What do you do when you have a particularly rewarding day at the mall and come home with bags full of “amazing” purchases? Well, if you’ve got a webcam and a need for validation from strangers, you sit in front of your computer and describe each and every item to an anonymous Internet audience. And that makes you a “haul” vlogger.
It’s unfortunate that this trend is considered the natural progression of the personal-style blogging phenomenon that’s taken over the Internet. I’d hate to think that something as beautiful and artful as the Sartorialist has devolved into this. Watching some mall rat unload bag after bag of Forever 21 trash is not what personal style is all about and it’s not all the entertaining. Unless you’re the type of person who finds car wrecks entertaining. These haul videos are just examples of consumerism without editing. They are virtual car wrecks. If you want to be truly inspired by style check out sites like Weardrobe or Lulu Letty.
It scares me that nearly 600,000 people went on Youtube and viewed the 10-minute-long haul video of some girl (showing off her little doggie like a Coach purse) sitting in her pink bedroom shoving chintzy shirts and mini skirts into the lens of her webcam. Do you really want to take style advice from some spoiled daddy’s girl who looks like every other girl trolling the local mall drinking a lemonade from Hot Dog on a Stick and carrying that unmistakable yellow Forever 21 bag?
These haul videos are the fashion equivalent of fast food. Mass-produced, cheap and momentarily filling, but lacking all nutritional value.
get over it
To be perfectly honest we’re pretty confused… but that’s not preventing us from capitalizing on the phenonmenon. Well… poking fun at it anyways!
We recently spun up http://www.HaulBlog.com where we create parody haul videos that mock the ridiculous trend. In addition to our parodies, we have also developed and produce a monthly web series called “The Haul Monitor” where we feature and offer humourous commentary on actual videos in the community.