Consumerism helps economy, hurts Americans’ individuality

Nothing’s worse than when something should make you happy but instead all it does is make… Nothing’s worse than when something should make you happy but instead all it does is make you sad. It’s like a Christmas morning when people just say “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” and then they give you non-denominational cards and presents carved elaborately out of coal. It’s misery, I tell you. You try to be happy and ride your coal bike, but the tires don’t work and then you fall down and cry and no one tells you that Jesus is going to make it better. So you just keep crying. And that’s what I did when the third H’M store opened in Pittsburgh.

Why did I cry? Well, I didn’t cry. Fine, maybe I did, but only a little, just a bit. I cried because I love H’M; it’s my favorite store. It’s cheap flashy Swedish clothing, and I’m a cheap flashy man of non-Swedish origins. It’s like Ikea but substitute clothes for wacky side tables. How could anybody not love this store?

The first time I went there I was living in New York, and I still remember being awed by its size and the sheer amount of wonderfully disposable clothing to be found in it. Later on, living in D.C., I would go to Georgetown, braving the crowds and the tourists and the Bush twins that I was obsessed with but never actually saw, just to go to that H’M. The only drawback to living in Pittsburgh, for me, wasn’t our city’s brutal yearly extortion by the Port Authority or our lack of a NBA franchise but rather our lack of H’M.

So when that weird extraordinarily flat mall outside of Pittsburgh opened and it contained my beloved chain store, I freaked out. Things don’t fall apart, Yeats! Look at this center! Totally holding. Things seemed good, if not great. And then H’M opened at Southside Works. Even better, right? I could walk to H’M now, an option I had never had before. Despite what Blur said, modern life certainly didn’t feel like rubbish. It felt great. There’s no success like excess, right?

And then another one opened at Robinson Mall. And when I went home to visit my mom, I found out that one had opened in the mall near my house. And all of a sudden, I felt like I was surrounded by cheap Swedish clothes, and I just didn’t care anymore.

What I had always loved about that store was the fact that it wasn’t everywhere I went; I couldn’t just buy some oddly fitting button-up whenever I wanted, because I was at the mercy of geography, held hostage by real estate and zoning. The store was limited, and that’s what made it attractive. I naively believed that unlimited access would only give me unlimited happiness.

Instead it was like an all-you-can-eat buffet at a restaurant which seems initially like it would be this cool, slightly glorious Roman emperor-esque way to eat dinner. Unfortunately, all it takes is going to one of those places to cure you of that fantasy. Everyone there is kind of sad and the lighting is off and at any second someone could poison the salad bar with salmonella like that Rajneeshee cult did in Oregon in the ’80s.

And even though there’s no salad bar at H’M – although one could argue that there certainly should be – it still feels bloated and overdone. Why does there need to be an H’M at every mall? As a matter of fact, why does there need to be a Gap at every mall? Why do we even need all these different malls filled with all of the same stores? They all sell the same things in the exact same way with the same ads and same mannequins and the same unbelievable sameness everywhere.

Why don’t we have places that are different and look different? Why don’t we look different? Why do we struggle so hard and obsessively to shop so equally? And does it have to be like this all the time? Because, frankly, I’m not buying it.

Oh, except I am. We’re all buying it, aren’t we? Remember what the current administration said in 2006, with the threat of recession looming? He said “I encourage you all to go shopping more,” because we all know what keeps America strong, right? Consumerism! Isn’t it wonderful how as a nation all we produce is consumption? An insatiable desire to shop more, buy more, more H’M, more houses, more cars, more everything.

It’s always more, as if we’re trying to make every morning Christmas and to have every day be a celebration of sweet secular buying. So, merry Christmas, I guess; I’ve got bikes of coal to ride while wearing a horizontally striped shirt in a bold, Swedish pattern. It’s going to be a busy morning.

Feel free to e-mail tagline suggestions to kjs34@pitt.edu.