Have you ever heard of “conspicuous consumption?” I hadn’t either, but the idea should sound familiar. Thorstein Veblen, whose name (and beard) are credentials enough, introduced conspicuous consumption in 1899. Basically, Veblen proposed the idea that we mostly buy things just to impress other people.
Here’s an example: Say you’re about to get engaged. You go to the jewelry store and buy the fattest, heaviest, shiniest rock in that place because you want your soon-to-be-fiancée to know just how much she means to you. Whether you consciously do it or not, you’re trying to impress more people than just her. When other people see it, they’re going to know you broke the bank to get her that ring. You must be so rich, successful, and generous. You must be a victim of conspicuous consumption.
Or maybe you just hit it big in the record industry with your new single, “Baby Got Back 2: Baby Don’t Got Back.” It’s a day you’ve dreamed about. You head down to Miami and buy Shakira’s old house. You now have more bedrooms than you do fingers, and use maybe three of them. Why buy the house? People now know you have the money to buy stupid things you don’t need.
The reason I mention all this is simple on paper, yet remarkably difficult in practice.
I’d like to propose an end to the culture of conspicuous consumption. I propose an end to sizing up our peers based on the size of their logos, an end to wasting money on products we don’t want to impress people we don’t even know. I want to usher in the era of reuse.
Enter RE. University of Idaho graphic design students created RE to change perceptions of sustainability across campus and combat conspicuous consumption.
Let me cut through the crap for you: RE is about making sustainability easy and directly beneficial to students. It’s about reusing the old and boring to make something new.
RE is about that moment when you go to get rid of something, when that voice in the back of your head asks, “Isn’t there something else I could do with this?”
The answer is likely yes.
On Nov. 10, the Sustainability Center will launch RE. Come to the Idaho Commons Clearwater room to talk to student groups about ways to reuse, save money and make new from the old.
We’re starting small. Bring us your old T-shirts, bags and backpacks. We’ll make them new again — and it won’t be difficult. Bring other things in and we’ll brainstorm ways to reuse them too.
You’ve heard the slogan a thousand times: Reduce, reuse, recycle. Let’s stop talking about it and (re)do it.