your post also gets to one of the problems that most annoy me about human beings: this desire to wear our coolness/individuality/alternative-ness on our sleeves — literally! it’s as if personality isn’t enough. honestly, people who play into the dream of hipsterdom (or any other-dom — country club-dom (i shudder at lacoste) is just another example) are afraid they aren’t worth anything other than their looks. it’s sad to me; i can’t decide whether i want to give them several big hugs or run away from them as quickly as possible.

Back when “green” was an up-and-coming trend, I thought that it was all about reducing consumption — which was a very good thing. At first, it was — it was all about minimizing energy usage, avoiding littering, eating more sensibly, and limiting the number of things you throw away. However, some very business-savvy people in a conference room somewhere figured out that “cut your consumption” isn’t what people wanted to hear — so they found a way to let people buy more stuff (which everyone seems to want to do these days) while allowing them to enjoy the thought that they’re doing something good for the planet. Now, the “green” movement has become an excuse for companies to raise prices (it may not fall directly in line with environmentalism, but a good example is the regular Kraft shredded cheese and the “natural” cheese; the one marked “natural” is supposed to involve less manufacturing and all of that, but costs twice as much!) and for consumers to justify buying a whole bunch of crap under the guise of supposed environmentalism.

@ Jackie — Glad you like the post…you’re definitely not lame. I spent all yesterday quizzing my mom on savings accounts, IRAs and other financial stuff. I’d rather save money than spend it.

Although…I must be the epitome of lame since I RARELY spend money. I prefer to horde it.