Selling Minimalism: The Paradox of Feminised Anti-Consumption Aesthetics in Digital Culture

Sammanfattning

By investigating feminised lifestyle trends such as the ‘Clean Girl’ and ‘Trad Wife’, this research seeks to unpack the distinct identity tensions young women experience when navigating the contradiction between the ideal of ‘consuming less’ and the continuous consumption required to perform these lifestyles online. The empirical material is analysed through an integrated theoretical framework combining Goffman’s Presentation of Self in Everyday Life and Butler’s Gender Performativity Theory. The findings reveal that minimalism within these digital trends functions as a highly curated visual script rather than a genuine anti-consumption practice. Furthermore, young women engage in the intense and exhausting hidden backstage labour required to successfully stage these effortless and natural digital feminised lifestyle aesthetics. The study conceptualises ‘Performed Restraint’ as the overarching mechanism through which young women navigate this paradox, demonstrating that performing idealised femininity and consumeristic restraint in contemporary digital culture have become inseparable. Ultimately, these digital trends deceptively repackage restrictive patriarchal norms as empowering self-care, compelling young women into an exhausting cycle of continuous hyper-consumption to project an effortless identity.