The Story of Stuff

There are those amongst us who are genuinely curious and concerned about the current situation of the worlds’ never ending consumerism and all the side effects that it has. Annie Leonard, the author behind the short film and now book which has been titled after the short film, “The Story of Stuff,” allowed herself more than ten years of her life to the collecting of data to solidify her general perception of the capitalist market.

In The Story of Stuff there are five steps in the main machine of consumerism with the first step being extraction which is the extraction of raw materials or natural resources to fuel the production of goods, the second step is production and this is where she talks about how most of the costs of production are “externalized” which she goes on to explain by telling us that the goods are produced elsewhere in the world where raw material and labor costs are minimal and then shipped to the US where they are offered at very low prices. Then comes the third step of distribution which is followed by consumption, the step of the machine which is given a lot of emphasis, as Annie explains that every day when someone comes home from work all they do is either watch television or go shopping because when they come home all tired from work all they can do is sit in front of the TV where they absorb more than three thousand advertisements in a day. She says that the main goal behind television ads is to make the consumer feel unhappy with what they already own and inevitably spend more money.

The Story of Stuff book was released on the 9th of March and can be bought “anywhere where books are sold.”

The Story of Stuff