must-watch: “buy now” on Netflix
Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy is streaming on Netflix and I highly recommend it.
Granted, most of the information isn’t new. It covers stuff like:
Planned obsolescence. Almost everything is made to break quickly these days, so unfortunately this isn’t as shocking a concept as it used to be. But I didn’t realize a group of lightbulb manufacturers actually met and conspired to cut the lifespan of bulbs in half so we’d all have to buy more! WTF!
The wastefulness of fashion and other industries, with companies ordering workers to ensure discarded items aren’t usable. A Bath & Bodyworks employee said that her manager ordered her to squeeze out unsold shower gel into a dumpster so homeless people couldn’t use it; Panda Express apparently does the same by mixing unsold food together so it’s inedible 😱
Greenwashing, as well as how companies feature kids in ads in order to seem more wholesome. (I was hoping the doc would focus more on psychological tactics like this that brands use to manipulate people.)
How electronics “recycling” and donating clothes to charity usually just means they’re shipped to poor countries and pollute the air, water, and land
Electronics companies making their devices impossible to repair so you have to buy more (the book Made to Break sounds like it’s in the same vein)
Much of it isn’t exactly groundbreaking (and the AI voice was annoying), but I still consider it a must-watch, because there are some nuggets that make the issues concrete and gut-punchy when so often “climate change” and “social justice” can seem vague and abstract. There was footage of people in Thailand surrounded by mountains of discarded electronics, breaking them apart and probably getting cancer in the process. Horrifying.
The interviews with former higher-ups at Adidas, Amazon, Unilever, Apple, etc. were illuminating—executives aren’t thinking about responsible disposal of their products, because no one is forcing them to (so we gotta!). And if they are, they’re lying about products being recyclable without actual follow-through.
The film was also a reminder that the higher you get at corporations, the more pressure there is to drink the Kool-Aid and not question anything. Overall, it was an indictment of capitalism, a reminder that growth at all costs is literally toxic.
The filmmakers tried to end on a hopeful note (probably because so much of it was devastating). A few states are passing “right to repair” legislation—in California, if items cost over $100, manufacturers have to ensure they can be repaired, diagnosed, or maintained for seven years! And organizations like The Or Foundation (clothing justice) and iFixIt (repair guides for everything) are doing good work.
Ultimately, as consumers, it’s not just about recycling more or switching from plastic to glass; it’s about buying less and pressuring corporations/politicians to change.