In communities dedicated to everyday carry items like wallets, knives, and electronics you’ll frequently see community favorites that kind of act as the standard.
That and memes like the photo I linked made me think about a community of pseudo minimalist people who focus on living with portability or functionality in mind. Things like sleeping in a sleeping bag on a cot, relying on a docked laptop for gaming, or only using a single bowl for a majority of your meals.
It’s a bit of a long shot and odd question but I’d be interested to see what they’re passionate about.
Before people make Reddit style quips I’m not talking about not being well off or homeless. I’m also not really talking about people who have to move for work like truck drivers or people who stay in hotels. More like easily being able to move
I think that image annoys women as they are angry that men require so little to be happy.
That’s a pretty sexist outlook. I don’t think the image makes an entire 51% of the population angry. And I think people like Jeff Bezos show that not all men require “so little to be happy”. It’s almost like genders are not hive-minds, and generalizing anything that broadly is only going to result in looking like a boomer who complains about how terrible their spouse is.
Wow look at you rushing to nobodies defence in the name of calling a joke sexist. Generally u can generalise most things.
No, you should not “generalize” when those generalizations are negative and targeted at a specific group of people. That’s called stereotyping and is widely considered a bad thing.
Stereotyping is simply a relabelling of the basic human intellectual activity of categorising everything specificly in the context of human behaviour.
For example i can categorise your behaviour and take an educated guess or as u would call it steriotype you. I assume ur a male, i assume your american, i assume your politically left of centre left, i assume your going to vote for kamala harris, i assume you are pro choice, i assume u support ukraine and have concerns about gaza, i assume u believe in free speach yet feel the need to censor hate speech, misinformation, and malinformarion.
How accurate is my steriotype? do u see why its generally considered a usefull tool?
What about your assumptions is useful to anyone?
It helps me identify the biases of this person argument and provide relevent examples or put them in situations where they must argue against an idea they believe to defend the point in the argument they are having. It makes pointing out people doublethink easyer. It allows you to infer thibgs without needing to ask.
Why do people wear sports teams, brands, get piercings, tattoos, fancy cars, literally any other form of personal expression. Is that not simply signally allegiance to a steriotype as to allow others to observe to communicate to meet people of commonality?
That carpet has too many… uh, “colors.”
Id probably slide the TV stand closer to that outlet. You can at least attempt to hide wires.
At the least, the chair should be properly squared with the TV.
Agree. All these wires make the room look rather messy.
You need a sofa for when you have girls over but other than that I see nothing wrong .
i have a table
Won’t catch me with PlayStation
…what’s the issue?
It’s not an issue. Just a meme that’s common and demonstrates kind of what I’m after.
The person who owns that living room might just have gone after a really comfy chair over a couch which might be more typical for example. It feels kind of within the realm of minimalism and more focused on the utility of the space
You’ll want to maybe start looking into some Asian cultures. There is a lot of minimalism there, like this guy. He is able to pack and move to a new home in 13min and moves every year. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XBQBKseozuY
There are also some people who try their best to make it look like there is nothing in their apartment, but it’s really a full on transformer https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XBQBKseozuY https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XBQBKseozuY
There is also a youtube channel called Never Too Small https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XBQBKseozuY
This is actually inspiring. Not sure most poeple could afford installations like in the second video though. And the guy in the first video did have a point; it would be hard to share this lifestyle with someone else, or even just to invite friends at home up to a certain point.
FYI all of your links are the same video!
Mr. Sibu is so cool! It’s a very different way of living than any I’ve seen before. I don’t think it’s as doable in the suburbs of the U.S. as it is in a proper city.
Does make me think just how much junk I have cluttering the place up. Hmm.
I don’t think it’s as doable in the suburbs of the U.S. as it is in a proper city.
I’ve read a few times that suburbs are horribly wasteful and inefficient to live, work, commute, or support for infrastructure. I’m not saying we should get rid of the suburbs so everyone can live sensibly, but I will tell you to get rid of the suburbs to save the planet (and live sensibly) :-D
30-floor mixed-use towers clustered around the subway entrance, with parks around that, and agri/nature space around that. No bungalow burbs.
I think this is why the “15min City/Neighborhood” is a popular idea. Small clusters of group where you can walk and get all your basic needs within a 15min walk. I don’t really think this is feasible in the US though, unless someone decided to build an entirely new city.
Damn phone! Thank you for letting me know. I’ve updated my post.
And yes, it would be much harder outside of cities.
I’m not seeing a question in there. What are you actually asking?
What kind of work do they get into?
When they were here, it was mostly farm work. My uncle had them cleaning stuff up around his place, and they did some picking at a strawberry farm that I know of.
In bigger towns and cities, they tend to try and busk if they can, but don’t mind doing stuff like waiting tables, dishwashing, etc in restaurants. One of the guys has done a good amount of construction over the years. I’m pretty sure they’ve also done some weed dealing here and there.
They also do craft work and sell the stuff. Kinda junk imo, but it sells okay.
But, when they’re in the right cities, what they really focus on is session work. Mostly bluegrass and folk, plus some standard country. From what they’ve said, a few weeks in Nashville can set them up quite well, assuming there’s enough going on that their contacts can get them working on. It isn’t necessarily something they can just roll up and be in a studio, though. They have to plan the stay ahead of time, based on there being work.
One of the guys used to strip lol.
They’re wondering if there is a subset of the minimalist community whose goals are specifically nomadic.
Ahhhh, that makes sense now. Thanks
There was (is?) a subreddit called /r/onebag that might be like this. It was sort of minimalism taken to the extreme of condensing your possessions to a single bag. Definitely some overlap with the digital nomad community too
That’s pretty close to what most people would call Van Life. There are massive communities around that.
Thanks but that’s still kind of on the fringe of what I’m looking for. I feel like that’s more about working within the confines of the van rather than living effectively.
Someone trying that might be stuck using a hotplate but they could still have a decent sized mattress and gaming setup for example if that makes sense. It seems more like living densely
Maybe I’m missing something here, but plenty of folks - blue collar workers, technicians, engineers - have away jobs where they work in different places for weeks or months at a time, and there are landlords who specialize in providing this clientele with bare-bones furnished apartments. I’ve been there, too - in fact, one year during the pandemic, I had spent just a bit more than half of my time working and living in a place away from home.
I’m portable because I like the idea of being able to move without it being a big project. I think most people are utilitarian in that they buy things that address a specific problem they have, though maybe people who like minimalist ideas would have a different threshhold for what constitutes a ‘problem’ and favour products that address multiple problems in the simplest way.
When I moved I did sleep in a sleeping bag for a bit, but practically it’s much easier to wash a duvet cover than a sleeping bag. Same goes for hammock vs. bed. My bowl situation started at 1, but I ended up washing this one bowl all the time and it felt wasteful and effortful. I still do eat breakfast out of the pot, but I would argue it’s the best solution and others should copy me :) I’ll happily sit in one chair for a couple years before deciding a second chair or a couch is a requirement.
I think over a long period of time I’ll still be minimal, but have more specific things. It is genuinely more pleasant to eat salad from a salad size bowl/plate, pasta from a pasta bowl, soup or cereal from a cereal bowl, a latte from a latte mug, etc. Minimalism to me will always be about min/maxing items to squeeze the most joy out of life because I need that lift. Being spartan is hard living.
Have you looked into vanlife groups? It’s not the same exactly, but most of the items they use should translate pretty well to nomadicish apartment life
Prius Dwellers are probably the most hardcore at that
I had an ex boyfriend who lived for about a year in a geo metro with his boyfriend and two dogs. They didn’t sleep in it, though
Second this. Vanlife stuff is focused on size, mass, durability, efficiency, replaceability, repairability, modularity, price. There is nothing better than vanlife videos for learning how to live minimally within an apartment.
Some additional tips,
- folding furniture.
- Human baseline happiness returns to set points. Remove something non-essential and you may be sad at first, but will eventually stop caring.
- No couch or TV: if it cant fit on/in my car or is fragile, I’m not buying it.
- if you don’t mind appearing “poor”, you may realize that the products that best fit all the above criteria are just basic things from walmart, target, etc. Those folding plastic tables and metal bed frames, plastic tubs and drawers, actually solve their problems 90% as well as traditional products at 10% the price, while being readily available everywhere. You don’t worry about damaging them either.
- take or leave advice. Maybe you want a nice desk. I have a nice office chair. It will be hard to move, but it’s worth it. The point is you can be minimal in unimportant areas.
The issue is that the TV is too low for an optimal viewing angle.
Just move the whole setup towards the camera by about 2 feet and you’ll not only hide that power outlet, you’ll get the recliner away from what looks likely to be a VERY poorly insulated front door. I can feel the cold radiating off of it in the winter already.
Like the post says this isn’t my place it’s a really common meme and meme template. I’m looking for communities of people who live like this.
It’s kind of minimalist but without the stressed cleanliness and lack of all clutter
Oh, I know. I’m not specifically talking to YOU. Just making a general comment in the second person.