The PROBLEM With Minimalism

minimalism was a huge lifestyle movement that took the internet and the World by storm infiltrating news feeds with this distinct Simplicity but today the trend is categorically in decline in even the pillars of the movement have acknowledged that its peak has come and gone so what happened now believe it or not minimalism was not a concept born in the vacuum of YouTube the term minimalism originated in the art world in the 1950s as a way to blend Beauty with utilitarianism writers painters and Architects moved away from metaphors abstract impressionism and other stifling confines of Fine

Art and started focusing on Sleek designs with tons of white space and Industrial materials do you hear kind of the theme that we're getting to here because basically what we just described is what a minimalist apartment looked like in 2015. essentially minimalism was all about removing excess and focusing on the simple everyday aspects of Art and that same mentality resonated deeply with a society that was exhausted by the endless accumulation of stuff that had become the norm for consumers in 2010. so minimalism actually became a lifestyle movement in the 19 1980s but it didn't gain

mainstream popularity until the 2010s when everyone and their mom had a YouTube channel including myself that's right me Levi Hildebrand was on the uh minimalist bandwagon just like hundreds of other YouTubers I made the minimalist wardrobe video the minimalist travel video the minimalist Christmas gift guide video oh yeah I was deep into it and while it is a bit embarrassing how clickbaity the trend became I still actually live by a lot of those same principles and we're going to get into that later on so let's rewind it's 2015 and by this point the YouTube world

has been reeling with this new phenomenon and in the chaos it seemed to get bundled into two basic categories how much stuff you had and specifically what stuff and how you live your life now of course we can't make a video on this subject without mentioning minimalism daddy Matt D Avella but there are two other dudes at the center of this new minimalism thing and he was actually friends with both of them Joshua Fields Milburn and Ryan Nicodemus literally called themselves the minimalists Joshua and Ryan are both former tech industry six-figure earners who realized that

even though they accomplished the American dream they weren't happy they were in debt abused drugs and alcohol and their personal lives were in shambles so they left it all behind and started over by purging almost all of their stuff from there they wrote a book they started a Blog they toured the country and they made a Netflix documentary about the minimalist lifestyle which was directed by Matt diabella now before we get into why minimalism failed I want to talk about some of the positives because I obviously believed in this thing enough that I was willing

to make an 18 minute long video about what I carry in my backpack uh yep that's a video that I I made the way I see it is this living with less doesn't mean that your life is less great a clutter-free home frees up your time and brain space to focus on the things you really care about being a minimalist also means that you're a conscious consumer which is going to be better for the wallet and for the planet instead of relying on swiping a credit card to give you that dopamine hit you can live

an experienced-based lifestyle my wife and I haven't exchanged traditional gifts in like over five years we share meals we go on trips and we share those experiences together the concept of minimalism can also be applied to other areas of life instead of just being about what you own though too during the Heyday of mainstream minimalism we also saw the rise of minimalist Financial gurus minimalist fashionistas with their capsule wardrobes minimalist Wellness coaches productivity hackers and the list goes on at its best minimalism is about living giving an intentional life instead of being a Mindless consumer

and that's a value that you can apply to your entire life and as a big believer in the concept of living intentionally I wish that this could be the end of the video and that minimalism really did just solve all the world problems but this is a future-proof video and so we have to talk about why minimalism failed minimalism didn't do well during the pandemic when you're stuck at home 24 7 the options to experience something or anything are pretty much limited to what you can order off Amazon and that's pretty much exactly what happened

even before the pandemic people discovered a downside to extreme purging some people regretted getting rid of sentimental objects or practical things that they could have used down the road and then had to re-buy them the hyper fixation on Instagram worthy minimalism which author Kyle Chaka calls superficial minimalism spread outside the home too coffee shops airbnbs upscale clothing stores all kind of adopted this Stark Sleek aesthetic and everything just started to look really generic the pandemic turned people's focuses into the home where they were spending all of their time homeowners started tackling all those home projects

they've been putting off which led to redecorating and coincidentally the return of maximalism instead of having nothing on their walls people filled their walls with quirky mismatch artwork that showcased the personality emphasis on colors and textures and unique knickknacks is a huge part of this style in the home design world the message was clear maximalism was back which meant that minimalism was out but as we have said minimalism is not just about the way that you decorate your house so a shift in home decor Trends is not the only reason why the movement failed the

lifestyle was marketed to a very upper middle class demographic minimalism made a ton of sense for privileged folks who had the time to optimize their lives and seriously consider who they wanted to be and how they wanted to live but it wasn't very accessible for families people with demanding careers people who love clashing colors and patterns or other circumstances that make it difficult to fit all of your belongings into a backpack not everyone has the luxury to donate or sell their crock pot under the guys that you can just buy one later if you need

one according to sources more than half of Canadians are living paycheck to paycheck and that number Rises to 63 percent in America while many of us see maximalism as a fun Trend to try out it's important to realize that people living in poverty are more likely to save stuff as well as money because of financial uncertainty for a while it felt like your house had to look like a Scandinavian Mausoleum and you had to wear neutral colors all the time just to call yourself a minimalist and that left out a lot of people from cultures

who celebrate bold and vibrant colors and textures minimalism was literally whitewashed in more ways than one now if you talk to anyone in the minimalist World they will tell you that color scheme and cultural background have nothing to do with the minimalist movement you simply have to make choices about your belongings with intention and this is I think probably the biggest problem minimalism had many of the qualities that a cultural surge like this needs to be successful a distinct aesthetic a cultural significance that is counter-cultural in some way and the right timing people were tired

of their [ __ ] the attic full of stuff they forgot about the garage with no room for a car and minimalism was the first popular culture Trend that targeted that directly but what it lacked was something to feed the beast that makes our world go round consumerism part of the reason why minimalism didn't die out faster than it did is because it did a pretty good job at rejecting the status quo that our capitalist consumer Society has deemed normal but beyond the gray t-shirts and monochromatic kitchen cabinets and whatnot there wasn't really anything to

buy and sadly our whole world like it or not is built on buying stuff and without that fundamental piece it was very unlikely that minimalism had a chance the fact that a cultural movement based on not buying things reached this level of popularity is kind of mind-boggling and for a moment people started to see that buying stuff endlessly wasn't sustainable in more ways than one and quite honestly I think it is the mindfulness piece of minimalism or the intentionality part that everybody kind of forgot changing the way that your brain reacts to that advertisement or

that comment from a friend is extremely difficult and if we were going to fight the billions of dollars that corporations spend trying to get us to buy stuff every single day we were going to need more than a really clean apartment to convince us not to so in some ways I wouldn't say that minimalism has failed because because in a sense we always just kind of knew that capitalism would win and for many people including myself minimalism was a really good thing seeing and hearing from all these people that they also felt anxiety around their

stuff that they also hated shopping was a sudden validation for me that I didn't need to buy more things so no minimalism is no longer trending Matt diovella is not posting as often anymore and yeah I've moved on too but I would like to think that maybe minimalism has infected some part of our cultural makeup for the better but let us know what you think of minimalism down below and if you like this video remember to like it and if you enjoy our content subscribe and we'll see you next Wednesday [Music] thank you