Chinesium is a term used in the West for low-quality products, especially given its association with China. However it should be noted that the reason for the low quality is because demand has outpaced supply thanks to consumerism and planned obsolescence. Manufacturing large amounts of high quality goods is both unfeasable and unsustainable when it comes to profit making as the products will be kept longer and will have to be obsolete in one way or another. As such they have deliberately downgraded the quality in order to save costs and manufacture more thus meeting this artificially high demand. A culture of frugality produces quality.
The association with China comes from so many companies outsourcing to Chinese sweatshops, allowing for prices to be lower than ever. In fact, had China not opened up to the world, we would not see Shein/Temu hauls - something I am more than happy to get rid of.
Just revisited the topic. Turns out this phenomenon has always existed long before Chinesium itself became a term.
i think the word is a response to the complete evaporation of steel jobs in america. it’s hard to see your job go away and see your same product appear on the market at a lesser quality, even if there might be reasons for that lower quality.
But I mean, yk what they say, 90% of all internet is shit and I guess the same applies with globalized commodities being described as such…
You can think of em as an early phenomenon in its exercise of mass industry by China through its historical era of reform and opening up
Where I live no one says that anymore: they know damn well where their MacBooks & iPhones come from. Anyone who still says it must have sleepwalked through the last thirty years.
The thing I think people don’t think about is it’s really expensive to change your manufacturing process. The transition overseas isn’t just about labor costs, but because you are rebuilding the factory anyways it’s a chance to switch over to a cheaper manufacturing method. You get what you pay for and cheaper methods tend to have cut corners. You can buy high end stuff from China, it’s not like iphones are made there or anything…
There’s a reactionary QBC youtuber, AvE who mostly disassembles power tools and examines the quality of construction, components, and manufacturing methods. He has a teardown of a “Juciero” the $1000 juicer with DRM which is how I found him. He whines about “Chinesium” in the Chinese manufactured tool brands but there’s other “American made” tools on his channel using similar lower-end manufacturing techniques or cutting similar corners.
