From Overconsumption to Outrage Consumption
It is not controversial to say that much of TikTok’s beauty, fashion, and lifestyle culture is unrealistic. The endless hauls, routines, and “must‑have” products train the eye to desire without rest. Scripture names this danger plainly. Jesus warns, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions” (Luke 12:15). Desire is not neutral. It shapes us, often more than we realize.
Overconsumption forms habits of comparison, restlessness, and fear of missing out. Scripture recognized this long before social media existed. “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man” (Proverbs 27:20). On this point, criticism of influencer culture is not only reasonable—it’s necessary.
Overconsumption Was Only the Beginning
There is, however, another economy at work alongside TikTok’s excess, one we are far less willing to examine. The culture of commentary that critiques influencers often presents itself as corrective, even altruistic. But it is sustained by the same forces: attention, repetition, outrage, and reward. It does not stand outside the system. It feeds on it.
What begins as discernment frequently hardens into contempt.
When critique becomes its own form of entertainment, the goal quietly shifts. It is no longer clarity. It is the satisfaction of being morally above someone else, publicly.
How Outrage Became the Product
- Mikayla Nogueira publicly admitted feeling as though she had “lost herself,” only to have highly‑liked comments dismiss her pain as fake, mock her accent, and turn vulnerability into a joke. Once labeled disingenuous, nothing she said could be received as sincere.
- Becca Bloom, wealthy long before becoming visible online, drew a different kind of hostility. Comments fixated on the quality of her dog’s food, the expense of her wedding invitations, and the price-tag associated with her jewelry, expressing disgust and moral panic at the mere existence of inherited wealth.
- A common refrain appears beneath these videos: that anyone with significant resources is morally obligated to divest themselves of them entirely, or else forfeit the right to sympathy, credibility, or interior struggle.
What strikes me here is not disagreement, but disqualification. Pain becomes performance. Interior life is ruled inadmissible evidence.
Scripture cautions against this posture directly. “Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). And again, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another?” (Romans 14:4).
The Moral Formation of Online Critique
Scripture is unambiguous in its concern for the poor (Proverbs 14:31; Matthew 25:40). It is equally clear that wealth itself is not a moral offense. Abraham, Job, Lydia, and Joseph of Arimathea are all described as wealthy without condemnation (Genesis 13:2; Job 1:3; Acts 16:14–15; Matthew 27:57).
What Scripture condemns is posture, not possession: the love of money (1 Timothy 6:9–10), false security (Luke 12:19–21), and indifference toward need (James 2:15–16).
Over time, I’ve noticed how easily justice language can slide into resentment. Disgust, fear, and moral superiority creep in, and Scripture gives us a name for that dynamic. “A tranquil heart gives life to the flesh, but envy makes the bones rot” (Proverbs 14:30). Envy does not disappear simply because it borrows the language of fairness.
Correction aimed at restoration looks very different from punishment dressed up as clarity. Paul is explicit: “If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness” (Galatians 6:1). Gentleness is not optional.
Discernment should make us more humane, not less. It should slow our speech, soften our judgments, and remind us that no one is reducible to their worst online moment. When critique leaves no room for transformation, it stops serving truth and starts feeding the crowd.
If our critiques cannot imagine grace, then we are not resisting a broken system. We are simply recreating it—only this time with better language and cleaner hands.