinning wheel of consumerism. It's the undercurrent of the entire system. The conversation in these communities is all about making money and nothing about how they're making money. It's never about ethics or what's right, or the fact that the ads they're buying are hunting people from site to site, hammering them with ad after ad, trying to get them to buy another useless product. Millions of products flood Timu, Amazon, Alibaba, and AliExpress every year. It's a constant conveyor belt of shit in, shit out. It fills our homes, gives us a flicker of satisfaction, and then gets shoved into a drawer or tossed in the trash. As one expert in the documentary, Buy Now, the shopping conspiracy pointed out, you can't just throw something away. There's no magical place called away. It all ends up somewhere. Landfills, incinerators, or oceans. But I also understand that some people watching this are starting to feel a little bit jaded about saving the environment. We don't really feel this need or personal responsibility to save the planet when billionaires burn through more CO2 in a weekend than we ever could in a lifetime of purchasing cheap, shitty products online. I know I'm not perfect myself. I mean, I bought a banana slicer as a prop for this video. And you better believe that I'm going to return that as a change of mind because Jeff Bezos. But I think there's another more compelling and slightly selfish reason to stop buying this crap. And that's because it's all just a distraction. It eats your money, your space, your attention, and it trains you to chase the next must-have instead of appreciating what you already have. It's hard to live slowly and intentionally when you're being hit from every angle. But you still get to decide how you spend your time, your money, and your attention. Having less, and more importantly, wanting less, frees up space in your home and in your mind, making it a little easier to focus on what genuinely makes you happy. Then again, that banana slicer looked pretty cool. So I've been having a lot of fun diving into these topics, and I'm going to do more of them. I've got so many ideas, but I also know that with the lack of time that I spend on social media, I could use your help. So if you've got a video idea or a topic that you want me to cover or something that you want me to look into, I've opened up a new tip line. Just shoot me an email at justthetip at mattdiavella.com. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.

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New here? I'm Matt 👋 I made an award-winning documentary called Minimalism a few years ago and now I make YouTube videos. Please subscribe so my mother-in-law thinks this is a better career than being a doctor.

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Credits:
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