Hayley DeRoche

And I mean, I fell into that myself when my kids were little.

There was like a wrap that I so desperately wanted and it was just impossible to find and it became like my white whale.

And it's like, did it matter in the end?

No, but it felt good to like find something and want it and seek it and have some sort of purpose in the midst of the chaos of parenting, which isn't necessarily a class signifier.

But I do understand why people kind of latch on to things that they can control.

And image is a big one.

I do think yes, to a certain degree.

I also wonder if there's some greenwashing going on there, where if you have toys that are very natural colors, even if they're plastic, they're less likely to call attention to themselves as like plastic junk.

Have you, now that you've wanted the sad beige stacking cups for your rabbit, have you considered what preschool you'll be sending them to?

Because there may be a six to seven year wait list and the tuition is going to be six times more than you thought.

I think it kind of goes back to signaling, if not class, then a specific lifestyle.

And especially when you're looking at a lot of influencers being the ones to really drive that, then

they have an aesthetic that they have to have because that's really all you have going for you online.

Like image is everything when you're an influencer and your main platform is image-based.

So latching onto the kind of the prairie, the simplicity, the homestead vibe is very beige, if not beige adjacent, because it is kind of that same like homespun look.

And so I think that there's that at play as well, where like,

People want to look, whether it's eco-friendly or of a certain class or of a certain aesthetic that's tied to, like, a lifestyle.

The image is really more important than how that item came to be, if that makes sense.

Like, there are some beige clothing and toy companies that are very ethical and are doing things in a slow way.

But there are just as many that are, you know, on Shein.