I want to be an unfluencer and convince people that nothing you can buy matters other than in terms of what you can do with it and what it means to you personally. The rest is all bullshit.

And I realize I'm saying this even as I use my IG story mainly to sell shit—but hell, if something there doesn't move you personally, don't buy it! If you don't feel like you need it, don't buy it!

I spent a long time buying shit because I felt like I had to have it for whatever reason, or that oh man, am I really a sneakerhead if I don't own these? I was an idiot. Don't be an idiot like me.

And that's not to say I regret accumulating everything. For me, sometimes just buying something was the hit. The mistake was keeping it. Or buying the next thing and the next instead of appreciating the one thing that I REALLY wanted or needed.

And maybe I needed this long break from actual human contact and society to wean me off it. Although I'm pretty sure I was coming off it already and this just hastened a process already in progress.

It's just wild how we can be influenced to buy near-impossible to get things by rich people who show them off after they get them for free. THEY don't deal with bullshit apps or bullshit lotteries or whatever. The shit just shows up at their door. And THEY can afford it.

So I'm not saying don't buy things if you want them. But maybe ask yourself first why you want it and whether you need it. And take a good look at what you have already. Will one more...whatever...fill that need that the 30 other things you bought to fill that same need didn't?

I don't know, I'm just so turned off by all the consumerist bullshit and how it's been so effectively weaponized, particularly over the past couple of decades. And I know I said it before, but pulling out my old '94 1s really put it into perspective for me.

I bought those for full boat retail back then and wore the living shit out of them. And doing that made me more fulfilled than the days when I was getting like, I don't know, a pair sent to me every day of the week.

It's kind of like one of those be careful what you wish for things. Like, oh shit, I can get every pair sent to me? For free? This is incredible! But yeah idiot, you had the one pair you really needed the whole goddamn time.

Meanwhile outside of wearing some things once and leaving them, I've spent 90 percent of the pandemic in some broken-in black/gum Etnies Maranas or some navy/white adidas Campuses. The rest is just excess.

I also think it's definitely worth looking at the messaging of damn near anything and asking yourself "is the main intent of this to get me to buy something?" And if it is, be fucking skeptical about it.

And I know I said this before to, but the biggest way I changed perspective on purchasing was to stop asking "do I like this" or "do I want this" where the answer was usually "yes" to "do I need this" where the answer is usually "no."

Literally the best part of my day now is getting on the bike on the rollers. I bought the rollers probably 15 years ago and the bike is a wildly outdated Italian road bike I bought on eBay with a "no way THIS bid wins" bid.

I don't have to spend any money, I don't have to upgrade anything, there's not something I can buy that will make that experience better. And that half-hour a night makes me look at everything else in that light too.

And it's like, sure, experiences over possessions. That's not new. But hell, so much about experiences are trying to sell you things too. It's just a baked-in part of the system. The general idea is you can never have enough.

And like, to come full circle, if I could define what being an "unfluencer" should be, it's to say yeah, actually you DO have enough. That next pair of sneakers or next jacket isn't going to stop the craving any more than the last one did.

And at some point you need to make a conscious decision. Do you want to keep riding the ride, or do you want to get off. Me? I'm getting off. I'll walk from here.

Anyway that's enough proselytizing for one night.