Everyone’s going minimalist now, but the idea of minimalism seems to have shifted to something completely different. Lowkey missing old school minimalism.

I’ve been practicing minimalism for the past decade, and it literally changed my life for the better. It’s been really surreal to see minimalism go mainstream. I’ve been out of the loop of the minimalist community for a while now, but it seems like there’s a ton of new people joining in on the trend and it’s not really the same movement it used to be. <br><br>Although everyone has their own version of what they think minimalism is, it’s become a lot more mainstream which is why I think there’s a pretty prevailing idea of what most people associate with the term “minimalist lifestyle”. <br><br>The biggest people I see nowadays in the media who talk about minimalist lifestyles are Marie Kondo, the ‘hot meme minimalist guy’ (joshuaslocum), and the Beck family. <br><br>Marie Kondo isn’t really a minimalist at all and literally sells a bunch of products that are completely unminimalist and so unnecessary for the average person. Her entire philosophy is that if it gives you joy, it’s worth keeping. It’s about valuing your belongings to the point that you treat it like it’s a person. She literally gives a spiritual life to everything you own, and it’s just insane to me. <br><br>The Beck family is the new super rich minimalist influencers that are trending hard now. Watching their videos, it seems like they’re just a bunch of rich people who built a big ass house with a big backyard, decorated it really modern and aesthetically pleasing, but it’s super unminimalist. They have almost everything they could ever need, and they don’t seem to be lacking any comforts or luxuries at all. <br><br>The first thing that comes to mind when they talk about minimalism is when They say they have a 8 cars and a 4 story house, and they’re like, “but we only own 200 items”. So they clearly have a ton of shit. I mean, it’s insane that they’re holding themselves up as a model of what it’s like to live a minimalist lifestyle. It’s basically just a rich family being rich with a minimalist aesthetic.<br><br>Joshua Slocum is a bit of a different story. I’ve never seen him try to sell anything to his viewers, and he’s the closest thing I can think of to a modern day Jack Kerouac. But he doesn’t really talk about the value of stuff, and what he owns. He just carries around bags of stuff and kind of displays it sometimes, so it’s hard to tell if he’s really a minimalist or not. But he’s cool in his own way and I kinda like him. <br><br>I think these people have given living a minimalist lifestyle a bad image. And with it becoming more popular, I can see it becoming a bunch more watered down. If anything, it seems like minimalism has just shifted towards being called a minimalist while being consumerist AF while also owning a bunch of random shit. <br><br>I guess this is just my gripe with modern minimalism, and I’m not sure where it’s headed. The old-school simplicity movement, the tiny house movement, and extreme minimalism seemed to have a lot more to it than modern minimalism. It was a full lifestyle change and something that could really help people. <br><br>What are your thoughts on this? Am I missing something here? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.