There’s a difference between a thing, and a Thing, and if you haven’t been keeping up at all with the recent capitalistic and insane trend that has swept the entire nation, you might not know this.
This is a rant, I’m sure of it, though it’s not even begun yet. I can feel it bubbling up inside me like a geyser buried beneath years of sedimentary soil. It’s like the Yellowstone Caldera sometimes in this mind of mine, all the build up and years of thoughts and only through the routine purging do I stave off the cataclysmic eruption that would probably decimate half the continent. I suppose this Signal Fire is my Old Faithful, and I’m just lucky that every Sunday a few thousand of you gather around it to watch the way it sprays into the early morning air. I’m writing this in advance, as we’re often on the road and I have to pre-plan some of these as they pop into my mind, so what I’m saying may have already petered out and been replaced by something else, and that’s ok, that’s kinda the point of this whole thing. Anyway, onto the thing vs. Thing rant that I just can’t stop thinking about.
A thing, with a lowercase ‘t’ and little fanfare, is something that we all see, acknowledge, and move on from. It’s a pair of socks, it’s a pen sitting in a jar, it’s a movie we watched, enjoyed a little, and then forgot about a few days later, it’s a water bottle you fill up at home and then drink from over the course of the day, and say nothing to anyone about, because it’s a water bottle and it holds water and lets you drink from it. This is a thing.
A Thing, is a different beast entirely. A Thing, is a fucking Stanley mug that completely inconveniently comes in two thousand colors, it’s Barbenheimer somehow becoming a thing, where people binge watch Oppenheimer and Barbie back to back despite the fact that neither has anything at all actually in common, it’s fidget spinners (remember those?), it’s charm friendship bracelets at the Taylor Swift concert despite those tickets costing your mortgage…each. This rant is about Things, and comes from a place of zero judgement, ok maybe a little, but mostly from a place of serious confusion and dismay at the recycled nature of the beast we’ve all learn to live with.
I read an article recently about the Stanley mug phenomenon that showed someone who owned over $3,000 worth of the exact same mug. Every color combination, every limited edition release, every possible iteration that often required standing in line overnight to spend actual money on, was displayed on a wall of those cheap closet shelf units with the little plastic coated bits of metal that have a smell and a tactile feel that you can’t forget once you’ve touched. $3,000 for a Thing.
This rant will not be one about the capitalistic nature of our society, though good gracious it should and could very well be, but instead is about the conditions that lead to people believing with such vigor that they need to own the things that end up becoming Things. Over the years, trends have emerged that are undeniable and stand out clearer than the rest. We’re a society that recycles, but not in the way that will save the planet but instead will probably bring about its downfall, as all these Things end up populating the landfill of some sinking city, or the great garbage island that floats aimlessly around our planet. It’s our culture that’s recycling, instead of inventing new. Movies are all sequels or remakes of older movies, as once comic book movies became a Thing, the entire landscape of Hollywood changed.
Everywhere you turn these days, everyone looks the same. Kids are all wearing the exact same clothes with the exact same haircuts drinking out of the exact same water bottles and then defining themselves by this sameness. The internets have whittled down the edges of so many, muddying the borders and making everything meet in the middle, in some strange no-place where nothing stands out, nothing deviates, and if anything dares to it’s seen as an outlier. It’s seen as weird, it’s seen as off. Perhaps it’s always been this way, as I know when I was a kid everyone wanted SilverTab jeans, or JNCOs, or those yellow Sony Walkmans, or Tamagotchis, or NES systems with Duck Hunt and Super Mario Brothers, or whatever current fad was spreading like wildfire. The difference was, however, not everyone could get them, not everyone had them, because either not everyone could afford them, or not everyone bothered to follow the trend. Now, social media and the pressures it puts on the youth of this world like some great vise slowly clamping it all together, means that so many people feel like there’s no option but conforming, that to not have means to not be, and to not be means to hardly exist at all.
This internet culture of connection, I fear, has actually created a world that’s quite the opposite, a side-effect the scientists who created the world wide web would have never seen coming. What promised connection, actually delivered the antithesis, spreading a serious disconnect between us all, isolating us not only physically from others at scales never-before-seen, but also from ourselves, from what we actually love, who we actually are. In this great disconnect, we’re now all looking so desperately for something to hold onto, for something that ties us to others and makes us feel, if only for a moment, like we belong to something bigger and unified.
Maybe this is the pull of the Stanley Cup, this idea that if we just have this one Thing, we’ll be ok, we’ll dissolve into the great big pile of acceptance that looks like everything else, or nothing else, I don’t know. I know that kids begged their parents for them this year, that fully grown adults are making videos about these mugs and the accessories you can purchase for them, and I’m sure, somewhere in their minds they truly believe that adding a little charm to the handle, or snagging that limited edition color release from Target really will be the thing that just makes everything else feel ok. There’s nothing to be done about this, because I think it’s how it’s been since Instagram first came out, since Facebook started spreading beyond college campuses, since TikTok swooped in and convinced everyone to dance the same dances, buy the same shoes, listen to the same music, and drink out of the same giant water mugs that used to be found only on job sites and in the dusty cabs of construction trucks.
I will sound old again by saying I miss the days of things, the lowercase things that didn’t have to become viral phenomenons or must-have-like-your-life-depends-on-it items. I miss the days where sure, you wanted to own the jeans that everyone else did and probably asked your parents, or Santa, or grandparents, or whomever for each year, but if you didn’t get them, the world didn’t end, you didn’t hate them for not being able to afford them, you didn’t get ostracized to the point of depression for not rocking them on the first day of school. I miss things, and I am so very weary of Things, and I probably talk about it too much. My gut reaction to most of the big bold italicized Things is to instantly be turned off, immediately mistrustful, and hopeful that they’ll fade away into obscurity like the rest before them.
Maybe this is judgmental, maybe it’s an out-dated viewpoint on a natural progression of culture, I don’t know. I just know that all things feel recycled, all things are landing in the middle, and so many things become Things simply because it’s so much harder to be new, to be different, to dare to stand out.
It’s scary, but it’s worth it, and I hope we knock down the capital T and with the rubble it leaves behind, bury all we never really needed. Maybe that’s just me, maybe it all doesn’t really matter in the end, maybe this is the new way, and we’re all just going to be given front row seats to the never-ending bombardment of Things that are on their way to us already.
Maybe, but in the meantime, please don’t spend $3,000 on mugs, please don’t think you have to stand in line for a cup. Please.
All things recycled,
all things becoming the same,
obsessing us all.
I think things become THINGS because we are so desperate for connection and belonging. People whose lives are too busy to have their own activities and groups, feel like they belong when they can post a photo of the new THING. People who are lonely feel less lonely when they have the THING, ect. It's almost like they are counting on it to be a conversation starter. Hoping it will draw friendly people to them. What if we all just went back to smiling at strangers? To holding doors open for others? And striking up conversations with strangers while waiting in line or taking the kids to their activities? I think we all just want friends. I think it would be best if we all indulged in what we think is cool, what makes us happy, and then organically find our tribes. Instead of trying to buy our way into tribes.
Such good insight here, and I totally totally agree. I wish acceptance came easier than having to feel that pressure to buy our way in. I love this viewpoint.
"What if we all just went back to smiling at strangers? To holding doors open for others? And striking up conversations with strangers while waiting in line ..." ... What if indeed. Well put. Thank you!
I had a lot of Things because I was trying to fill holes and be who other people thought I was. But for about a month I have been decluttering. Yesterday I got six inches cut off my hair. I’m taking MY life back. Lol.
I grew my hair out for the first time in over a decade! Look at us being exactly who we want to be!!! Or at least trying all the things we want until we get there!!!
YESSSS here's to owning it!
That’s so awesome. Same thing here. I have so many things for similar reasons and have been getting rid of a lot. It feels so good to get rid of the clutter.
It really, really does.
I grew up not having Things because my parent wouldn't buy into it. I've stayed off the beaten path because, mostly, I can't afford Things or, I want my things to be something that mean something. My water bottle, with stickers on it, I got from Human Rights Campaign. It's beat up now from me dropping it. I can get another one, but I've grown to love the dents and scrapes. Besides, my Signal Fire sticker is on there.
Don't get me wrong … in my day it was blue Adidas sneakers with white stripes on them and I wanted a pair… I settled for tennis sneakers bought at a wholesale store and my gum soled LL Bean boots. I saved up my babysitting money for Earth Shoes. I shopped thrift stores and raided my mother's closet for finds from the 40's and 50's. I wore my father's Sea Bee bell bottoms. I was and outsider only to find out at a school reunion that I was seen as the coolest kid in class.
I'm still an outsider with a very small tribe who now live nowhere near me. And maybe, just maybe, I'm still cool ;-)
I can vouch for us ALL in this group when I say this: YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY STILL COOL.
aw, thank you!
I remember being 15 years old and believing I’d die happy if I could have the Metallica Garage Days box set. I also remember that after I got it, while it was good, it wasn’t as good as I’d built it up to be in my head. It didn’t change my life. It didn’t make me transcendentally happy. I’ve made the same mistake since, more than once, but I’ve also learned to recognise that feeling of “needing” something and sitting with it to see what hole I think it’s going to fill, and nurturing that feeling instead.
I love this, nurturing the feeling rather than the need. Beautiful my friend.
I used to work for a guy who continually used a throwaway phrase “the thing is this” when he was about to make a point he wanted you to pay attention to. His next level of serious-ness was “So!, the thing is this…”, and his top level of getting your attention was “So!, the thing is REALLY this”. We all called the third level his “fire-alarm of all things”…lol
Hahahah, the fire alarm of all things needs to be used so much more often. Yes please.
I remember getting “things” much later…like when they probably weren’t even “THINGS” anymore…I was so proud when I bought that Sony Sports Walkman - bright yellow, “waterproof”, and those amazing (hard as a rock) earphones…from the discount shelf of a local pharmacy…and all my friends were like - “why now?!”
Well cuz THINGS aren’t free, dammit!
They may cost money, they may cost time, or they may even cost your sanity trying to get and get and get and push everyone out of your way.
I worked retail on Black Fridays - people suck!
It was a “ME” mentality - folks, it’s a freakin TV - not worth fistfights, handcuffs and police cars…guess what - you still didn’t get your TV did you?!
I’ve got too much stuff…and that is also a problem because getting rid of stuff - whoooo weeee - that is hard work! Where to start…well, the answer is not avoiding it and going shopping all weekend (raising my hand here!)…
Things are just things
Let’s start relating to people
Be good to one another
You will get more feels outta that anyway!
Ahh dude, what an ending to this. What an ending.
I never really been into Things, but definitely have too many things. Because I’m not into Things and don’t really spend any time on social media, I forgot about the whole Stanley cup craze. When I saw the title of this my mind went to THE Stanley cup and thought this was gonna be like a how it’s made episode 🤣🤣
Hahahahah, I wish! I wanna know how the hockey people pull it off!
Well, the “ Thing “ is you absolutely nailed this one!!!….. individuality has become a rare trace!!!
I agree wholeheartedly with this concept. I've never been one to care about trendy products and never really understood the appeal. Especially for something as basic as a cup 😂 Things have definitely gotten out of hand with the rise of social media.
However, because I'm a shameless Swiftie and someone who attended the Eras Tour...I do have to go on a slight tangent about Taylor Swift. To me, the Stanley Cup trend and the popularity of Taylor Swift are two very different things. The Stanley Cup is an actual thing, an item we buy and use (and a very basic every day item at that). Taylor Swift is a rare phenomenon. And her concerts (namely the Eras Tour) are an EXPERIENCE. I spent a lot to attend that concert and I have absolutely no regrets. And I never ever spend that much money on stuff like that. But this was an exception. It was a once in a lifetime experience. She 150% lives up to her hype and there's a reason that she is able to unite so many kinds of people from all over the world with her music. She is an incredible performer and mind-blowing to watch. Her shows are quite honestly a spiritual experience. The ways that strangers bond and share a collective experience together...it's art. It's magical. It's all the things. And I am proud to be part of her world.
Totally fair about T-Swift! I think maybe part of the bummer of her was that there are so many people, like Sarah's daughter, that super wanted to attend and go, and when we looked, literally for the two of them to go, the cheapest BAD seats they could find would have been like $1600 for one concert, and that didn't include flights there, or hotels, or anything else. Yikes. That's where some of that frustration came from. :)
Absolutely. I agree that the money and logistics are insane. I really hope more people get to attend her shows in the future and that it somehow becomes easier.