It has been interesting to watch antihauls evolve since they were first popularized by Kimberly Clark over three years ago. In her first antihaul video Kimberly talked about consumerism and the "buy buy buy" mentality; she reminds us that people have different interests and that she is talking about these from her own point of view. Her antihauls certainly focus on the consumerist aspect of the makeup industry, how we don't need to continuously shop and add to our collections.
But over time antihauls on YouTube shifted more into bashing on brands, calling Too Faced childish, Tarte confused, and Morphe boring. The YouTuber that stands out most in my mind with this kind of content is Lucia Tepper. In her latest antihaul video there is no discussion about consumerism, just mentioning that it's easier to not buy something if it can be made fun of. She does make the disclaimer that she is on a no buy, "so technically everything is an antihaul."
But there are other YouTubers who are currently on no buys who approach the video so differently. Hailey Evans is one such creator. She is doing a no buy year, but she recognizes the pull to various new releases. Instead of bashing the products as the same old same old, she recalls products she already owns or previously owned and reflects on why she wants the new version.
I much prefer this kind of antihaul to the roasting ones. It reminds me that a makeup collection should be personalized to the individual using it, that just because Karen loves using purple eyeliner doesn't mean Laura needs one too. In my early days of watching makeup YouTube, I was more into the idea of accumulating a lot of options than tailoring my purchases to discovering my own style. I remember when Urban Decay Petite Heat was announced it was roasted as "yet another warm-toned palette." But I hadn't bought Modern Renaissance, Morphe 35O, or any of the others that the YouTubers insisted that everyone already owned. In fact, it seems like most eyeshadow palettes in the roasting antihauls are dismissed as being either "boring neutrals with a pop of color" (even when half the palette is color) or something that's basically a carbon copy of one from another brand (as in Urban Decay Naked Reloaded versus Anastasia Sultry).
I think sometimes YouTubers forget that not everyone interested in makeup has ultra-consumerist shopping tendencies, that not everyone owns or is even interested in owning the oodles of products that others have. The reddit comment that sparked the idea for this post mentioned the opposite opinion when discussing Hannah Louise Poston's antihaul on Ulta's 21 Days event: "I’d rather hear, 'The color story on this palette is redundant and I’m sure everyone has these colors in their collection' vs. 'I’m not buying this because I’ve never thought about buying it before so I’m not going to buy it now.'"
But that's what I loved about HLP's take on the event. It was so nice to be reminded that a sale price does not justify a purchase, and the way she repeated that she had never considered purchasing a product before the sale and thus would not be buying it during the sale was so refreshing. She also mentioned some products that appealed to her but that she wouldn't buy during the sale because she already had something that functioned fine in that category.
In my mind, that's the kind of anticonsumerist thinking that Kimberly Clark originally introduced in her antihauls; it's just not as popular because the roasting antihauls have more of a shock factor that reflects the ever-prominent cancel culture. Right now the roasting antihauls and continuous "Will I Buy It?"-type videos are just contributing to the consumerist spiral that many YouTube channels have fallen into the past few years. It bothers me when people ask for suggestions on what to antihaul. I remember when Kimberly Clark first asked for suggestions on what to antihaul for a video responses were valid things that people were trying not to buy. but eventually they shifted into wanting to hear products they obviously weren't going to buy get roasted. I think Kimberly Clark summed it up perfectly in her eighteenth antihaul:
"The first thing I'm not going to buy is this [the Kylie Brush Kit]. So many of you asked me to talk about this. It was the most requested thing that I've been asked to antihaul, I think than any other product ever. But I'm not going to talk about it. Like Stephanie Nicole said in her recent get ready with me video, that there's been so much bad press about this brush kit. But bad publicity is, is publicity, man. It's good publicity. So I feel like so many people have talked about this so much, talked so much shit about it. And sometimes, you know, it's great to have a really complicated reason why you're not going to buy something. And other times it's really great to have a really simple reason and then just move on, and get on with your life and your day and do things that actually make you happy instead of just dwelling on the drama and the ridiculousness. So all I'm going to say about this is: $360 for a brush set? Nope!"
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