More Is More: The End of Minimalism
thewalrus.ca
thewalrus.ca
Same thing with minimalist lives, ideally!
This is a very shallow heuristic. “Stuff you’ll need over a lifetime” has a very long tail that requires a balance in trade-off between just-in-time availability vs waiting two days of Amazon shipping; throwing things away once done vs inventorying them at home etc.
Turns out one is particularly shitty for the environment while being revitalizing for the current economy; throw-away-ism is not feasible at the planet scale; there is only so much raw material you can extract and process without paying attention to recyclability, very little of which is factored into pricing.
“The true minimalism” would be a lifestyle change that minimized throw-awayism too, while the popular minimalism is a petite bourgeois fashion that hinges on it.
A good example to this ideal is ISS; it looks cluttered but that's as good as a minimalist space can get when you have to inventory everything you'll need locally and have true constraints on bringing in useless mass of materials onboard.
(for some items, perhaps - and communal item libraries don't necessarily solve the waiting-time concern, sure)
I think this is a misquote of Marie Kondo. She says to get rid of things that don't spark joy. It's just permission and encouragement to part ways with things that you keep around but never use or enjoy.
So the $61 paperweight isn't a contradiction at all, not if it's owner really likes it. Especially if it replaces two other things that they didn't really care about.
So after throwing everything out, people now buy new stuff ? Great trick, great for the planet, slow clap!
You can chick away half your things but your home could still look cluttered and ‘terrible’.
Just as predictable is the sneering and shaming of such behavior, decrying it as shallow etc. by people who can't keep up with this, or dislike the game. Then the most effective way to counter it is to make it about morality, to feel pride in not keeping up etc. But that won't solve anything, the fad may even temporarily follow that: see billionaires dressing in "normcore", rich people feeling kinda embarrassed by being seen rich. However there is still a big difference in Zuckerberg's normcore and the average person wearing cheap clothes. Just as there 8s a huge difference between a rich minimalist and a person whose apartment is almost empty because he can't afford to furnish it properly.
Admitting caring about status is itself low status.
Which cities is this most common/prominent in?
There are better signals of this than stuff in one’s house. For example, the location and recent sale price of comparable homes, which is public information. Or one’s source of income, hobbies, and travel.
There's individual differences of course. Some people will live their entire life in a house that never changes, and like it that way. Others get bored and restless or a feeling of being trapped if they don't change their surroundings every two years. Most people are somewhere in between.
As for the sourpusses, I agree: they are predictable and boring. Unfortunately, also very prevalent on social media.
Or perhaps your guests just genuinely like the décor, and aren't playing some 4D Slytherin chess game. Some people just don't play the social signalling game.
Disliking the game means you don't like it. It's not interesting.
This can go awry very fast if done with less care, but then again, so can a minimalist room. Minimalist rooms can quickly start to look like a chipboard warehouse if no care is take to prevent it.
Of course, it helps immensely that this room has no "life clutter" in it. Imagine adding a few discarded Amazon boxes waiting to be recycled...
I was with a significant other once who had really similar tastes as me, but we differed a lot in our buying preferences. They were a lot more maximalist, and I was more minimalist. I went along with many their purchases because I did like the stuff after all, and loved them, but I noticed over time we were much more likely to get rid of the items they wanted, the "maximalist" items, and keep the stuff that was more minimalist. It wasn't just because we kept what I wanted either -- they got tired of it and wanted to change it for something else. The minimalist stuff they didn't initially see as exciting or interesting, but they also never got tired of it.
Minimalism isn't just about reducing unnecessary stuff in some sort of purity ritual, it's about learning and focusing on what consistently and reliably works for you emotionally and functionally. Simple tends to work well a lot of the time, and even though it's not as fun and novel, it tends to stay loved. In this regard, I think something can be minimalist if it reflects something that will work for you over the long run, that you won't get tired of and will last.
Get to the point, provide value, readers can get hold of millions of novels if they want to read descriptive storie, and with a well crafted plot coming from authors who work on stories.
Personally I only read the first few paragraphs before closing the page.
Anyway, I upvoted it because it offers something interesting which I was not aware of, and made me curious as to its change.
(I didn't downvote you, but I assume it's because the comment doesn't really add anything. The complaint isn't that constructive, and is not aimed at the right people. I think most of the people here can figure out how to read which includes determining it they should continue reading something, and not fall into the sunk-cost fallacy of "I atarted reading this, so I have to finish.")
IMO it’s unlikely to be featured in interface design as I’m sure past the branding advantage, it’s just bad for accessibility.
Then we had apps and webapps. People loved them. They had no keyboard shortcuts, no menus, “tab” didn’t lead anywhere, colors were not uniform, concepts neither, and “usability” meant “fewer functions”. There was no way to write on your resume that you were expert at any of them. And they replaced each other fast.
Let’s hope we’ll reinvent advanced user interfaces.
I call BS. Consumer culture is a cancer; best to excise it.
Let's say, hypothetically, that Big Consumer Culture wanted to Give You Permission To Buy Stuff, does it seem like this is the venue and manner they'd use to present this idea? The article discusses coverage of minimalist house makeovers as fueling the minimalism they think is in decline: wouldn't the people trying to push consumer culture use the same coverage of maximalist house makeovers more effectively than a small long-form essay in a Canadian literary magazine? Wouldn't they have a thing they want to sell? Wouldn't there be graphics or pictures or video engagement? Wouldn't it be attached to some kind of promotion?
It's sort of hard to unpack the who, what, when, where, how of your pitch here.
The modern propagandist therefore sets to work to create circumstances which will modify that custom. He appeals perhaps to the home instinct which is fundamental. He will endeavor to develop public acceptance of the idea of a music room in the home. This he may do, for example, by organizing an exhibition of period music rooms designed by well known decorators who themselves exert an influence on the buying groups... Then, in order to create dramatic interest in the exhibit, he stages an event or ceremony. To this ceremony key people, persons known to influence the buying habits of the public, such as a famous violinist, a popular artist, and a society leader, are invited. These key persons affect other groups, lifting the idea of the music room to a place in the public consciousness which it did not have before... Meanwhile, influential architects have been persuaded to make the music room an integral architectural part of their plans with perhaps a specially charming niche in one corner for the piano. Less influential architects will as a matter of course imitate what is done by the men whom they consider masters of their profession. They in turn will implant the idea of the music room in the mind of the general public.
The music room will be accepted because it has been made the thing. And the man or woman who has a music room, or has arranged a corner of the parlor as a musical corner, will naturally think of buying a piano. It will come to him as his own idea."
-Edward Bernays, Propaganda
This quote summarises the true intention - buying stuff makes you happy. We all get a kick out of this but that is not going to provide lasting happiness.
As others have pointed out, minimalism isn’t about the number of things you own. And in a way, if you’re “minimalistic” you are also “materialistic” - truly caring about the things you own.
Today, I’m donating a bunch of clothes that still fit me but I don’t wear them anymore. It doesn’t even take up much space but I feel like I’m shedding weight.
Pretty much no one would consider my home minimalist, with my whole living room to the brim with lego and spaceship posters and plants and flowers, but I would buy them a new if they weren’t there, and there’s not a single thing in there that doesn’t make me feel better.
Like most things in life, “minimalist” it’s just a tag, a label because people like to form tribes.
What I do do tho is just keep things tidy. Dispose or donate things I don’t need anymore. Limit my material purchases to art I appreciate all the time and tools I use all the time. I just feel cleaner spiritually for it.
I can't see any other point you are making.
To me, being an adult who has to plaster their rooms in printed images of children's toys to have a sense of well being sounds like a version of hell but I don't care much that you do it because I don't have to ever go inside your house.
So, I'm happy you like your Lego posters. I don't think many minimalists are too bummed out at the concept that some person somewhere likes a bunch of posters.
But it's not much of a critique of minimalism in general.
> maximalism: our homes should be places full of stuff that sparks joy!
I'm no expert on interior design but that seems to be the same thing. Minimalism was co-opted by the very consumerism it initially criticized, with corporations telling us that we need more (white, square, lifeless) stuff. If your room only has a ornamental bed your inherited from your great-grandparents and a thrifted wardrobe in it, i would still consider that minimalist
In the limit, moderation and maximalism are identical. Half of infinity is infinity.
I also just don’t have the willpower to deal with their screaming and crying when I toss toys or donate them. Our youngest daughter is special needs in a wheelchair and can literally die if she gets too upset.
Honestly writing this has made me resolve to fill some boxes and donate some stuff to Goodwill. I’ll just have to do it at night when they’re asleep or something. I wish I was as good a parent as I am an engineer.
From the information in your comment you seem like a great parent to me. Or maybe you are just a good parent, but an exceptionally great engineer ;)
You seem to be perfectly aware of things you need to take into consideration. And you have even come to a solution. Sometimes things are just hard, but that doesn't say anything about your parenting abilities.
The good thing about minimalism is there is a nearby limit - zero. Not so with maximalism.
Apparently the dominance of fluff journalistic pieces, describing meaningless trends nobody really cares about [1], however, is not over...
[1] Both Kondo's method and minimalism is a 5%-of-the-population endeavor at most, mostly for Bo-Hos and the top/upper middle class those journalists belong or try to get to.