Commodified Feminism: Unveiling the Exploitation within Consumer Culture

What a fun exciting ride it was, to join every single person in this generation in calling out the “pick mes”. Exposing their embarrassing motives and desperate tactics has been a revolutionary mission to open people’s eyes to how misogyny can be very subtle and come off as invisible, almost normal and blendable with casualty.

As Todd from “Bojack Horseman” had said: “It was good while it lasted.” And it really was until many of you ruined the game.

Let’s break down how the “pick me” revelation has been transformed and underwent a metamorphosis to have its original purpose and meaning reconfigured and reframed.

From using it to call out the girls (and nowadays even the boys) who went out of their way to impress the male gaze; this expression stems from the African American vernacular English and found its path to fame through twitter and Tiktok. There are a few archetypes that represent this phenomenon: the “antifeminist wifey” and the “not like other girls”.

While the first one doesn’t repress her femininity and soft traits, she emphasises and uses them for purposes that are not so angelic, and as she insists on her marriageability, she tries hard to bring down other women who may choose to have other priorities in their lives other than being housewives and nursing kids. This woman looks down on women who chose to choose, who dared to not settle and never misses a chances to undermine feminism and its impact by always attacking the core of the movement with something the movement isn’t (white feminism and fourth wave feminism, I’ve got my eye on you) and while she appears to be every man’s dreams because of her “philosophy” (ehm ehm, Hannah Pearl Davis) she doesn’t always get picked, maybe that’s because men aren’t looking for a woman who shares their vision, but a woman to shape and transform, but that is another subject.

This antifeminist “wifey” vibe woman schemes so maliciously and gaslights so efficiently that you almost fall for her crap and believe her ideology. One day you come from work, tired and famished after a long day, before you make something to eat, you decide to make a quick scroll on instagram and Tiktok, first thing you see is a married woman with at least 4 kids trying so hard to convince and persuade you that her slow life (whatever that means in her dictionary) is very fulfilling and that she is glad she escaped running after money in her big corporate job and decided to look after her family because not everything is about money and nothing replaces her job as a wife and mother. This is your reminder that these traditional wives (trad-wives) make hundreds of thousands of views that translate into money, that the content they make takes as much time as a real job but is less fulfilling and could potentially be endangering to their kids if they use them to film content, such as exposing them to hidden pedophiles online and stealing the spontaneity of their childhood away.

These women advertise something while having the liberty and freedom to walk away from it by the money they gain off your back because you watch and follow them, and they give you the illusion that your life is not as satisfying or gratifying as it should be.

Grass is only greener where you water, not where you aren’t, and if you choose to be a traditional woman after exploring all of your options and making your own choice without making other women feel less of a person or less of a woman for doing things differently, then that is okay. And if you choose to go for a big career, then that is okay too. But what is also okay, is for you to want both and to dream of both, because none of them contradicts the other, and none of them takes away from the significance or beauty of the other.

On the other side of the spectrum, there is the “not like the other girls” girls, and this is the type of pick me we will be expanding a little more.

No need to quote the “gone girl” famous monologue because you know it already and it has been used on a previous essay.

She is fun, she is cool, she doesn’t know what a bronzer or a mascara is even though you can clearly tell that her lashes aren’t natural, she loves to box and she loves football, she loves to play in mud and stink like most men and she never wears a dress or comprehend how iconic a Kelly bag is.

She wants her first date to be over hotdogs, doesn’t know how to walk in heels, wakes up with her hair shiny, has smooth hairless long legs, she is just sexy without trying so much and she is may be quirky or  she is a nerd who has learned chess yesterday and is winning tournaments today, or can name every past existing dinosaur, which makes a way less attractive man like her and go crazy over her, a man who thinks that women should love him for who he really is rather than his appearance, while he falls in love with a very calculated configuration and a structure of physical and personality traits that make the “pick me”, he falls  for her appearance and idolizes her existence because she is cool and drinks beer ( a trope we have seen relentlessly over the past years in movies and books).

Now you may ask a very valid solid pertinent question: How do you make a difference between a woman who genuinely doesn’t know how to walk with heels and a woman who just wants to boast because she deems herself superior to girls’ interests?

Identically to the difference between an antifeminist traditional wife and a “naturally” non-brainwashed traditional wife, the difference between a girl who is “NoT LikE tHe OtHer GirLs” and a girl who is a girl but doesn’t have stereotypical interests that most girls uptake is whether or not they shape their whole presence about being put on a pedestal for the male gaze and if they perform their way into existence by simulating a person they are not.

Our problem nowadays stems from the fact that we cannot make this difference and that somehow a reverse card has been played, making every woman the pick me she one criticized, as a trad-wife goes far and beyond to convince people of the uselessness of feminism, today’s so called feminists make it feminism’s sole purpose to unify women, so far as to snatch and pilfer away their uniqueness and individuality.

The emergence of trends such as clean girl aesthetic, mob wife aesthetic, blue berry nails, strawberry make up, espresso make up, Rhode lipbalms, Rare beauty blushes, laura mercier powders, dior blushes, hourglass concealers, Charlotte Tilbury fondations, Fenty glosses, Cicaplast by la roche posay, Korean skincare, Dyson airwrap and etc because the list never ends, the list regenerates like snakes and gets longer each day, the Machiavellian plan of consumerism culture has stripped us all of our individuality and what makes each and every single one of us different, because we have been sold the lie of how cool it is to be just like every other girl, while also being sold the promise of becoming  an “it girl”, a “hot girl” because all hot girls and all cool girls get their gym clothes from lululemon, sunglasses from Prada, heels from Dolce and Gabanna, bags from MiuMiu. And we have been brainwashed to think that buying thousands of make up products and following every beauty procedure will leave us with a gratifying feeling and make us feel empowered, when that has only left us with more insecurities to prosecute and feeling entitled to a new purchase just because we behaved ourselves today or did the bare minimum.

Capitalism is prefacing its soul, if it has one, through the notion of “girlhood” and empowerment and if you dare criticize this construct that had become, in my eyes, a cult, you are a rebel, a girl who thinks of herself too highly and who will never understand the unity of girls or what makes a girl a girl, or how fun it is to be a girl. You are a pick me who just can’t let women live and feel confident, and I say this as someone whose pockets hurt from buying every single product that has become a trend because I finally received my wake up call, although I do put my phone on silent sometimes because I have gotten addicted to the dopamine I get from waiting for a package to come home and I guess it is going to take more than realization and an essay to treat this addiction.

We are being standardised, homogenised and our uniqueness and differences are being washed away with the “girls’ girl” culture, but more importantly, we are being progressively infantilized, because ideas such as “girl math” as fun as it was for a while, and I hate to be the person who takes everything seriously, only perpetuate the idea that women cannot be trusted with money and that women are only a second away from making another unnecessary pricey purchase without fathoming the impact influencing culture has made in their lives, to think that you are missing out on so much if you do not possess the new Patrick TA blush and that it is a cutesy fun girly activity to only think of what you will be buying and consuming next. Our personalities as women should not only revolve around beauty items or trendy hairstyles, we are a lot more than that, we have responsibilities, this is the real world and it requires you to get a personality from real life experiences and not from Tiktok references and trends.

Capitalism has rebranded feminism into a new idea that makes it make more profits and more money, and many of you refuse to see the truth behind this fake “girlhood” façade and deceptive illusion that consumerism is uniting us that you started to attack every girl who doesn’t want to put golden earrings, put her hair in sleek bun and wear lululemon with uggs, saying that she is a pick me and pretentiously thinking that you are the leader of some revolutionary feminine feminist battle.

And all of them just talk so much but couldn’t say anything about the millions of Palestinian women who are undergoing severe conditions, from not having any access to hygienic products to not being provided the bare minimum of conditions to give birth safely.

Which reminds me Taylor Swift, the lyrical talent and genius that I have praised so much, history will remember your silence over this matter.

As guilty as many other celebrities and powerful figures, that I won’t deny, I chose to talk about Miss blondie here because she has been looked at for long as a feminist icon, and because her fans are so crazy they would defend her even if she came out as a Zionist, her fans have defended her for a while, claiming that it is important to separate politics from art and that she couldn’t make a real impact even if she spoke.

Hmmm, are we sure though? Couldn’t Miss Swift at least sign the letter destined to Biden asking him to interfere for a ceasefire in Gaza, the same way many other celebrities did? Even her ex Joe Alwyn did. Couldn’t she make a little speech about the matter during one of her concerts as her tour is scoring an incredible amount of attendance and people are fighting to get seats to see her? Couldn’t she condemn the violence Israeli government has been inflicting upon Palestinian citizens by at least not making her movie available in the settler’s territories?

This is not naïve to expect from her. The matter is not as complicated as you would like to make it look like, at the end, isn’t she a feminist? Or does that only work when people are mean to her? And it is okay to write as many songs about your love life because men do the same, it is okay to use your private jet to get your TV remote from the other room because other celebrities do the same but also because other male celebrities do the same and are not criticized? Or when she has to sell us the same album in 4 different vinyls, tricking her fans into buying her same album several times because this time it includes a new special song? When she has to sell her movie several times each time adding some other songs in it? When people buy Taylor Swift expansive merchandise?

The world witnessed Taylor Swift becoming a powerful woman, Instagram and Spotify literally make special features to welcome her music into the world, she was able to get her music back to Tiktok even when Universal Music Group decided to revoke the music of all the artists who have contracts with them because Tiktok wouldn’t pay them for it, we have witnessed Swift become a billionaire after her Eras Tour, it has been reported that she is one of the rare musicians who have accumulated wealth thanks to her musical talent without any endorsement from any type of brand whether made by her or as publicity. And while we already know that it is almost if not definitely infeasible to become an ethical billionaire, many people still believe that blondie has amassed riches in an innocent way, and without even talking about her mischievous scheming in tax evasion, her carbon footprint stands witness to the atrocities she has committed to our environment as she takes her private jet to another country to perform and back to the US to attend her boyfriend’s Travis Kelsey’s games, while the rest of us have to use public transport instead of taking a car, reduce our plastic usage, stop using plastic straws and use the paper ones that melt into the flavour of our drink.

And none of us knows the conditions her merchandise had been manufactured, because if you haven’t checked, Fenty beauty, a brand made by Rihanna, and that claims it is a brand that promotes diversity, a brand made for all women (advertising once again behind the idea of womanhood and feminism) has scored lower that the evil Shein when it comes to the wages people who work there get and their working conditions, can you even begin to imagine: LOWER than SHEIN, making another unethical billionaire who uses women to make profits but fails to acknowledge the same entity that either struggles because of international injustice or the ones that struggles to make the product they merchandise.

Swift is not just a person anymore, she is a corporation, a brand, a business and just like capitalism, she is not the one stimulating the economy, you are the one doing so by your hard work and well deserved earning.

Admitting that Taylor Swift is an economical construct makes it easier to defend her silence on the Palestinian issue, but I hope we do remember that the next time she tries to convince us that feminism is a fundamental axis when someone doesn’t like her music, and that her life is definitely not harder because she is a woman in the music industry as she performs white feminism behaviour and forgets what feminism is most importantly about: Intersectionality, which requires us to think about women (and even men) in countries such as Palestine, Congo, Sudan etc and not just express solidarity with random people who think that liking lip-gloss makes them women and decide to change their gender. Intersectionality also obliges us to think of women (and people in general) who don’t have it as easy as we do instead of focusing and shifting out attention to Margot Robbie who did not get a nomination to God knows what award.

To conclude, it is undeniable that celebrities apparent kindness and shown generosity as they give a check to whatever cause without advocating for it through their platforms and large amount of people who support them, and their usage of woke and progressive matters and issues such as feminism, as Sandra has put it in Anatomy of a fall to address her husband, “conceal something dirtier and meaner”, and it is our responsibility to call out their corporations through their persons and take part of effective active stances (such as boycotting) to hold them accountable for their actions, or lack of actions.

And it is necessary to limit the usage of feminist ideas to market and advertise products and especially detect when we are being brainwashed to buy by being infantilised while also being used by big corporations to attack any person who points out facts such as the fact that we do not need to buy every single blush that exists on the market.

It is important to not shift the purpose of feminism regressively and into something mundane, it is important that we do not make feminism anti-feminist by dragging down any woman who refuses to be a copy of many other ones just because a lot chose to sell their souls to capitalism (influencers and all their loyal followers and devoted supporters).