Are You Shopping for the Feed? The Hidden Cost of Spending to Be Seen
You know the video. Someone holds up a cart full of pumpkin-spice candles, fall throw pillows, and a basket of Halloween treats, and says “I had to.” A few weeks later the same shelf is peppermint and pine. The stuff changes with the calendar, but the pattern stays the same: buy it, stage it, post it, replace it.
For a lot of people, that cycle is paid for with money they don’t have yet. I spent a while digging into the research on this, and I wrote a longer paper on it. This post is the plain-language version: what’s going on, what the numbers say, what we don’t know, and what you can do about it.
What I mean by “performative consumption”
I use that phrase for buying that is mostly about being seen. Not just “I like this candle,” but “this candle will look great on camera, and it shows I’m someone who does fall right.” There are four parts to it:
- It’s for an audience. The real customer is the viewer.
- It’s built for the camera. Things are chosen because they fit a format: the haul, the shelfie, the basket, the seasonal setup.
- It stretches the budget. Part of it gets put on a credit card or a payment plan.
- It repeats. Every season, there’s a new set to replace the old one.
None of this is brand new. Economists have talked about showing off through stuff since 1899. What’s new is that the audience is always on, the store calendar doubles as a content calendar, and paying later has never been easier.
The calendar is now a content calendar
Starbucks brought back its Pumpkin Spice Latte on August 25 this year, along with a limited-time merchandise collection. The National Retail Federation (NRF) expects Americans to spend a record $13.5 billion on Halloween in 2026, up from $13.1 billion last year. About half of Halloween shoppers start in September or earlier.
A beauty-industry analysis in Poland noted that the boo basket trend stretches the autumn selling season and lifts sales of lots of small items. More content moments mean more buying moments.
Brands know this. A published case study of a Bath & Body Works TikTok LIVE event described scent-layering demos designed to turn single purchases into multi-product hauls. A peer-reviewed study of fashion hauls found that inspiration was the biggest driver of purchase intent, especially for impulse buys. Discount codes did not make a significant difference.
The boo basket: from a neighbor’s gesture to a spending category
The original idea was simple and cheap: “You’ve Been Booed.” You leave a small basket of treats on a neighbor’s porch, and they pass it on to someone else. Social media turned that into a seasonal gift category, and now there are boo basket hauls, gift guides, and price tags.
Prices range widely. One UK grocer sold a whole basket for under £25. One student-press story pointed to an influencer’s basket where the woven container alone cost $55. Critics call it status display more than sentiment. Fans say you can keep it cheap and heartfelt, and that’s the point. What gets lost, as one columnist put it, is the gesture. The meaning shifts from “I thought of you” to “look at the goods.”
How it’s being paid for
Credit card balances in the U.S. hit $1.26 trillion in the second quarter of 2026, just under the record of $1.28 trillion from late 2025, according to the New York Fed. Some of that is groceries and gas. Not all of it is fun spending, and the numbers can’t tell us how much is display.
Buy now, pay later (BNPL) is where it gets more concerning. In a 2026 LendingTree survey, 47% of BNPL users had paid late in the past year, 29% had used BNPL to pay for groceries, and 54% said they couldn’t make ends meet without it.
Two caveats. LendingTree is a loan marketplace, and this was an online survey, so treat the exact numbers as a rough guide. And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that BNPL users, on average, were more likely to be highly indebted, but also that many of those differences existed before they started using BNPL. In other words, BNPL may not be causing the trouble. It may just be where already-stretched people end up.
What the research says about social media and spending
A Bankrate survey from August 2023 found that 48% of social media users had made an impulse buy of something they saw there, and 68% of those buyers regretted at least one purchase. People who did it in the past year spent $754 on average. And 57% said people post things to look more successful, but only 12% said they do it themselves (higher for millennials at 22% and Gen Z at 21%).
A Credit One Bank survey reported by YPulse found that more than half of Gen Z admit to lying or exaggerating about their financial success online, and 38% said they had damaged their credit score to impress someone. Academic studies point the same way: social media use and materialism go along with compulsive and impulsive buying.
What we don’t know
I want to be straight about the limits. Nobody has yet studied the whole chain, from seasonal content to the filmed purchase, to the payment plan, to missed payments. Most of the evidence comes from surveys, and some of those are small or sponsored. Many people are pushing back, too. A CouponFollow survey found that a lot of Gen Z “underconsumption core” followers say they’ve cut back on impulse buying. And the Richmond Fed economist quoted by NewsNation said BNPL doesn’t look like a threat to financial stability right now.
So my honest read: strong reasons to be concerned, not enough proof to call it a crisis.
How to fight it
This is general information, not personal financial advice. But here is what the research and the practical evidence suggest.
- Run the no-audience test. Ask yourself: would I buy this if nobody would ever see it? If the answer is no, you’ve spotted a display purchase.
- Wait a day, and write down your reasons. In experiments from a University of Michigan dissertation, a delay of about 25 hours lowered the urge to buy impulsively, and so did spending a few minutes listing reasons for and against. A 10-minute delay in the lab didn’t significantly cut spending, because everyone just kept browsing. A Bankrate analyst’s rule of thumb: wait a day for every $100 the item costs.
- Make paying feel real. For seasonal and decorative spending, set a fixed budget and pay with debit or cash instead of credit or BNPL.
- Don’t stack payment plans, and don’t use them for groceries. One plan at a time, set up autopay so you don’t miss a date, and if you’re financing essentials, treat that as a sign to look at your budget.
- Set the seasonal budget before the season starts. Spreading out early shopping only helps if you pay as you go.
- Clean up your feed. Mute haul content, remove saved cards from shopping apps, and turn off in-app checkout.
- Keep the ritual, shrink the price. A basket from things you already own, or from a dollar store, still gets the gift across. The gesture is the point.
If you’re already in debt
Stop adding new card and BNPL balances. Write down every balance, its interest rate, and its due date, and pay down the most expensive one first. If you’re about to miss a payment, contact the lender early: the LendingTree survey found BNPL lenders were highly likely to waive a late fee when asked. A nonprofit credit counseling agency can help you build a repayment plan. Being in debt is common. It’s a money problem, not a character flaw.
The bottom line
Wanting a cozy home, a fun holiday, or a thoughtful gift is normal. The problem starts when the audience is driving the budget. Before you hit buy, ask who you’re buying it for.
Sources
The full paper has a complete reference list. Key sources for this post:
- National Retail Federation, 2026 Halloween survey (September 22, 2026)
- Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Q2 2026 Household Debt and Credit Report
- LendingTree, 2026 Buy Now, Pay Later report
- Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Consumer Use of Buy Now, Pay Later (March 2, 2023)
- Bankrate, social media impulse buying survey (fielded August 16 to 23, 2023)
- YPulse (December 3, 2025), reporting on a Credit One Bank survey
- Mahn et al. (2026), International Journal of Advertising, on fashion haul purchase intentions
- Moser, Schoenebeck, & Resnick (2020), University of Michigan, on delaying impulse purchases
- NBC Los Angeles (October 2, 2026) and Retail Times (October 29, 2024), on boo baskets
- FOX 2 Detroit (2026), on Starbucks’s Pumpkin Spice Latte return
Cite this article
For information and education only. Not investment, tax, or legal advice.