This absolute treasure is for you.
Lol I saw this critique a while back and it’s spot on, but that being said I owe a great deal of gratitude to these weirdos.
I discovered minimalist through their first documentary on Netflix when I was in a pretty dark place and it resonated with my SO much that it kindled a fire, and I began exploring to topic myself, which lead me to learning more about stoicism, Buddhism, meditation, and ton of bloggers/communities/discussions/perspectives/etc on minimalism.
I listened to their podcast for a while and their new documentary, but after a while I feel like I aimply outgrew them. They didn’t change; I did. Their pithy anecdotes and black and white presentation of the philosophy really started to urk me and feel superficial or even phoney. I found myself with a pretty negative impression of them, though their message is the same.
I’ve resolved that although I not longer enjoy their offerings, they were the catalyst I needed to start my own journey, and I hope that their wash/rinse/repeat message is purposeful and vurtuous and that ithelps others to start their own journeys, even though those already on the journey are able to derive very little from ongoing engagement with them.
So do I, I first watched the doc when I was on the cusp of 18, grieving the loss of my parents, and in desperate need of something to orient myself around. It saved me a financially and allowed me to plan out my 20s in a way that I otherwise wouldn’t have had the “worldliness” to do. It also took me to 100 countries and gave me experiences that are invaluable to me. I’m grateful that it came when it did and still watch it on occasion.
The “pithy” thing is funny because EVERYBODY cites that as the moment the bond broke between them and the podcast. I think it just kind of made people go “wtf even is this” and realize they had evolved past that point in their life and thinking.
I actually subscribed to their patreon and reached out to them suggesting some new content ideas (as opposed to the repetition, though I didn’t say that directly). I forget exactly how they worded their response, but it was so… eww, like you could tell this was just a money grab for them, that I immediately unsubscribed.
Ultimately I think their first doc was good, and it’s a good onboarding thing for some people, but it’s limited to that really.
It’s weird because they kinda gotta talk about the same thing because they chose podcasting as a career, it’s just too bad it’s about a topic that you can only say so many new things about.
I think there are some great things they do say, but I try and think about how it relates to me. There’s a lot of stuff they say I don’t necessarily agree with, but nowadays a lot of people think that personalities like this need to be right 100% of the time. It would be silly to think these guys have nothing of value just because they say some other things that most people probably wouldn’t agree with.
They haven’t said nearly everything there is to say though. They’ve just repeated stuff verbatim. All they would need to do is go on some minimalist youtube channels, figure out what’s out there and what the community talks about, and speak to that. They could talk about anything from furniture design to FIRE to travel to diet (other than their weird ass vegan vs. all meat diet episode) to city vs. rural to kitchen utensils. There are troves of subsets that they either haven’t even touched or skimmed over for the briefest moment.
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Thanks for sharing this
Thank you. I think preachy minimalism is the #1 reason i could have, and all of us could have be put off the idea. It doesn’t have to be a religion. Just a set of preferences to focus on simpler things. That’s all it has to be.
