Been thinking about this concept a lot and talking to my dad about it (he has a lot of regret about throwing away his old records when music went digital) about how technological advancement is killing sentimentality in the form of clutter and “useless objects!!!”
This is how the second blog I’ve read this week that talks about how Marie Condo-ing their home has actually lead to regret and a lack of love and character in their homes. I completely believe it. I feel like the concept of minimalism has truly been a train wreck on humanity. Even architecture has been affected. I would just love it if we had a country full of buildings in the US that looked like the ones in Europe today.
Not all buildings in Europe are fancy, the era of minimalism has taken its toll here too. Almost all new built homes in Germany are a white square with a grey roof on top. They are hideous! Would love to read the other article you read, do you remember the title/substack name?
I found my old ipod recently, still working, and I have been slowing building up my physical (as in folders on my laptop) music library again. I really want to get away from Spotify so I am slowly inching back towards the items I used when I was young. I also have deep regrets about throwing away all my dvds and cds, I should have kept them :(
Oh yess! I have always hated the endless youtube videos of minimalism and how i would look at my grandparents house filled with mementos and fancy looking chinaware on display in the cabinet that never see the light of day until fancy guests come over. The books, the old leather bound books, the CDs, endless stacks of photo albums. My grandparents house will forever be more beautiful than all those minimalistic homes on the internet and thank god the only decluttering i do is when i empty out skincare or use all of my watercolor pallet and dont want to reuse the containers i throw them away and that is all. Other than that i collect leather bound editions of classics, i am starting a vinyl collection that i am slowly building and got a nice record player, i keep every memento and tickets from my travels. Every nice looking scrap of paper for my collage books. All of these are parts of my identity and i love them all! And this is exactly what i will do for my future house
Totally feel the same way about my grandmas place. And I am a bit jealous that you managed to escape the minimalism craze. What was I thinking throwing so much of it out?
Would love to get into vinyl, but I have nooo idea where to start.
You can start with making a list of top three favorite albums you like then get one of those or all three. I usually get one album i like whenever i can. Or when i travel and visit a vintage record store
I've been "tending" to my digital photos that date back to 2002 (AHHH), and wanting to just print, print, PRINT so many of them and just have them. Make posters. Little photo books. STUFF. Thank you so much for this post.
I love love love all of this, it resonates so deeply with me, a fellow (elder) millennial. I got rid of a lot of old media but I kept my collections of my favourites, like all my White Stripes albums and my DVD collection of Jane Austen movies. My partner has a dvd player and I take a JA dvd with me each time I visit him and just love rewatching them like that so much. I never got rid of my record player and have been listening to my White Stripes albums om there and have also been adding to my vinyl collection via thrift stores and flea markets, its been so fun. Oh, and fav: I bought a docking station for my old iPod classic at the thrift store and have been listening to my music collection from 2007-2012. Its been FANTASTIC!
I did do a lot of Marie Kondo inspired decluttering the past few years, though. I get easily overwhelmed by “stuff”, which may have to do with my chaotic ADHD brain. I am always the one who volunteers to tidy at the office too, and during traveling I repack my backpack multiple times a say, for example. But I take her most important guideline to heart: if it sparks joy, keep it! So I still have a lot of wonderful things in my home. My books, stacks of The New Yorker, my artworks and supplies, mementos from my youth, vinyl records, photographs everywhere. I also have furnished my place using items from the attics of my parents and grandparents. My dinner plates, kitchen chairs, living room rug and reading light have all been in my life for decades, and I love having ánd using them. But thanks to Marie's decluttering guidance, I no longer suffer chronic overwhelm due to all the glasses and cutlery I kept in case I ever throw a dinner party (I won't, lol), stacks of sheets I don't use as a single household, clothes that no longer fit, electronics that don't really work anymore, etc.
I agree that minimalism has become a sterile and empty aesthetic, and lived in homes are preferable. But minimalism isn't supposed to be about having the least possible things. It's about being mindful of what you surround yourself with. About consuming intentionally instead of blindly. And your newsletter fits with that theme perfectly :)
Love this comment. And I am jealous your iPod classic still works, mine broke so I had to throw it out. Would've loved to still use it. And yes to everything else you said! Keeping what sparks joy is exactly what Marie Kondo said, BUT sme people somehow promoted it to the extreme and here we are.
In regards to chaos, which I also cannot stand, I had to redefine what chaos actually means to me. Having things around my house does not necessarily equal chaos or clutter, but somehow the minimalism trend made it seem like it was. Once I got over that I am embracing things again, collecting, all while making sure to never go into the other extreme and hoard things I don't like or need.
I totally relate to recording off the radio! Ive been thinking through how my kids will grow up collecting music and wanting to offer them something physical. We just looked into a Yoto player which is an interesting start. I technically could play most of what they offer from my Spotify, but then they miss out on collecting cards and choosing to put them in the player to hear and building their collection in a wallet.
Thanks for sharing! Also was curious if you were going to mention the Crush advertisement by Apple…
Passing art down is so difficult with digital media and I’ve heard the gaming community talk about that quite a bit recently. It will be interesting to see how companies will adapt to that.
The Apple commercial didn’t even cross my mind when I wrote this, but you are so right! It was one of the more tone deaf commercials I’ve seen, but in relation to this, wow!
This is such a BRILLIANT piece!! Talking about old movies something from the movie Yours, Mine and Ours really stuck with me "home is for free expression, not good impression." And I absolutely adore that. I fell victim to the Millennial grey and the beige phase. I got rid of all the cds that I loved as a teenager, the random art I had collected, the knick knacks I brought home from small adventures but I'm slowly reconnecting it all.
Your points about physical art just made my heart swell!! Everything we slowly collect is a part of us. Something to signify a journey even a tiny journey and it's a beautiful thing.
I wish I could write an essay to respond to this essay but it would just be "YES THIS!" thank you for articulating what I've been feeling for a while now🧡
Thank you so much for this lovely comment 🧡 and what a beautiful quote, "home is for free expression, not Good impression" !!! That is exactly what I tried to express with my writing.
Reading this had me observing my room and recalling the evolution of digital media through my lifetime. As someone who loves to collect trinkets with too little of shelves, I recognize the stripping of character in homes. A recent big uh-oh is the minimizing/greying/beige-ing of decor in houses. I'm happy to see when the comments of those videos are people screaming "nooo you've destroyed its personality and joy!" I hate my own clutter but it is also a comfort. My mother has ADHD and is sort of a clean freak and LOVES throwing away things (especially my dad's piles of newspapers dating back 3 years). I miss the joy I had opening presents to find I was gifted a CD of my favorite band with my favorite songs. I remember turning on my CD player and the replay button of the boom box breaking. I had a CD case. I grew up watching a lot of old Disney movies on VCR. And you know the words my parents will say to me after talking down memory lane of some of their past belongings? "I wish I never got rid of that."
Such a lovely comment, thank you! 🧡 I too am really greatful that the minimalism trend seems to be over and people enjoy collecting and displaying things again.
"Because art that shaped me into who I am should be touched and felt, it shouldn’t be allowed to simply disappear."
Wow, you make so many good points in this essay! I would love to get a dvd player one day and start collecting dvds of all my favourite movies--the first being the complete extended edition Lord of the Rings 7-dvd box set. I always loved the ritual of going to rent a movie and being able to watch all the special features and commentaries of movies, and it's sad that that's not really a thing anymore. It's so hard to find a balance and make sense of all these contradicting ideas--embracing clutter and the physicality of things while also confronting our obsession with ownership. I think with the Marie-Kondo phase, people forget that the main goal is to try to be a little more intentional about the material things that brings you joy--not throwing away anything non-essential. And when you bring art into all that, it gets even more complex. In a lot of ways, digital mediums can do so much for artists while at the same time, there's a tendency to forget the person behind the art, leading to the art not being as valued.
Anyway, thanks for a great piece and I hope you're doing a bit better. Also, I LOVE the bright yellow kitchen, is that yours!?
I love this! Every now and then, my mind jumps onto this topic and really makes me think. I love a good clean and declutterred space, but at the same time I’m one of those people who likes to physically hold something. It makes it more real to me. If it’s on my phone, I honestly will probably forget all about it because I have an “out of sight, out of mind” brain. This article actually reminds me that I really need to get all my photos off my phone and into a photo book, haha.
My husband and I went mostly digital fairly early on in our marriage, and I’ve now started to regret it. Not on some things—I love my Kindle, and I back up my kindle library regularly so I will always have those ebooks and audiobooks. And I’ve never, ever given up print books. But most of our movies, games, & music are digital, and tbh I’m just not a fan of that anymore. My husband doesn’t really get it, but I’m about to start the habit of buying physical copies of things I love. He and I’ve also discussed how we very much need to make printed photo albums… our kids love looking at old photos and it would be easier to have them in books for them to pull off the shelf anytime.
I’ve always wanted my home to look like a cozy hobbit hole and I feel like reverting back to physical media is another step towards that.
Oh I feel this hard! My husband also doesn't get that I am buying DVDs now. He still considers it a medium that will die soon. The printed photo albums for your kids sound like such a great idea! And the fact that they enjoy looking at old photos tells me that it is part of human nature to want to hold on to things that tell you about life. Everyone needs reminders of their past around I feel like.
I too got into minimalism and got rid of so much stuff, some of which I am adding back in. Records, books etc. I don’t like visual clutter but I do like my arts and crafts stuffed cupboard, my burgeoning bookcases, and my yarn full tubs. I need to live life not worry if I ‘should’ be buying or keeping things. If they make me happy they are worth it.
I massively agree with this. I don’t collect music or movies but my massive collection of art prints and small pretty objects is definitely what makes me who I am. I have never understood people who can live in perfectly manicured apartments that look like hotel rooms. I need my weird stuff around me.
Cassettes, vinyls, posters, magazines, notebooks, physical books with recipes—I want them all after reading this essay! We have access to so much, but at the same time, we can't show appreciation or commitment to our favorite pieces of art as we could before. Buying a whole CD is a commitment, especially when you can just access the same on Spotify and dip in, dip out as you wish. Which kind of distorts the whole experience. Earlier this year, I started assembling a vinyl collection and noticed an interesting thing—I started listening to music that I don't listen to on Spotify. Sure, I pick artists that I like, but physically touching an album, this piece of art, reading through the lyrics while listening, reading through the credits and any other little notes left by the artist, makes me appreciate music in a whole new way. Another very important point in owning media is that in doing so, you can save it from oblivion. As you write: "Because then I own it, and unless the house burns down or someone breaks in and steals this particular DVD, it will be mine forever." Lastly, I do understand the appeal of uncluttered spaces—I can't really work if my desk is messy—but I think there is a balance between hoarding and collecting. It could be a few magazines or a neatly stacked CD collection. And I think it's up for anyone to figure out how that balance can be struck. In any case, this is such an important topic, thank you for writing about it!
Thank you so much for this comment. And I couldn't agree more that there is a really good balance (that in my opinion isn't difficult to find) between hoarding and collecting. I feel we've come to a point where a lot of people consider a collection to be useless clutter, but as you write here: it is so much more.
Been thinking about this concept a lot and talking to my dad about it (he has a lot of regret about throwing away his old records when music went digital) about how technological advancement is killing sentimentality in the form of clutter and “useless objects!!!”
This is how the second blog I’ve read this week that talks about how Marie Condo-ing their home has actually lead to regret and a lack of love and character in their homes. I completely believe it. I feel like the concept of minimalism has truly been a train wreck on humanity. Even architecture has been affected. I would just love it if we had a country full of buildings in the US that looked like the ones in Europe today.
Not all buildings in Europe are fancy, the era of minimalism has taken its toll here too. Almost all new built homes in Germany are a white square with a grey roof on top. They are hideous! Would love to read the other article you read, do you remember the title/substack name?
Ah…you’re kidding, that is so sad to hear.
I don’t remember off the top of my head but I will look for it! I’ll link it here if I find it ☺️
I found my old ipod recently, still working, and I have been slowing building up my physical (as in folders on my laptop) music library again. I really want to get away from Spotify so I am slowly inching back towards the items I used when I was young. I also have deep regrets about throwing away all my dvds and cds, I should have kept them :(
Oh yess! I have always hated the endless youtube videos of minimalism and how i would look at my grandparents house filled with mementos and fancy looking chinaware on display in the cabinet that never see the light of day until fancy guests come over. The books, the old leather bound books, the CDs, endless stacks of photo albums. My grandparents house will forever be more beautiful than all those minimalistic homes on the internet and thank god the only decluttering i do is when i empty out skincare or use all of my watercolor pallet and dont want to reuse the containers i throw them away and that is all. Other than that i collect leather bound editions of classics, i am starting a vinyl collection that i am slowly building and got a nice record player, i keep every memento and tickets from my travels. Every nice looking scrap of paper for my collage books. All of these are parts of my identity and i love them all! And this is exactly what i will do for my future house
Totally feel the same way about my grandmas place. And I am a bit jealous that you managed to escape the minimalism craze. What was I thinking throwing so much of it out?
Would love to get into vinyl, but I have nooo idea where to start.
You can start with making a list of top three favorite albums you like then get one of those or all three. I usually get one album i like whenever i can. Or when i travel and visit a vintage record store
I've been "tending" to my digital photos that date back to 2002 (AHHH), and wanting to just print, print, PRINT so many of them and just have them. Make posters. Little photo books. STUFF. Thank you so much for this post.
Do it! I've started doing that and created one photo book per year. It's so fun to look back.
I love love love all of this, it resonates so deeply with me, a fellow (elder) millennial. I got rid of a lot of old media but I kept my collections of my favourites, like all my White Stripes albums and my DVD collection of Jane Austen movies. My partner has a dvd player and I take a JA dvd with me each time I visit him and just love rewatching them like that so much. I never got rid of my record player and have been listening to my White Stripes albums om there and have also been adding to my vinyl collection via thrift stores and flea markets, its been so fun. Oh, and fav: I bought a docking station for my old iPod classic at the thrift store and have been listening to my music collection from 2007-2012. Its been FANTASTIC!
I did do a lot of Marie Kondo inspired decluttering the past few years, though. I get easily overwhelmed by “stuff”, which may have to do with my chaotic ADHD brain. I am always the one who volunteers to tidy at the office too, and during traveling I repack my backpack multiple times a say, for example. But I take her most important guideline to heart: if it sparks joy, keep it! So I still have a lot of wonderful things in my home. My books, stacks of The New Yorker, my artworks and supplies, mementos from my youth, vinyl records, photographs everywhere. I also have furnished my place using items from the attics of my parents and grandparents. My dinner plates, kitchen chairs, living room rug and reading light have all been in my life for decades, and I love having ánd using them. But thanks to Marie's decluttering guidance, I no longer suffer chronic overwhelm due to all the glasses and cutlery I kept in case I ever throw a dinner party (I won't, lol), stacks of sheets I don't use as a single household, clothes that no longer fit, electronics that don't really work anymore, etc.
I agree that minimalism has become a sterile and empty aesthetic, and lived in homes are preferable. But minimalism isn't supposed to be about having the least possible things. It's about being mindful of what you surround yourself with. About consuming intentionally instead of blindly. And your newsletter fits with that theme perfectly :)
Love this comment. And I am jealous your iPod classic still works, mine broke so I had to throw it out. Would've loved to still use it. And yes to everything else you said! Keeping what sparks joy is exactly what Marie Kondo said, BUT sme people somehow promoted it to the extreme and here we are.
In regards to chaos, which I also cannot stand, I had to redefine what chaos actually means to me. Having things around my house does not necessarily equal chaos or clutter, but somehow the minimalism trend made it seem like it was. Once I got over that I am embracing things again, collecting, all while making sure to never go into the other extreme and hoard things I don't like or need.
I totally relate to recording off the radio! Ive been thinking through how my kids will grow up collecting music and wanting to offer them something physical. We just looked into a Yoto player which is an interesting start. I technically could play most of what they offer from my Spotify, but then they miss out on collecting cards and choosing to put them in the player to hear and building their collection in a wallet.
Thanks for sharing! Also was curious if you were going to mention the Crush advertisement by Apple…
Passing art down is so difficult with digital media and I’ve heard the gaming community talk about that quite a bit recently. It will be interesting to see how companies will adapt to that.
The Apple commercial didn’t even cross my mind when I wrote this, but you are so right! It was one of the more tone deaf commercials I’ve seen, but in relation to this, wow!
This is such a BRILLIANT piece!! Talking about old movies something from the movie Yours, Mine and Ours really stuck with me "home is for free expression, not good impression." And I absolutely adore that. I fell victim to the Millennial grey and the beige phase. I got rid of all the cds that I loved as a teenager, the random art I had collected, the knick knacks I brought home from small adventures but I'm slowly reconnecting it all.
Your points about physical art just made my heart swell!! Everything we slowly collect is a part of us. Something to signify a journey even a tiny journey and it's a beautiful thing.
I wish I could write an essay to respond to this essay but it would just be "YES THIS!" thank you for articulating what I've been feeling for a while now🧡
Thank you so much for this lovely comment 🧡 and what a beautiful quote, "home is for free expression, not Good impression" !!! That is exactly what I tried to express with my writing.
Reading this had me observing my room and recalling the evolution of digital media through my lifetime. As someone who loves to collect trinkets with too little of shelves, I recognize the stripping of character in homes. A recent big uh-oh is the minimizing/greying/beige-ing of decor in houses. I'm happy to see when the comments of those videos are people screaming "nooo you've destroyed its personality and joy!" I hate my own clutter but it is also a comfort. My mother has ADHD and is sort of a clean freak and LOVES throwing away things (especially my dad's piles of newspapers dating back 3 years). I miss the joy I had opening presents to find I was gifted a CD of my favorite band with my favorite songs. I remember turning on my CD player and the replay button of the boom box breaking. I had a CD case. I grew up watching a lot of old Disney movies on VCR. And you know the words my parents will say to me after talking down memory lane of some of their past belongings? "I wish I never got rid of that."
Such a lovely comment, thank you! 🧡 I too am really greatful that the minimalism trend seems to be over and people enjoy collecting and displaying things again.
"Because art that shaped me into who I am should be touched and felt, it shouldn’t be allowed to simply disappear."
Wow, you make so many good points in this essay! I would love to get a dvd player one day and start collecting dvds of all my favourite movies--the first being the complete extended edition Lord of the Rings 7-dvd box set. I always loved the ritual of going to rent a movie and being able to watch all the special features and commentaries of movies, and it's sad that that's not really a thing anymore. It's so hard to find a balance and make sense of all these contradicting ideas--embracing clutter and the physicality of things while also confronting our obsession with ownership. I think with the Marie-Kondo phase, people forget that the main goal is to try to be a little more intentional about the material things that brings you joy--not throwing away anything non-essential. And when you bring art into all that, it gets even more complex. In a lot of ways, digital mediums can do so much for artists while at the same time, there's a tendency to forget the person behind the art, leading to the art not being as valued.
Anyway, thanks for a great piece and I hope you're doing a bit better. Also, I LOVE the bright yellow kitchen, is that yours!?
Thank you so much for this comment. Renting movies from a store was so much fun and more intentional. I really miss that part.
And I agree that the Marie Kondo phase ignored art and how importance it is to our overall wellbeing.
And I wish the yellow kitchen was mine, it is from the IKEA showroom. 😅
I love this! Every now and then, my mind jumps onto this topic and really makes me think. I love a good clean and declutterred space, but at the same time I’m one of those people who likes to physically hold something. It makes it more real to me. If it’s on my phone, I honestly will probably forget all about it because I have an “out of sight, out of mind” brain. This article actually reminds me that I really need to get all my photos off my phone and into a photo book, haha.
My husband and I went mostly digital fairly early on in our marriage, and I’ve now started to regret it. Not on some things—I love my Kindle, and I back up my kindle library regularly so I will always have those ebooks and audiobooks. And I’ve never, ever given up print books. But most of our movies, games, & music are digital, and tbh I’m just not a fan of that anymore. My husband doesn’t really get it, but I’m about to start the habit of buying physical copies of things I love. He and I’ve also discussed how we very much need to make printed photo albums… our kids love looking at old photos and it would be easier to have them in books for them to pull off the shelf anytime.
I’ve always wanted my home to look like a cozy hobbit hole and I feel like reverting back to physical media is another step towards that.
Oh I feel this hard! My husband also doesn't get that I am buying DVDs now. He still considers it a medium that will die soon. The printed photo albums for your kids sound like such a great idea! And the fact that they enjoy looking at old photos tells me that it is part of human nature to want to hold on to things that tell you about life. Everyone needs reminders of their past around I feel like.
I too got into minimalism and got rid of so much stuff, some of which I am adding back in. Records, books etc. I don’t like visual clutter but I do like my arts and crafts stuffed cupboard, my burgeoning bookcases, and my yarn full tubs. I need to live life not worry if I ‘should’ be buying or keeping things. If they make me happy they are worth it.
scrapbooking with receipts, tickets, confetti, wrappers, flyers, anything I collect from my life has changed this for me in a huge way
I massively agree with this. I don’t collect music or movies but my massive collection of art prints and small pretty objects is definitely what makes me who I am. I have never understood people who can live in perfectly manicured apartments that look like hotel rooms. I need my weird stuff around me.
Cassettes, vinyls, posters, magazines, notebooks, physical books with recipes—I want them all after reading this essay! We have access to so much, but at the same time, we can't show appreciation or commitment to our favorite pieces of art as we could before. Buying a whole CD is a commitment, especially when you can just access the same on Spotify and dip in, dip out as you wish. Which kind of distorts the whole experience. Earlier this year, I started assembling a vinyl collection and noticed an interesting thing—I started listening to music that I don't listen to on Spotify. Sure, I pick artists that I like, but physically touching an album, this piece of art, reading through the lyrics while listening, reading through the credits and any other little notes left by the artist, makes me appreciate music in a whole new way. Another very important point in owning media is that in doing so, you can save it from oblivion. As you write: "Because then I own it, and unless the house burns down or someone breaks in and steals this particular DVD, it will be mine forever." Lastly, I do understand the appeal of uncluttered spaces—I can't really work if my desk is messy—but I think there is a balance between hoarding and collecting. It could be a few magazines or a neatly stacked CD collection. And I think it's up for anyone to figure out how that balance can be struck. In any case, this is such an important topic, thank you for writing about it!
Thank you so much for this comment. And I couldn't agree more that there is a really good balance (that in my opinion isn't difficult to find) between hoarding and collecting. I feel we've come to a point where a lot of people consider a collection to be useless clutter, but as you write here: it is so much more.