The Extremities of the #BlackGirlLuxury and the Abundant Lifestyle Trend
By: Chisom Onyekwere
Tags: Abundance Mindset, Black Women Entrepreneurs, Consumerism, Black Women In Tech, Labor And Wealth

Two women living their best lives. Source: Pinterest

#BlackGirlLuxury, with 68.8 million views on TikTok, has been influential in inspiring many young black women to aspire for all good things that they are passionate about and claim it boldly.

My first exposure to and immediate love for luxury living began with Jackie Aina’s online presence and bold affirmations encouraging me as a Black woman to confidently choose myself and treat myself with good things and overall a good and prosperous life that is genuine and free to me.

Now, I never saw Jackie’s luxurious lifestyle outside the context of her career as a renowned Beauty Youtuber and cosmetologist with over a million subscribers. I would watch her luxury videos with caution, reminding myself that if I went along and buy her recommended perfumes or skincare products (because Jackie could recommend me anything and I’d buy instantly because of how credible and honest I find her reviews), I’d be making poor spending choices because my income bracket does not match the prices of recommended products.

Nonetheless, I’d still aspire and look forward to a life of luxury, and having Jackie’s recommendations as a forever resource helps me be patient with my journey to that lifestyle. But Jackie’s online luxurious presence isn’t the only motivation for me.

Skylar Marshai’s travel content and all-around creative lifestyle encourage me to boldly aspire to live a life I truly want: to travel and enjoy the diversity of many cultures and cherish the support of loving relationships throughout the journey.

I can talk about my favorite luxurious creatives all day, but my issue isn’t with them or the new wave of Black women finally being in their bag and claiming what’s theirs in their luxurious lives. My concern is with the unintended consequences of the black girl luxury lifestyle being excessively promoted as a trend.

A few weeks ago, I came across a TikTok video where a woman inquired from #BlackGirlLuxuryTikTok (paraphrased): “what do y’all do for a living?”. Her video was then stitched with a video response by a Black woman who mentioned that she works as a Cardio Sonographer.

Another Black woman stitched her video response to the inquiry, mentioning that she worked in Tech.

I appreciate many women being transparent about the work they do and the income they earn behind the scenes of their aesthetically pleasing lifestyles.

So, what’s the issue?

In the comment section of these TikToks are women willing to take on these career prospects simply because they want a luxurious lifestyle and because this trend has unfortunately portrayed an aesthetic and expensive way of living as the symbol of true worth, simplicity, and happiness.

Here’s the thing. There’s ABSOLUTELY NOTHING wrong about a Black woman being in her bag. It’s about time we have more Black women recognizing their worth and going after what they want and, most significantly, spending money on themselves! I also love how this lifestyle is becoming more accessible to all Black women regardless of wealth status. We’re surrounded by women who have made it and are now blessing us with the advice we need to thrive.

But this luxurious way of living has been skyrocketed and worshipped to the point that it has become a worldwide trend. And when lifestyles become trends, we see people doing whatever it takes to profit off of it, often at the expense of others.

As #BlackGirlLuxury grows as a trend, I began seeing videos on how to achieve this luxurious lifestyle on a “budget.” In such videos, creators recommend buying expensive-looking products and gadgets at low prices from Amazon in order to achieve the perception of luxury. Now, we are no longer interested in real luxury, but rather the perception of it — how aesthetically pleasing it looks.

To be clear, there’s nothing wrong with wanting an aesthetically pleasing apartment or environment in general. WHat’s toxic about this push to live luxuriously on a budget is that it subconsciously appeals to consumerism and unhealthy spending habits — all for a lifestyle that appears to be a sign of success and worth.

We then see this consumerism manifested in how videos with the hashtags #backgirlluxury would feature women with outfits that look expensive but are mostly sponsored by Shein, Fashonnova, and other fast fashion brands. This consumerism and over-investment in fast fashion brands and delivery services like Amazon for the sake of a highlight reel or perception of wealth by social media’s standards grossly impact lower-income communities (who have individuals dependent on working for these companies for little to no money and harsh working conditions) the most. And the majority of those impacted in these communities are women of color.

Another consequence of this unhealthy pressure to be on #BlackGirlLuxuryTiktok is that it creates a negative feedback loop between us and the workforce.

In light of the global pandemic in 2020, a lot of workers boldly resigned from their places of work in order to actively not dream of labor and pursue a life that truly brought happiness and abundance. This wave against the capitalist structure of the US inspired many YouTubers to talk about breaking free from the chains of capitalism with the title “I don’t dream of Labor” or “I don’t have a dream job”. In this trend on YouTube, I came across a YouTuber who simply desired to work as a barrister and recommended readings to help foster a larger conversation about pursuing our dreams outside the boundaries of capitalism.

With this new revolutionary approach to pursue our passions and not merely a paycheck, we are confronted with more videos on how we can have it all and encouragements to develop an abundance-mentality. But once this aspiration for abundance and freedom from capitalism began to have an aesthetic and pictures and videos of these revolutionary lives showcase them as easy and ideal, we then find ourselves more attracted to how easy and freeing such a lifestyle is for those with the privilege to live that way and are thus pressured to consider careers that we might not necessarily like but because of the pay may guarantee us the abundant and luxurious lives that are marketed to us via social media.

See the pattern?

We can go on about wanting a lifestyle that’s real, fulfilling, abundant and authentic. But until we really step out of the trends and unconscious bias towards the physical appearance of a good life and really ask ourselves if taking on certain career paths with a whole new set of workload and burdens that we aren’t called to take on is worth living a life that at the end of the day is merely nice for a Pinterest mood-board.

Yes, think outside the boundaries of capitalism and dare to aspire for a life and career that has meaning. But also be mindful that success and achievements (capitalist-driven or not) requires a lot of hard work and responsibility. So, it’s not enough to simply switch to Tech or Medicine or Youtube or Content Creation to have financial support for your dream life. It’s about being inspired by Black women and other people living in luxury and abundance while giving yourself the freedom to decide and be patient with what a luxurious and abundant lifestyle will look like for you.

We can have it all. But at the end of the day, we are all different and need to give ourselves to step out of the boundaries of trends and freely aspire for the lives we want to live, bearing in mind that we will need to sweat for it nonetheless.