The Idle Way: Flirting with Anti-Consumerism

Who's the CMO of 'the best things in life are free'?

Something in me is shifting.

It struck me as I walked out of security last month at the departures terminal and into the walkway that snakes through duty free. Every sense was immediately assaulted. Glossy images of A-listers, neon lights, huge point-of-sale booze-deals and an overwhelming scent of perfume. Three children tugged me in the directions of giant M&Ms, tech accessories and overpriced body-sprays respectively, whilst my own eyes were involuntarily drawn to the rows of sunglasses and Swatch watches I don’t need, (but feel a nostalgic 80s love for). It took every ounce of willpower to stay in-lane, snaking my carry-on through whilst shaking my head sternly ‘absolutely not’. I felt a bit nauseous.

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It struck me at that moment how gross and exploitative this omnipresent consumerism has become. Stuff, stuff and more stuff. Stuff to make us prettier, less-inhibited, more organised, more noticed, more… more. Happiness in the form of retail therapy and the dopamine of a shiny new thing. We’re all susceptible. Brands wouldn’t exist if we weren’t, but how happy does any of this really make us?

My husband and I often play the Marie Kondo game. What ‘stuff’ do we own that actually ‘brings us joy’? The answers are odd and have zero correlation to price: his (ugly) gilet; my thermos coffee cup (to which i’m surgically attached prior to 11am); our ceiling-projecting bedside clock; my mud-boots for dog-walking; our dry robes for saturday-soccer; my thrice-yearly photo books; the Eastpak rucksack I picked up at the village-fete for 50p that is now my handbag; our crocs (oh, spare me your judgement)... and er..? It’s a pathetically small list when I think of all the money we spend on crap. Crap that ends up causing a huge amount of stress in a house of three children as it’s never bloody returned where it’s supposed to go.

Another exercise: ask a kid what they got for past Christmases (even the last one!) and depressingly, they rarely remember. They recall what they did around that time, who visited, any festive outings and which games were played, but rarely the gifts themselves, despite the huge expense, time, worry (and midnight assembly hours) ‘Santa’ invested in them. The most played-with toys are *never* the ones you expect.

I’ve spent the best part of my career in the world of brands: building tech to harness attention; selling loyalty schemes and honing marketing messaging. I enjoy brand-building and message-massaging around the behavioural science of what people need or think they need. And I’ve believed in the value delivered by the brands I’ve worked on. Through choosing them as consumers we make a statement about who we are. They can be aspirational and provide identity, status, comfort or convenience. Branding is the way to make our (uniquely brilliant, obviously) product stand out in a crowded marketplace. And it’s no coincidence that many of the biggest social movements of the last few decades… Pride, Extinction Rebellion, BLM, LiveAid etc have succeeded by harnessing the branding playbook… logos and merch included.

Purchases do produce ‘highs’.. but they’re short-lived, so desire for them is now insatiable.

These thoughts have intersected with the work I’m doing at the moment on antidotes to tech addiction. I have a few exciting product ideas of my own (on which, more to follow) and (with thanks to Jonathan Haidt’s team), have been chatting to a number of talented, energising entrepreneurs working on solutions. Given the growing demand for solutions, I suspect some of these products and services may end up being very lucrative indeed.

But actually, the best solutions to this issue are free… education, willpower, socialising, reading, walks, nature, more pondering, community engagement etc. But therein lies the problem…. as if they’re free, it’s no one’s real incentive to market them well and make them seem ‘cool’ or aspirational. No VCs to back the social-media marketing campaign or SEO. Feeling sad or overwhelmed? Here’s a premium app subscription to master the act of mindfulness. Much cooler than 10 minutes of watching clouds drift across the sky or half an hour spent on an old puzzle from the back of the cupboard- despite them having a very similar effect.

Maybe, where lifestyle brands are concerned, paying for something provides a placebo effect in itself though? Maybe if you pay, you’re more committed to change. This psychology certainly works for me where my gym membership is concerned.

Anyway, the other event that prompted me to flirt further with my growing anti-capitalist inclination was opportunistically reaching out to the hero-author of a book I loved recently and landing a lunch with him.

Tom Hodgkinson wrote ‘The Idle Parent’ and has, for the last 20 years been running ‘The Idler’- a wonderful counter-cultural publication dedicated to ‘slow living’ and our lunch was fabulous. It was like meeting another version of myself in a parallel world, someone who’s spent most of his professional life promoting free life-additives through a lens I feel like I'm only just rediscovering.

As readers will know from my ‘what I can’t see I can’t overparent’ post, I was immediately inclined to his book from its title and it did not disappoint. In turn, laugh-out-loud funny and ridiculously annoying, as I wished I’d written it. In essence, a tract on why parenting less is good for both parent and child. Why a slower, less ‘proactive’ family life is a more fulfilling, richer life. Why possessions - especially plastic ones - are less important than experiences. Why you should never take your child to a theme park and how the best family days are the ones where parents drink together in a tent on one side of a field and the kids run feral on the other. I’m in.

I highly recommend that everyone sign up to his newsletter for the opportunity to receive a free download of ‘The Idler’s Manual’ - a quick-read charter for life that is a funny, poignant reminder of so many of the ‘boring’, unmarketed things that make life worth living: messing around on water; wondering a city aimlessly, riding a bike for fun, staring at walls, afternoon naps, playing old games and lolling by a fire - to name just a few examples. The Idler mag itself is gorgeous escapism, full of brief journeys into the fascinating worlds of philophers, historians, art and ukelele playing… worlds that few on the ‘productivity’ treadmill ever make time for.

It’s annoying when people articulate your thoughts better than you can, but herewith, the Idler Manifesto:

The religion of industry has turned human beings into robots. The imposition of work-discipline on free-wheeling dreamers enslaves us all. Joy and wisdom has been replaced by work and worry. We must defend our right to be lazy. It is in our idleness that we become who we are. It is when lazy that we achieve self-mastery. Jobs rob our time. Productivity and progress have led to anxiety and unease. Technology imprisons as it promises to liberate. Careers are phatasms. Money is mind forg’d. We can create our own paradise. Nothing must be done. With freedom comes responsibility. Stay in bed. Be good to yourself. Inaction is the wellspring of creation. Art, people, life. Bread, bacon, beer. Live first, work later. Time is not money. Stop spending. Quit your job. Study the art of living. Live slow, die old. Embrace nothing. Know nothing. Do nothing. Be idle.

What a breath of fresh air.

Am I in danger of dying my hair blue?