My take on the Minimalism (2015) documentary: a whole lot of nothing

Who is their target audience? People who, like them, have “made it”, which their film presents as: professional white collar jobs, 6 figure salaries, yet, lacking “purpose” or “meaning” in life.

What do they preach & prescribe? Their interpretation of “a minimalist lifestyle.”

How do they represent to their viewers this “minimalist lifestyle”?

  • A family with a large home and 2 kids with empty countertops
  • A man who claims to “own no home,” and rents living spaces throughout the world as he travels with “few personal belongings”, just enough that he can carry in two bags.
  • One member of the duo, Joshua, who carried few personal items with him throughout his book tour of the country
  • The other member of the duo, Dan, who wore a black t shirt and blue jeans to every meeting throughout their book tour
  • A pregnant woman in a heterosexual couple self-complementing herself for not having purchased a dress to an event since she borrowed one from a friend

To explain the title of my post, I would argue that this documentary offers an extremely limited conception of reducing waste and consumption. This film is nothing more than an HD pat on the back for rich people who want to self-congratulate themselves for their “decision” to live in small homes or apartments where they stock their low inventory of (high quality) clothes they adore. As the narrator Josh says: “all of my shirts are my favorite shirt.” This is vanity at it’s finest, and if not vanity, than the perfect example of the Diderot effect, a term invented by Canadian anthropologist Grant McCracken to talk about the sense that one’s possessions reflect (and thereby constitute) one’s identity (for more, see explanation).

Firstly, to congratulate oneself for having chosen to live in a small and clutter free home (with high-tech foldable multi-use furniture) in no way addresses the fact that people in low income brackets don’t have the choice when they live in a small and sometimes crowded apartment.

They show 10+ times scenes of crowds fighting amongst themselves to grab items during Boxing Week sales events — yeah, because it’s unwise to take advantage of reduced prices on essential items? Not everyone can afford to cover all their living expenses AND buy items at full price. Who are they to denigrate this act of strategic spending?

In no way did this documentary, even once, address a more sustainable lifestyle because it has no interest in this! The film, and its authors, are more interested in pondering their entrepreneurial business with their travelling tale where they appear as heroic messiahs who share their message of truth as they promote their brand that sells: public speaking and books. They repeatedly verbalize how pleased they are to see their followers swell in numbers. Who gives a shit? We haven’t plugged into your documentary to see how great you are at “giving hugs” (“I’m a hugger” x100) and getting air-time on morning shows and a bookstore speaking tour.

A minimalist lifestyle should, at the very, very least, address and introduce actual acts that minimize our individual and collective footprint on the earth:

  • Minimalizing our waste (think about the zero-waste movement) with examples such as the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture where people avoid buying tubes of toothpaste or plastic bottles of shampoo by mixing the components themselves or make their own purse with various unused items, the list goes on! This also goes for cooking: purchasing the ingredients in bulk instead of buying a pre-packaged assemblage of spices, herbs, tomato sauce, canned goods, pre-cooked frozen meals, etc., etc.
  • If they want to talk about minimizing our consumption of apparel, why don’t they talk about closing the loop by purchasing used clothing? Something “the poor” have been doing for generations not for pleasure, but out of necessity — spending adds up.
  • At no point do their address either “ethical consumption” (that claims to provide higher than average wages for employees) nor consumption that reduces the energy foot print in production such as the reduction of gas emissions that the local food movement champions (not to say they aren’t themselves immune to critique).
  • Composting, recycling, the use of cleaners that don’t reduce the conditions for life in our rivers, etc…

This “documentary” is nothing more than an 1h19mins long advertisement for the products they sell through their website: the minimalists.com. It’s really great that they don’t have to sit down at a desk anymore and do work they didn’t find fulfilling between 9 and 5 while we fill their empty chairs to buy their:

  • 4 paperback or Kindle books available for us thanks to two corporations known for their controversial labour practices: Amazon and iTunes
  • Documentary film (to rent for $4.99 or to buy for $14.99 on Amazon)
  • Private Mentoring Sessions (unknown fee), 16 Wks Online Writing Class ($597), hire them to speak or Learn How to Start a Blog (their readers can benefit from a free domain name and 50% discount off a monthly fee of $3.49).
  • Luckily for some of us thin-wallet holding folks, the 92 Podcasts remain free through iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Soundcloud and YouTube.

To summarize, this documentary is self-promotional material for their self-help/life coach business where they deliberately bank on corporate logos to legitimize their business (see image below) —

Screen shot taken from the official website (source) on Aug 24, 2017.

-at the same time as they claim call on us devotees to cough up some bills so they can avoid to ever regretted sin of:

“…shilling for some underwear or mattress company? Yuck. We wouldn’t feel good about it.” — Direct citation from the donate section of their website.

Gosh, that would sure be a doozy, wouldn’t it? So glad no recent marketing graduate got the opportunity to negotiate a deal with a company hoping to jump on the band-wheel of their niche market to expand their customer base. Also, what a relief they let us know they’re legit. I mean, look at all these major news sources! It’s almost like advertising or marketing or a nice spread of corporate news logos… Phew, we know our money is going to the right place.

If we want, we can even Donate. We can Donate to their Cause. We don’t even have to take something away, we can plain and simple give them our money. Man, they look good smiling at one another in that black and white photography. Bromance you can bank on.

)
Future journalist-translator

Written by

French and Canadian, based in Paris & St. John’s NL./Française et canadienne, située à la fois à Paris et St. Jean T-N.

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