Episode description
If American consumers ever come up for air under the pile of crap in their storage units, they find themselves face to face with a materialistic hellscape of megastores, McMansions, endless fleets of delivery trucks, and evil hordes of targeted ads. But help is on the way. Jason, Rob, and Asher present ideas for shaping up a world beyond consumerism.
Warning: This podcast occasionally uses spicy language.
Sources/Links/Notes:
- The original (and both catchy and annoying) Toys “R” Us theme song
- The melancholy remake of the theme song for a bankrupt Toys “R” Us, performed by Chase Holfelder
- U.S. Material Use Factsheet
- United Nations statistics on material footprint
- Self storage industry trends
- The environmental costs of fast fashion
- Story by Beth Porter, “What Really Happens to Unwanted Clothes?”
- Forbes list of billionaires
- George Carlin’s classic comedic bit about “stuff”
- Sandra Goldmark’s book Fixation: How to Have Stuff without Breaking the Planet