Consumerism is getting out of hand

Sometimes I come across things that really bring out the Tyler Durden in me. Not that I have ever been tempted to organize gangs or stage public acts of vandalism or blow up credit card company headquarters or anything like that. But sometimes our society's obsession with buying stuff makes me sigh.

In searching through various deal-of-the-day websites (if you don't know what they are, they are exactly what they sound like), I came across a website called ThingFling. I don't know if they do this every day, but today they were offering a "mystery box" for $123. Yeah, you pay $123 and you get... something. It could be that new plasma TV you wanted, but it could also be a set of novelty melon ballers or something.

I guess one could argue that this makes sense. Maybe it has to do with marketing, or economics. But I couldn't look at this ill conceived Vegas-Walmart lovechild without rolling my eyes.

I'm not here to say whether having a lot of stuff is good or bad. I know people who like to have a lot of stuff and don't mind moving it around, finding nooks and crannies to store it in, etc. I also know people (well, at least this one guy I read on the internet) who advocate living with minimal stuff (by the way, he has his own definition of "stuff" which doesn't include, among other things, books). I happen to identify more with the minimal stuff approach, but hey - to each his own.

What is annoying, though, is that your average kid doesn't get to make that decision for himself. The overwhelming influences - at least as far as I can remember - made it very clear that collecting as much cool stuff as possible will lead to happiness. I am mostly thinking of the zillions of catalogs and circulars that have passed through my house over the years, and stores like the Sharper Image that, as a kid, I thought was the height of luxury and now I realize is just a giant scam machine (which may be why they are now bankrupt).

The problem isn't the stuff itself. I like my laptop, cell phone and mp3 player just as much as the next guy. The problem is consumerism. Sometimes I wonder about numbers - how many people are out there selling stuff and how many people are out there actually working on society's infrastructure - growing food, paving roads, constructing buildings, managing the power grid, etc. Maybe if we looked at those aspects of our society as frequently as the consumer-related parts, we would more sensible overall. Maybe if we saw our local power station as often as our local Circuit City...