Too many loose threads

This is week, we explore what STINKS about online shopping. But then, in an upcoming newsletter, we’ll look at how adding some rules actually gives us a creative shot in the arm.

I had myself pretty convinced last summer that I would start swimming laps at the gym. I pulled up swimsuits on Dick’s website, read a lot of reviews, took some basic measurements, and proceeded to order a highly rated Nike suit. Upon arrival, it appeared to be the perfect fit for a malnourished toddler. Or for securing a short stack of flour bags together.

After attempting to put a single leg into the suit, I printed a return label, accidentally tossed a couple of papers over the $50 scrap of nylon, and rediscovered it well past the generous amount of time allotted by Dick’s exchange policy. Off to the donation bin the swimsuit went.

(I also never ended up doing laps at the gym. Not because of the suit, but because the pool is held hostage by 5-6 retirees who bob around yapping. Who am I to interrupt their discussion on grandchildren and beta-blockers with my backstroke?)

The online shopping ecosystem has made fools and cowards of us all. Whereas shoving our butts in a pair of jeans will tell us everything we need to know about fit, we’ve outsourced our good senses to five anonymous reviewers and a photo of a bored-looking model (5’10”, 102 pounds, wearing an XS — relatable!).

“Shopping should be about lust,” fashion critic Robin Givhan wrote in The New York Times last month. “Instead, shopping has become a slog. How did this happen? I don’t think it’s just me. I should still love to shop, yet I don’t. I don’t think anybody does, at least not the way we once did. And I have a theory as to why: In a world of abundant choice but imprisoning algorithms, it too often feels as though there’s nothing interesting to buy. Our senses are flattened, our appetites dulled. Nothing seems quite right.”

A lack of friction has made shopping uninteresting. With everything fed to us, we’ve lost the ability to discover. And like every other part of the internet, the idea of scrolling until we get a dopamine hit has made online shopping an endless effort to feel some sort of payoff. 

This feels gross to write somehow — like describing your preferred way to cut your toenails — but in the not-so-distant past, I would get a sale email from a brand and lose hours to numbingly scrolling until I found a few things to buy. I would awaken from a blackout on page 24 of the reduced-price items on Madewell’s or Aritzia’s website, with a few mediocre socks, a sweater I would wear once, and an ill-fitting dress in my shopping cart. I would buy the appropriate amount of crap that got me to the free shipping threshold… all because I felt that my hours spent browsing should have some sort of payoff. 

(Researchers have explored this “cognitive overload” as it relates to making purchases from ads on social media in particular. This experience has been shown to scatter your brain and cause you to purchase things you don’t need. “In the span of several seconds you can see a text from your spouse, a photo from a co-worker, a video from a celebrity and a meme from your brother. All of this scrolling and evaluating leaves us feeling frazzled and scattered,” one researcher explained.)

This trance-like experience has been described by other writers as well — if not for the mindless scrolling, but for the horrifyingly seamless checkout experience. Amanda Mull wrote about it in The Atlantic in 2023 after she found herself discovering a pair of shoes and then blowing $190 on them in the span of 15 seconds.

“It’s always a little horrifying to realize that advertising has worked on you, but this felt more like I had just watched the velociraptor in Jurassic Park learn to use the doorknob,” Mull wrote. “I had completed some version of the online checkout process a million times before, but never could I remember it being quite so spontaneous and thoughtless. If it’s going to be that easy all the time, I thought to myself, I’m cooked.”

I think many of us know it’s bad. The buy now, pay later digital ecosystems are plummeting people into debt, and that the whole experience of online shopping feels purely functional and depressing.

But — wow — it’s not like we have to keep shopping online.

Some of the coolest pieces I’ve bought have come from in-person browsing. Many years ago, I found an incredible vintage Adolfo Sardiña skirt at a second-hand shop, and the store’s proprietor got a small hole patched in the piece before I took it home. I’ve stumbled upon Coach and Frye boots in my size at thrift shops, found well-fitting basics at Nordstrom, and purchased funky merch at memorable bars. These stick in my mind and my closet far longer than the add-to-cart, single-click checkouts ever could.

When I was reading about our experiences with online shopping, I found a stat that showed “nearly 80% of online shoppers described the experience as lonely.” Turns out we want to be touching fabric with strangers. We want to be asked “Is everything going all right in there?” while we stand on our toes to simulate high heels in the fitting room. We want clothes, sure, but we also want that zip that can only come from an IRL shopping experience. Shopping — retail therapy! — can be a little treat, but online it can become a pretty flavorless snack.

“Shopping for clothes, shoes, a little fillip to brighten these dark days has become a bit like consuming champagne that’s gone flat,” Givhan wrote in the NYT. “The connoisseurship, the sense of inspiration, serendipity and wonder, have mostly faded away.”

The last time I saw my hair stylist, he prattled on and on about how — after discovering Shein (god help me) — he’s obsessed with getting a big package of clothes delivered to his place. When I commented that these single-ply fits would likely fall apart after two washes, he said he only really wears everything once or twice anyhow. An incredible display of unconscious consumption!

I decided that was our final appointment, for a few unrelated reasons. But I also couldn’t shake the notion that if my stylist — the person I pay to manage the one outfit I wear every — is forgoing the magic and wonder of finding a great outfit in favor of convenience and mindless excess, how can he possibly be trusted to show an appropriate level of discernment for my hair?