Last week, Temu sent a message to our Instagram. They wanted to know whether we'd be interested in colloborating in exchange for items and paid, boosted reels - a boosted reel is a video that Instagram pushes out to a greater reach of people. How much would we charge, they asked?

Of course, we threw a huge figure on it, because we knew we didn't want to advertise for Temu. Child labour? Cheap, disposable goods? Copycat items that infringe on artist's rights? Poor treatment of their business partners? Ruthless advertising? Nope. Our moral compass was not ever going to let us shop Temu.

'We charge $1000 per reel', we said, knowing full well that they'd decline, and even then, we wouldn't say yes. 'We won't advertise sub quality goods or goods we aren't happy with'.

Temu countered and said they could offer $150 for two reels, boosted, with a bio link to Shop Temu on our profile for two weeks. We could also choose the items we wanted.

Thankfully, we didn't need any of the items - I mean, it's tempting, isn't it? Free goods and a bit of cash? I can see why people do it. Personally, we didn't think anything was worth selling our soul.

There's a dark side to consumerism that many of us are aware of, but choose to ignore because of convenience and comforting our desires for things, which is mostly fed by advertising that makes us believe these things will make us happy.

The opposite is true, and I think many of us know this deep down. Less is more, always. Quality is better, always. Environmental cost is important, always.

Huge monopolies like Temu should not be winning over our desires, ever.