Follow-Up Roundup
Some new developments involving recent Inconspicuous Consumption posts.
Hello! After I published Wednesday’s post about people who document and catalog all of their material possessions, several IC readers got in touch to let me know about some similar projects. Let’s start with a guy named John Freyer, who in 2001 launched a project called All My Life for Sale. The project’s website — primitive but still functional — describes the endeavor like so:
Fed up with his inability to quell the constant flow of objects into his apartment, and determined to be able to fit his life into the trunk of his car, one day John Freyer decided to sell everything he owned on the internet. He invited his friends over to tag his possessions and systematically put them up for sale on eBay. An opened box of taco shells, half a bottle of mouthwash, almost all of his clothes, his favorite records, his sideburns (in a plastic bag), his family’s Christmas presents (not yet given), furniture — John didn’t let sentiment or utility stand in his way. Soon his belongings were sold all over the world, with a bag of Porky’s BBQ Pork Skins making its way to Japan, and a chair ending up in the Museum of Modern Art.
This project (which also inspired a book) is so completely in my wheelhouse, I’m not sure how I’d never heard of it before. Big thanks to reader Clint Wrede for bringing it to my attention.
