Ejercicio Grupo B - 6 · Inglés PAU Canarias Junio (Humanidades) 2024

GRUPO B

The cost of living crisis has generated a very different kind of social media star

For Yash Jayachandran, a 23-year-old psychology master’s student and podcaster from Brisbane

(Australia), admitting that she couldn’t afford shampoo any more was the hardest thing. It wasn’t that Yash

Jayachandran couldn’t buy shampoo. Technically, she could. But at what cost to the rest of her budget?

Jayachandran, for example, stopped buying fresh fruit or going out to bars to see her friends – drinks were

5 too expensive, as were the taxis home afterwards –.

On average, Jayachandran worked 60 hours a week. And yet she couldn’t afford to buy shampoo or fresh

fruit. This was the reality of her life as a student in the 36 th most expensive city in the world during a global

cost of living crisis, and Jayachandran wanted to share it.

So she picked up her phone, opened TikTok and began filming. Her videos, explaining the things she had

10 to give up due to the cost of living crisis, went viral. “I was embarrassed to admit these things to someone,”

Jayachandran says, “but as a society, I think the best way to deal with feelings of shame and doubt is to

talk about it.”

Other creators, as TikTok users are known, began responding with their own videos on cost of living

cutbacks: no more makeup, skincare, takeaways or eating out. Austerity influencing, however, is not just

15 about surviving from one month to the next. All of these TikTok creators urge their followers to manage

their budgets so they can afford non-essential purchases that are important to them.

After Jayachandran’s video went viral, she posted a follow-up, highlighting the things she refused to give

up like her gym membership or gifts for friends, which were non-negotiable. But in prioritising her

purchases, she raised controversy. Her followers have criticised her for going to the gym. It is the same

20 logic that castigates low-income people who have smartphones, flat screen TVs or tattoos.

In reality, renouncing all worldly pleasures will not solve the cost of living crisis. Nevertheless, this story

persists. “People often criticise those with low income for having an iPhone, whereas wealthy people who

spend money on questionable things aren’t held to the same standards,” said Jayachandran.

Not all this is new. Low-income people have regularly faced hard decisions about where to spend their

25 money. What is new is the context of these TikTokers, a world where everything is more expensive, not

only for young people but for people in well-paid professions who, until recently, were not struggling.

Therefore, the austerity influencers of TikTok are not merely helping us save a few Euros; they are inviting

us to ask ourselves what makes life worth living and find a little room in our budgets for that.

Fragment adapted from The Guardian, September 2023

6. WRITE a composition of about 120-150 words on the following topic:

[3 points]

Write an email to Yash Jayachandran telling her what you think about the role TikTokers play in society.