In any space, in any industry, there are knock-offs. Spencer Gifts and Thrift stores, Quatar Airlines and Spirit Airlines, my ex and whatever loser she decided to go with. A cheap substitute is something that almost every business faces. And the diamond industry, those rich-fucks? Well, it was just a matter of time before some jabroni figured out that you can create diamonds to almost a complete replica without having child slaves dig it out of the mud. We truly have lost the any semblance of a proper society. Enter Diamonds the brick-weed years. De Beers and others got the good stuff, but Jimmy from down the street has stuff that looks like De Beers but at a fraction of the cost and in a greater quantity.
The demand for diamonds has faded amongst consumers, mainly in China, but really around the globe. The society and consumer demand has turned to things like travel or food. Which is disgusting, because no one wants to hear about Grandma’s trip to Puerto Rico, no, we want that old bag to die so we can slip that giant rock off her finger and then we can pawn it for drugs, aka the American Way. With a shift in demand and the advent of lab-grown diamonds, the prices of these child labor rocks has also decreased by 5.7% just this year alone. If these prices continue to decline billionaires in the diamond industry are facing issues like how the hell are they going to afford their next yacht??!?! Have you ever thought of that? No because your selfish.
Now industry experts are blaming the decline on a few things. Mainly (trump voice) China, a lack of significant marketing in the product space, and of course the rise of lab-grown diamonds. The demand for a real diamond still holds for some, but others with a “moral compass” or whatever the fuck that is have specifically gone to lab-grown diamonds to avoid being wrapped up in the controversies that plague the diamond industry mainly the one that everyone is calling child-slaves. So big companies like DeBeers have to either continue fighting the new-wave consumerism or hop on and ride.
If DeBeers or Anglo American (great name for a company that does a majority of their business in Africa) start going full steam ahead on lab-grown they will ultimately be killing off any customer base that wants the real rocks, the ones with a child’s blood on it. However, a shift in focus could also help them solidify their company as the go-to diamond company whether it be lab grown or… home grown? Is that the term I should use? Anyway, a company like DeBeers going all lab-ey wouldn’t be the end of the world but certainly the end to a 100-year practice. God aren’t traditions great?
Either way the diamond industry is getting a wake-up call. Some companies will drag their feet, others will follow profit, but the dumb consumer will continue to buy a rock to symbolize that the person wearing the rock is theirs and theirs alone. Kind of like when people used to own peop—…. Never mind. The world is changing and so are the diamonds. Anyway, that’s my take on it until next time. --GS
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