What Does It Take to Quit Shopping? Mute, Delete and Unsubscribe.
The New York Times
Marketers followed consumers to social media and their phones. “Low Buy 2025” influencers are sharing tips for how to resist them.
Cassandra Orakpo had enough.
Too much, in fact. Shopping on her phone had become so easy it had turned into a bad habit. She bought a cake decorating kit, thinking she’d make her own birthday cake, and never even took it out of the box. She has at least 80 bottles of perfume stored in her closet. And despite all the clothes she has purchased, she feels she has nothing to wear.
“Clearly my buying has gotten to a place where it’s bordering on hoarding,” Ms. Orakpo said.
So toward the end of last year, Ms. Orakpo, who is 31 and lives in Houston, pledged to tame her buying habits. The first step was to scrub her accounts: She unsubscribed from daily emails from Shein; she changed her TikTok settings to avoid personalized ads; she blocked Temu on X. She also opted out of texts from brands like Fashion Nova, her nail salon and even her local bubble tea shop.
And then she told her more than 2,500 followers on TikTok about it.
Ms. Orakpo joined a growing group of shoppers who are fed up with a constant barrage of marketing in their social feeds and phone alerts. Many have taken to TikTok — the site of much of their frustration — to declare that they are participating in “Low Buy 2025” or “No Buy 2025” and sharing the ways they are curbing their spending. Some “shop their closet,” and others pledge to make sure their containers of blush hit pan before being enticed into buying a new one. The videos have garnered millions of views since the start of the year.
With the Trump administration reversing support for low-carbon power, the business case for making wind, solar and electric vehicle parts gets weaker.
Top officials are grappling with how to handle potential price increases caused by the administration’s policies.
Chinese drivers are buying affordable electric vehicles loaded with new technology, a trend that is redefining high-end vehicles and hurting German automakers.
In starting a process to impose reciprocal tariffs on American trading partners, the White House is sowing uncertainty and risking inflation.
The lack of clarity about tariffs and other policies could hurt hiring and investing. But the strong U.S. economy should provide a buffer.
Concerns that a deadly collision could occur at Reagan National Airport had long been building. But attempts to draw attention to potentially dangerous conditions sometimes went unheeded.
Understanding who will end up paying for the higher costs means understanding how manufacturing, trade and supply chains function — and how costs build along each step of the complex process. Take shoes, for example.
Goldman Sachs will drop a demand that corporate boards of directors include women and members of minority groups as financial firms backpedal from D.E.I. promises.
When tech luminaries talk about their Christian faith, people listen.
Companies navigate a legal minefield as President Trump wages war on diversity programs, but they still have to guard against complaints of bias.
Existing American tariffs already restrict steel and aluminum shipments from China, which is now flooding other markets with its exports instead.
The president’s heavy-handed approach to traditional journalists has the hallmarks of an attempted crackdown 50 years ago.
Other big technology companies have been boisterous in their courtship of the new administration. But Nvidia and Microsoft have avoided the Washington spotlight.