Video Repost: Cute Kid Gives Sage Criticism on Consumer Culture

In this video repost, listen to a cute kid give sage advice on how to avoid consumerism.

Girbaud Brand Jeans — Remember Them?

When I was a teenager, in the 1990s, the French jeans clothier Marithé et François Girbaud was in style. I remember I bought these jeans because I thought I needed them. They were cool! Everyone was wearing them. Now. They were cool. But, in retrospect — looking back on it — jeans are jeans. Girbaud jeans had a privileged quality attached to them. Wearing the Girbaud brand was like being christened with a superpower. Jeans with the Girbaud logo were easily noticeable, so everyone in your school could identify who had the right pair of jeans. If your jeans were Wal-mart storebought, you were doomed.

The Kid in the Video is Non-Plussed about Consumerism

What I like about the kid in this video is that not only is he non-plussed by consumerism, he also can make his own aesthetic judgments. He says he knows what he likes and Filas fit him well and he likes the color.

What shoes do the other kids in the park expect kids to wear to avoid being ostracized? I'd like to know.

What's Your Take on This Video?

Let me know if you have ever been made less because you did not conform to consumer culture.

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Self-Portrait in a Instagram-Laced Painterly Palette

In this post, I took a ton of painterly-style Instagram selfies and I talk about how we never understand each other well - in most circumstances. Understanding others is hard. But worth it.

     There is a moment in the new HBO comedy series "Mrs. Fletcher" where a young, white college kid sits at the lunch table with several guys he assumes are "just like him". The guys are talking about climate change in a thoughtful, meaningful way and the young, white college kid makes a joke about riding a surfboard on a tsunami wave. He's looking for laughs but he misses the cue. He assumes that people who look like him and dress like him will, in turn, have the same mindset as him. 

      I have come to find out that the biggest mistake one can make is to assume that another person thinks the same way that you do. And even if another person thinks similarly to you, or dresses similarly to you, it is the worst mistake possible, to consider that other person you. It is harder to make yourself known to another person, to a friend, a lover, or whatever. It is hard because it means you have to begin to understand the other person first and they have to begin to understand you.  

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