Aspiration Hacking

I really didn’t want to write about this. It feels like taking some bad faith bait while trying to jump on the current Zeitgeist gold rush. But then it took over my whole weekend and now here we are.

If you haven’t seen it yet, Wal-Mart dropped a Birkin “dupe” that created an internet flurry. The perfect intersection of viral TikTok unboxing, last second Christmas gift hype, and a NOS-Boost to the Thinkpiece Industrial Complex™ (your boy included). And while the bag was technically sold by the brand we all definitely know, “Kamugo” through their marketplace, it’s a solid indictment on the wild west nature of the billion-dollar marketplace model as well as the state of aspirational status symbols and consumers’ appetite for them.

Let’s dig in.