In various example embodiments, a system and method for managing media bandwidth usage are disclosed. One disclosed method includes determining a network connection state of a computing device, receiving a request that requests media content, altering the request to request a synthetic representation of the media content instead of the media content in response to the network connection state being one of a set of predefined network connection states and the media content violating one or more restrictions of the network connection state, and requesting the media content in response to a user selecting the synthetic representation.