Generation Z is entering adulthood amid rising housing costs, a tough job market, and climate anxiety. In response, many young Canadians are coping by splurging on luxuries and self-care they can’t afford. This “doom spending”—enabled by Klarna installment plans and buy-now-pay-later schemes—is pushing them deeper into debt. As Courtney Shea reports for Maclean’s, this generation’s YOLO consumerism isn’t simply impulsive, but a response to a future that feels increasingly out of reach.
The Lipstick Effect dates back to 2001, when Estée Lauder reported a spike in lipstick sales after 9/11. Women bought lipstick to push back against their feelings of anxiety and hopelessness. Traditionally, consumer spending was more predictably connected to consumer confidence, but the Lipstick Effect showed how dread and panic could also encourage retail activity. The same thing is happening today, only now the spending isn’t tied to a single catastrophe, and it isn’t just lipstick. It’s designer clothing, Dyson hairdryers, cologne, skin products, trips, concerts, visits to the new cold-plunge place for $50 a pop (and a requisite $13 green smoothie to complete the experience). It’s internet-famous mattresses and infrared face masks and whatever else the algorithm knows you want before you’ve even seen it. Economists call it doom spending: a nihilistic spin on retail therapy.
More picks on Generation Z
Why Gen Z Will Never Leave Home
“Thanks to soaring housing costs, a generation of twentysomethings are still in their childhood bedrooms. A portrait of family life with no empty nest.”
The Delicate Art of Turning Your Parents Into Content
“Gen Z creators are learning the lessons of Scorsese and Akerman: putting mom and dad in your work brings pathos, complexity, and a certain frisson.”
The Children of 9/11 Are About to Vote
“What the youngest cohort of American voters thinks about politics, fear and the potential of the country they’ve grown up in.”
