Like every elder millennial, I aspire to live in an apartment that looks like it could be on the cover of Kinfolk, only to fuck it all up because I can’t resist purchasing cushions that look like slices of dragonfruit.
When I was living in Beijing, I remember going to Ikea and being floored by how aggressively people would evaluate the merch before deciding to buy it. They’d hop up and down on stools, kick tables at the legs, slam cabinet doors over and over again. Never had I seen somebody be so methodical about buying a $10 Lack table. Maybe it’s the byproduct of growing up in country where virtually all cheap things are made. You come to expect things to break, even if they look like they won’t. You’ve seen too many shiny things turn into heaps of garbage to trust something by how it looks on the showroom floor.
If you want to experience a nice little mindfuck, join me in watching BBC’s Century of Self back to back with that new Marie Kondo show on Netflix. The former is an expose on Edward Bernays, who has been credited with splicing democracy with capitalism (#goals, right?). He transformed America (and then the rest of the world) into a society that procures materials based on want as opposed to need. Because of him, humans no longer bring life to objects – objects bring life to humans. He convinced corporations and governments to communicate how material possessions are methods of self-expression, that the things we use, wear, eat, are seen around, helps us convey who we truly are. By doing so, he jumpstarted the industries of public relations, fashion, and luxury – on the premise that these things once reserved for the elite were now democratized.
The latter is a show about average Americans who need a lady to come over from Japan to teach them how to get rid of their unmanageable amount of junk.
The Kondo show seems to indirectly respond to the conclusions that one would draw upon watching Century of Self. I inevitably end with “I need to get rid of my shit!” and proceed to convince myself that I’m being less of a materialist by obsessing over every single object I own. But the problem isn’t material objects, but rather the dollar value placed on things – whether material or ephemeral. I live amidst a generation of “experiences over objects,” which has left a bunch of industrial-era fields in the dust, while propelling tourism, digital assets, and the monetizing of self and others. “Doing it for the gram” is the new form of a shopping spree, and I’ve been trying to catch myself when I pull out my wallet with the thought of “treat yo self” or “you deserve it” in the back of my head. Yes, I talked about this a year ago, yes, it’s still a struggle.
The problem I’ve found with my own relationship with so-called materialism is that it’s still based on a vision of material objects that’s been marketed to me. It’s not completely unhelpful to go about shopping based on quality and longevity over desire to acquire more and more – but I’m not sure our society has had proper training against our own materialistic impulses to go about this methodically. I end up falling into the trap of sometimes buying more expensive, minimalist-looking things, tossing away useful objects that don’t “spark joy” in the moment, but still not getting to the heart of why the acquisition and spending of money gives me such a high.
Whenever I flip through an issue of Kinfolk or Dwell, or some other publication that romanticizes the idea of living inside a MoMA gallery in the forest, I end up realizing how difficult and expensive it would be for me to live that lifestyle. I also realize that, as someone who works in museums everyday, I really really really don’t want to call one home.