The psychology behind a dupe, an affordable imitation of a high-end product, is simple: would you rather pay $58 for a Skims shirt, a loungewear and shapewear brand created by Kim Kardashian, when you can get it for $12 on Amazon? The dupe industry survives on the false notion that no one will notice the difference, and if they do, they will be surprised by how much money was saved. Instead of spending more than $1,000 on Balenciaga shoes, you could get sneakers from Target that have the same “I found these at a trash dump” appearance. For some, the win is being able to smugly boast that they’re “just like Balenciagas but for $19.99.”
TikTok has created a dupe-hunting war with content creators screaming, “BEST LULULEMON DUPE!!!” and a link to a poorly-stitched, polyester, non-elastic leggings that disintegrate after two squats. Everyone knows the code words “link in bio” and “linked in my Amazon storefront,” which creators use to point viewers towards shopping links and affiliate pages. Lately, people have started to flex with phrases like, “everything I own is FAKE,” as if treating the idea of authentic items as trash, and no longer has value. Genuine products are no longer status symbols to them; instead, they prove you were gullible enough to pay full price, mocking those who buy the “real” versions.
However, here’s the twist: dupes keep products alive and relevant. Skims wasn’t on every teenager’s wish list until Shein started making knockoff Skims like they were In-N-Out burgers. Suddenly, owning “the real thing” became aspirational, not because people wanted the product, but because the flood of dupes made it a universally recognized brand.
But beneath the hype, the dupe economy is not cute, nor is it sustainable. It’s not a revolutionary Gen Z money hack- it’s an industry built on exploitation. Each $12 Skims lookalike comes at a hidden cost. Dupes drive the fast-fashion system, which relies on cheap and unsustainable production methods. To achieve low prices, factories use garment workers with low wages, poor and unsafe working conditions, and excessively long hours, just to satisfy consumers’ materialism. The cycle of exploitation goes like this: a designer releases an original item, fast fashion companies spot the trend and quickly copy the design, manufacturers cut costs with low-cost labor and low-quality materials, social media influencers promote the cheap, accessible “dupe,” and consumers, attracted by affordability purchase the dupe without realizing the ethical costs involved. The result? The original designer loses sales and creative credit, while the fast fashion company profits from exploitation. By valuing cheap and fast imitation over originality, the dupe economy punishes creative and slow fashion cultures.
The real danger isn’t poor stitching: it’s the decreasing value. If everything is a dupe, then nothing is original. Everyone’s closets become museums of “fake but real” items. When you purchase a dupe, you’re not beating capitalism; you’re feeding it. These items fall apart fast, get thrown out, and end up in landfills, poisoning the environment while you chase your next “must-have dupe”. Dupes drive mass overconsumption and fast fashion which leads to massive textile waste, CO2 emissions, water, and soil pollution. Counterfeit clothes or goods can also contain hazardous materials which contaminate the ecosystem and directly harm wildlife.
Dupes are rip-offs of the designer’s ideas, which become uglier, flimsier forms of the original. The dupe mindset teaches us that nothing has real value; if every item has a cheaper copy, then people stop caring about quality. Why invest in a piece that lasts five years if you can buy five dupes that each last a month?
In the end, dupes disintegrate culture. Owning something unique doesn’t matter anymore when someone can fake it for a few bucks. Fashion was supposed to be self-expression, but now it has become about how convincingly you can cosplay as wealthy. So next time TikTok screams at you about the ultimate dupe, remember that what seems like a bargain is really just a trap.