LogFAQs > #979701851

josh posted...

OK, I'll chalk it down to cultural differences. You don't get that here in Australia, at least in my circles.

That's a relatively recent development, probably actually mostly catalyzed by social media. For many, many years, the diamond industry has worked to disparage synthetic diamonds to artificially inflate demand for natural ones, despite the fact that synthetics have been on par with natural ones for much, much longer than many people realize. That's one of the things that's been openly challenged by millennials on social media, though, a movement that's been able to spread faster than corporate propaganda can keep up with and basically result in a generation with significantly less interest in natural diamonds than any previous one (jadedness that has been passed on to subsequent generations). Granted, a huge part of that is also just millennials being largely screwed by the state of the economy they've inherited and having to be a lot choosier about their luxuries as a result, such that "shiny rock that's expensive for no reason" was obviously going to be one of the first on the chopping block.