Temu, buy like a millionaire and feel like a miserable person

When I was little , they were called "everything for a hundred ." For the modest (and approximate) price of 100 pesetas, you could buy all sorts of bazaar products that would get you through a domestic bind. They were always unglamorous, but eventually necessary, like wooden clothespins or batteries for remote controls. I remember going with my mother and wandering the aisles , fascinated by the colors and the shine of the plastic. Sometimes my mother would ask me if I wanted anything, and—just as she had taught me to say—I would say no. And it's true, I didn't want any of it, nothing concrete —not the bubble blowers, the masks, the dolls, or the swords—but I did want to share in the false abundance that hung on the shelves.

There are still neighborhood bazaars, but they're no longer called that. Nothing costs 100 pesetas , and they've also faced almost impossible competition . Online sales platforms offer everything the dollar store used to sell and more, 24 hours a day and conveniently, without having to walk through those aisles filled with fluorescent light. Like little gifts from your past self, surprise packages arrive week after week at home , and the scrolling of your mobile screen continues during downtime on the couch, while the little gifts for your future self are being conceived.

First it was Amazon's convenience, then AliExpress's bargains , then Shein's sizing, and now it's Temu's excess . Because that's what the giant Chinese retail platform represents: an excess of discounts, volume, emissions, and compulsiveness. Souk trinkets that don't appear on anyone's shopping list—let alone their wish list— with the aim of fulfilling the dreams of consumers, who pay between one and ten euros for these disposable fantasies.

The slogan says it all: Temu, shop like a millionaire. In English, the advertising is even worse; they use the word billionaire. You know, that new strain of the greed virus that didn't hit humanity until 1916, when oil magnate John D. Rockefeller reached the ineffable number and became a popular mythological figure whose name is as synonymous with wealth as Midas is with gold. The billionaire is the ultimate form of success, a kind of abundance that the rest of us— including mere millionaires —can't grasp.

I'm sure you're familiar with that feeling that equates abundance with security. It's what lies behind the poor decisions that lead us to fill our suitcases for a weekend with clothes we'll never wear. Like anxious grandmothers filling and stacking plates with food, we think that if there's too much, there's enough, and if there's enough, we'll be able to get by. This basic survival mechanism, which preserves us from chaos and contingencies, continues to work as well as ever, except that in this part of the world and at this moment in history, with needs met, it makes up for other kinds of insecurities. And at Temu —and the rest of the major online marketplaces—they know this very well.

“It's like a dream, it's like magic,” sings the Temu campaign jingle. The ad—like all ads— is aspirational. But instead of a series of goods that represent the comfort and convenience of the upper middle class, it advertises a series of pilgrim objects that can be paid for with the spare change in the back of your pants pocket: small doses of dopamine, tiny packages of illusion, fake triumphs over the market, and PVC dreams.

While this is happening, consumer spending has plummeted, while the aura and value of objects are devalued, and propaganda encouraging irresponsible shopping as a form of personal consolation continues to increase. At the same time, this wasteful spending is blamed for the economic situation of households, especially young people, as basic consumer goods become increasingly expensive . In other words, the reason they aren't millionaires is because they shop like us.

Thus, between one message and the opposite, with daily constraints and unsettled expectations, citizens—pardon me, consumers— increasingly confused, enter into short cycles of apathy and gluttony, restriction and binge eating that keep them busy with pendulum movements, between anxiously checking the bank's app and waiting for those blessed little packages at home.

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Of course, people aren't stupid. Even those who shamelessly preach the benefits of this form of consumption and consider themselves savvy shoppers who 've hacked the system with coupons, flash sales, and discount codes have their doubts about the merits of bargain shopping. Usually, when the shadow of misery is assuaged by a quick search for approval—"I got this for two euros, isn't it good?"—that's why Temu and everyone else dress those little bits of plastic in luxury, excess, and celebration. In time, when they've fulfilled their mission of making us feel like millionaires, they'll return to Asia in the form of trash. Sometimes, the most annoying thing about this dystopian present is that it's so tacky.