Unboxing Culture & Finance : Am I Apart of the Problem?

Bonjour mes amies! If you’re a mes amies over on Instagram (where I post daily) you can attest that j’adore “unboxing.”

On social media (specifically Instagram in my case) “unboxings” refers is the act of recording oneself literally unboxing a recent purchase to post online.

My unboxings typically includes luxury purses, shoes, scarves, coffeemakers, and steamware. To cultivate more of an aesthetically pleasing experience, versus just taking my purchase out of the box, I began adding special effects, transitions and lighting.

As I continued to share my (many) luxury gifts avec mes amies, I started to take count of just how many messages I received that sort of bothered moi.

“OMG! I’m saving for a ________ (new car/house/student loans) but after seeing your _______(insert designer item) I’m going to take a little from my savings to get that.”

“I had to return/sell the _______ I purchased. I knew I shouldn’t have purchased it but you made it look so good.”

These are just two of the many messages that I have received.

So much of the platform that I am building is based on finance. I want people, especially women, but especially, especially BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) to not only earn but understand money.

This understanding surpasses earning enough money to pay your bills. I want people to understand the importance of having multiple savings accounts, reap the benefits of having credit scores above 750, make investments and more. I understand wholeheartedly how difficult gaining and repairing ones financial standing can be.

I often say:

I’m glad that i was poor in peace, before social media

Truly mes amies, I could not imagine the constant peer pressure (et oui whether its admitted or not peer pressure has been replaced with the term “influenced”) to collect the most passport stamps, have the latest purse, etc. on/for social media.

No longer are we keeping up with the Joneses (a familiar saying used in the US when a family is trying to achieve the same outward level of success as ones neighbor) because of social media we are trying to keep up with the Joneses around the world.

There was a time when I earned well below the poverty line and had to choose between buying juice or crackers because I couldn’t afford both. I lived frugally and only felt momentarily saddened when a friend could do or purchase something that I couldn’t afford.

I didn’t have access to hundreds of thousands of people “living their best life” because social media was not yet a common and constant fixture in our lives.

It wasn’t a mean message that made me question my constant unboxing; it was the thought that my normal (to me) luxurious behavior was counterintuitive to the message I seek to spread.

In addition to my previous reservations, frankly, unboxings are exhausting. Trying to think of innovative ways to create wow factors, searching for appropriate songs and the staging process began to take away from my joy of my gift.

As I type, I am looking at three Fendi, four Tiffanys, five Louis Vuitton, two Chanel’s (about to be three), and Hermes boxes that I have yet to “unbox” for social media.

Lastly, the saddest of the unboxing saga…

I can remember vividly when The Husband (who has zero interest in social media) returned home from working almost seventy-two hours straight surprised me (as he often does, he’s truly the sweetest) with an orange box (Hermes.) The moment he gave it to me I sat the box down. He asked why didn’t I open it and I told him that I needed to grab my phone because I wanted to “unbox” it for Instagram.

Oui mes amies, after working seventy-two hours, I asked The Husband to not only “hold that thought” but to hold my phone so that I could unwrap my gift for an audience who many times don’t even engage avec moi.

By no means does this blog serve as my official resignation from the “unboxing” culture; it’s merely an “I don’t know who needed to hear this” sentiment. It’s okay to enjoy your gifts, big or small, in peace. It’s ok not to want to share every purchase you make.

For anyone who has succumb to the pressure of wanting to “unbox” for the sake of social media, take a mental note s’il vous. Very few people scroll past the first nine photos on your grid.

So the charge you may have made on your credit card, or the money you may have taken from a bigger savings goal will be out of sight and out of mind to many of the people you recorded the unboxing for.

Are you apart of the unboxing culture? How do you feel about them?

Here’s a few of my unboxings from Instagram:

Ciao for now 💋