I own a lot of
worthless crap material possessions. These include blankets, bottle caps, books, and several pairs of alpaca-fur socks. I have expensive competition swimsuits which I wore during a maximum of eight races, fake pearls, real pearls, and (nerd alert) nearly every article I printed out in college. I have plastic chairs, hand-written letters, and a pair of highly-coveted mug-shaped sunglasses which say "Happy Beer-Day!" Below you'll see the disastrous area around my desk shortly before graduating from college last year. Please note the 3 separate coffee mugs, rubber duck, Virginia license plate, bottle of pills, and 2 bottles of wine (which I probably didn't want my roommates to drink so I kept out of the kitchen):
Like most people socialized in middle-class America, I learned early on that the accumulation of
pointless junk material possessions was an important part of daily life. Let's go back to 1995. I was 7 years old, and acquiring
Beanie Babies ranked right around "survival" on
Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs.
This is my older sister Catie, glowing over our extended family's impressive collection. And while we never went as far as the crystal-display-case insanity of many suburbanites, Beanie Babies were
important to me and my elementary school culture at large. Ripping the tags off beanie babies was treated like aggravated assault, on par with ripping off a classmate's finger. It was also financial suicide. After all, common wisdom professed that social security wouldn't be there for my generation, so a well-preserved pink flamingo WITH TAGS was basically our only chance at retirement. Catie and I used to discuss our prospects for getting rich off of Beanie Babies:
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| Monster tag-ripper hiding under cute toddler disguise. |
K (age 7): When do you think we can sell Pinky the Flamingo for lots of money? Like 1997?
C (age 10): No, Kimmy. It's going to at least need to be 2000. So basically forever. But I figure if we can hold out until 2003, I mean, we'll probably be millionaires.
I might still be waiting for my Beanie Baby payout if I still owned them. Our basement flooded a couple times in
the '90's, like titanic-style water damage, and I think a lot of our furry friends were lost in the wreckage. My parents also brought a new human being into the world, who, as a blond-haired-blue-eyed baby, existed solely to chew on and rip the tags off of Beanie Babies. But even if I still had my Beanie Babies... let's get real: Pinky the Flamingo is going for $3.99.
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| basement paradise, pre-biblical style flood |
Part of a suburban childhood, particularly in the private school system, is the constant pressure to compare your stuff to other kid's stuff. At times I remember feeling like I didn't have that much, that my parents said
"no, I'm not buying you that" far more than other parents, and that wearing my sister's old clothes was an insult that other younger siblings did not have to endure. Looking back, I think this is not only an absurd manifestation of American consumer culture (since I've always had my needs met and exceeded), but somewhat cruel. Why are happy children made to feel less happy because they don't have as much stuff-- especially since most of it is completely pointless?
I've been reading a lot about my generation, not because I'm trying to, but because people keep writing about us. If you were born between 1980-2000, congratulations-- you're "Gen Y," or a "Millennial," just like me. I recommend
Millennials Magazine, an online (
we're soooo tech-savvy) publication by 20-somethings and for 20-somethings, or
this article, if you want some sweeping sociological generalizations. As far as I can tell, we're
overly-entitled pains in the ass in the classroom,
not particularly great in the workplace, and
grossly addicted to technology. But you know what most everyone agrees we're great at?
Buying stuff. Lots of stuff.
I won't claim it's false. I'm merely suggesting: Perhaps my generation wants to be known for something besides the accumulation of stuff? You know, especially since the Beanie Baby model didn't work out for us?
