Campus pop-up shops promote overconsumption – The Miami Hurricane

I’ve seen, on average, one campus pop-up shop every week since moving in at UM. 

Days before classes started, dozens of pop up shops came to give away products, all for free. I’d never seen anything like this before. A walk to the bookstore felt like a free shopping spree due to all of the freebies being promoted by different brands. 

I expected all of that to be over by the time the parents left their kids at school, but to my surprise, the pop-ups kept coming back.

At first, I was really excited about getting so many free products and clothes. After voluntarily spending over an hour and a half of my Monday morning waiting in a pop-up line, I got back to my room and realized that I had more problems than losing my valuable morning study time. 

I had no space for the bag I had gotten from the pop-up and no idea what I was going to do with the new makeup products I just got since I don’t wear makeup. Then, I had to rush to class without eating breakfast because I spent my whole morning waiting in line. 

Most of the items I’d gotten from the pop-ups were left to collect dust around my room. I ended up giving all of the items away to family and friends who would use them, but I started feeling guilty about the amount of free items I’d been hoarding. 

After this realization, I stopped grabbing the freebies and I think you should consider it too. I know you might be hesitant, after all it’s free, but do you really need more tote bags and branded t-shirts, or does it just feel nice to get new things?

Most people like getting new things and they like them even better if they’re free. It goes without saying that UM students are no strangers to getting things for free with all the pop-up shop visits. While they may seem harmless, the trend of pop-up shops promotes overconsumption to students. This is bad because overconsumption leaves detrimental impacts to our environment and even to society. 

According to UM, the school hosts about two or three large pop-ups per semester and about 10 smaller pop-ups from clothing brands, thrift shops, jewelers, etc. Brands are charged a facility rental fee and the university often benefits from the social media engagement. While there are about 14 weeks in the school year, so almost a pop-up a week, the University does have a vetting process to determine who is allowed on campus.

In a comment, the University stated that “in collaboration with campus partners, the Student Center Complex reviews requests from third-party marketing companies that represent various brands to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest with existing partnerships.” 

UM might have more pop-ups requests than we even know, so it is on us to stop the overconsumption. Now, what exactly is overconsumption and why is it bad? 

From an environmental standpoint, overconsumption is when humans use more resources than we have available. Overconsumption is not only extremely wasteful but dangerous. According to netimpact.org, the rate our society consumes resources is unsustainable, meaning we are using more than can be replenished. A study by the World Wildlife Foundation determined that our Earth will not be able to provide for the population by 2050.

When asked about the impacts of the pop-ups on students, UM answered, “The Student Center Complex works to ensure that the brand activation will provide a space for brands to interact with the student body in a positive way.”

Socially, overconsumption is a way to fill the extreme need to follow the newest trend. People hop from trend to trend, trying to keep up with the latest fashion and social fads by constantly buying more products. This is wasteful and promotes harsh societal pressures and expectations, because many people don’t have the money to constantly spend on new clothing hauls or different types of hair products. 

The hair products are the biggest overconsumption issue I’ve noticed from the pop-up shops. During orientation week, Papatui, Dwayne Johnson’s men’s care line, had a few different pop-ups distributing shampoo, conditioner and bodywash. Just a few weeks later, MONDAY Hair Care visited and distributed their shampoo and conditioner. The third hair brand to visit was Ouai, about a month after MONDAY.

I don’t know about you, but it takes me much longer than one month to go through bottles of shampoo and conditioner. According to Hair.com, hair products can expire, even when unopened, after three years. While the pile of shampoo bottles grows underneath your dorm bed, they come closer and closer to the expiration date.

While students are not forced to wait in line at these pop ups, they can be hard to ignore. Giant trucks situated in the busiest areas of campus are covered with branding and attract lines of over 100 people. While some of these pop-ups may give out products that students actually use, at the rate the companies currently show up, it’s excessive. 

Overconsumption is not just a problem here at UM, but many college-aged students fall victim to marketing and pressures to follow trends. If you’re anything like me, you didn’t realize the true impact of overconsumption until certain trends hit TikTok. 

The biggest overconsumption trend I can think of that affected people my age and younger was the Stanley cup craze. Thousands of people rushed into stores to collect countless of these reusable water bottles, completely disregarding the purpose of them, to reuse them.  

This trend may have started on TikTok, but it is now shown at UM. The campus bookstore has a large Stanley cup section right at the front. If you look around campus, you might even notice that the newer Owala water bottle fad is beginning to replace the Stanley cups. The university’s official instagram page even acknowledges and pokes fun at this dangerous behavior by posting a photo of a mousetrap baited with an Owala and Stanley cup with the text “this would catch a lot of ’Canes.” 

To combat one extreme, the “underconsumption” trend also went viral on TikTok. People showed videos of their kitchen cabinets containing only one or two old reusable water bottles, a stark contrast to those who have giant collections of Stanley cups. They would also show their shower or skincare routine, using only a few different products. 

Underconsumption is more than just minimalism. It is the complete opposite of overconsumption. Jumping from one extreme to the next is extremely unsustainable. 

If you don’t want to contribute to either extreme of overconsumption or underconsumption, a great way to start is just committing to using up what you already have before going to buy more. Think more of a minimalistic approach. Don’t go and throw everything away, but also allow yourself to get new things every once in a while. Minimalism is a great way to ‘de-influence’ people from product hoarding, and I believe it’s the best thing to be trending and encouraging.

The next time you feel the need to attend one of the pop-ups on campus, remind yourself that you don’t actually need all of the junk the vendors are offering. Use up what you already have, the planet will thank you.