The Gollum Effect
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The Gollum Effect

In a recent newsletter, “The Shopping Cure,” Anne Helen Petersen explored the compulsion to buy and accumulate stuff that’s been fostered by technologies of frictionless consumption. Every conceivable activity or hobby one sets out to enjoy becomes an occasion to buy stuff: “They transform from sites of actual pleasure and diversion to means of
... See moreHaving substituted consumption for creativity and technical skills, shopping becomes a form of self-actualization--there's no small number of teenage girls who associate personal growth with changing their wardrobe--"retail therapy" becomes an active way of feeling good. Shopping,