The Story of Stuff

Just being upfront with y'all: I think materialism and modern consumption practices are quite dangerous. Consumption, for me, is a broad word defining all the things -- material (food, production goods) and immaterial (ideas, ideologies, social expectations) -- that we take in -- individually, socially, and culturally. Consumption of any kind becomes dangerous when it's not done critically. Now, I find that regardless of my pet intellectual interest at any given moment, whether it be food and health politics, labor exploitation and abuses, the ideologies of material consumption, socialization for (unequal) human interaction, or any other site of focus, in my own mind they are all connected and intertwined in a vast, complex system that defines and is defined by human existence and interaction. As such, I was THRILLED to recently watch a 20-minute documentary that artfully and eloquently ties together so many pieces of the big picture, reminding me that there really is value in connecting all the dots.

The Story of Stuff is described as follows:

Annie Leonard, an activist who has spent the past 10 years traveling the globe fighting environmental threats, narrates The Story of Stuff, delivering a rapid-fire, often humorous and always engaging story about 'all our stuff—where it comes from and where it goes when we throw it away.' Leonard examines the real costs of extraction, production, distribution, consumption and disposal.... Leonard’s inspiration for the film began as a personal musing over the question, 'Where does all the stuff we buy come from, and where does it go when we throw it out?' She traveled the world in pursuit of the answer to this seemingly innocent question, and what she found along the way were some very guilty participants and their unfortunate victims.

I, for one, was impressed and am more than happy to help spread the video as far and wide as possible. (Yes, I'm encouraging you to consume it! Critically, of course!)

The best I can figure, The Story of Stuff came out sometime in early December 2007, and since then it has won an SXSW interactive web award for being such a valuable educational resource, has had over 3 million online views since uploaded, and has roughly 15,000 new hits every day from all over the world. (Subliminal message inserted here: You should become one today's new viewers.) A huge part of its success, I think, is its viral nature. It's free to watch, free to download, free to share with everyone you know. It's very well researched (you can even download the annotated script, which I think is the bomb-diggity), the website has a wealth of additional information and resources (including within the video interaction panel itself) showing very directly the interconnections between the environment, human health, workers' rights, globalization, and alternatives -- providing both direct information and connections to organizations and activist groups with whom you can become involved. And that's one of the great things about the video's presentation as a whole; Leonard speaks strongly to the large variety of ways to get involved. She says in the film,

The good thing about such a pervasive problem is that there are so many points of intervention. There are people working... on saving forests and... on clean production. People working on labor rights and fair trade and conscious consuming and blocking landfills and incinerators and, very importantly, on taking back our government so it really is by the people and for the people. All this work is critically important but things are really gonna start moving when we see the connections, when we see the big picture. When people... get united, we can reclaim and transform [into]... a system that doesn't waste resources or people. Because what we really need to chuck is this old-school throw-away mindset. There's a new school of thinking and it's based on sustainability and equity: green chemistry, zero waste, closed loop production, renewable energy, local living economies. It's already happening.

In an interview with Terrence McNally of Alternet, Leonard said, "[T]here's a cost to this excessive consumption. There's an environmental cost, there's a social cost -- and there's a personal happiness cost. This is what's really interesting. A lot of people think buying all this stuff is making us happier, but recent data has come out showing that it's not so. So we're trashing the planet, we're trashing communities -- and we're not even having fun. If we were at least having fun, we might want to reconsider. But it's not even fun anymore, so we need to rethink how we make, use and relate to the stuff in our lives." Can't really argue with that, eh?!

Another reason I think The Story of Stuff is so awesome is that the film was produced by Free Range Studios, the awesome folks who brought us The Meatrix and Grocery Store Wars. (If you haven't seen those, you should! They're funny, educational, and downright rockin'.)

Funding for The Story of Stuff was provided by The Funders Workgroup for Sustainable Production and Consumption and Tides Foundation.

And, if I haven't convinced you yet to spend just 20 minutes watching this awesome video, here's a little teaser. (The clip reminds me a little of Dr. Seuss' The Sneetches, another story about consumption's failing to 'fix' anything. The Sneetches is also a powerful story about social -isms in general. It's a two-for-one great story.)

Enjoy!