The Search for the Authentic

One of Salon's bloggers wrote a fantastic post about shoppers' quest for authenticity as expressed by the new TV series "Man Shops Globe." In this series, a dude scours the globe for one of a kind items that can be marked up to outrageous prices at Anthropoligie, a store that also sells mass produced "one-of-a-kind" merchandise as well as the generic pretty things you can find at any retail store.

The post does an excellent job analyzing our need for authenticity in a consumer culture saturated with flimsy disposable commodities with no connection to "the concreteness of old stuff that looks like it has a long and storied history."

This helps explain why upcycling, reconstructing, and otherwise reusing materials is such a feel good thing to do. What better way to add value to your belongings than working on it yourself and make it uniquely yours?