Teenage youtuber showing off their back to school haul                                                                      Just Jordyn

Back-to-School, Back-to-Buying

BY JUSTIN WANG

SEPTEMBER 14, 2026, 8:00 A.M.

In b2b (back to back), Charli XCX employs repetition in the lyrics of the song to represent the inevitability of repetition: one cycle ends and another begins. Back to school shopping has its own version of b2b: back to school, back to the mall, back to TikTok, and back to buying.

Back to school shopping has increasingly become less about preparing for the school year and more about keeping up with the latest aesthetics, trends, and expectations promoted online. Sophomore Lindsey Chau believes social media plays a significant role in this shift.

“Due to the prevalence of overconsumption among adolescents and the subconscious fear of falling behind, I think social media influences what students buy to a rather excessive degree,” Chau said.

The pressure to keep up can turn products, never originally considered, into apparent necessities. Junior Laura Sisule argues that social media has promoted consumerism of a lot of unnecessary items  to fit the new aesthetic of the year.”

For Sisule, the distinction between preparation and overconsumption is crossed when students begin buying things simply because they saw them online. She recalls seeing back-to-school hauls containing enough notebooks and stationary to last more than two school years.

“I have definitely bought agendas and notebooks that were unnecessary but bought because [they were] cute,” Sisule says. 

The problem with back-to-school shopping is not buying something new. Eventually, “back to school” becomes “back to buying” again and again.