- Steven T. Johnson, 27, works in social media advertising and lives in Hollywood. He spends most of his days using things he does not own.
He takes a ride-share service to get to the gym; he does not own a car. At the gym, he rents a locker. He uses the gym's laundry service because he does not own a washing machine.
Johnson doesn't even have an apartment, actually. He rents a bed in a large room with other people who rent beds, for nights, weeks or months at a time, through a service called PodShare. All the residents share a kitchen and bathrooms. Johnson also rents a desk at WeWork, a coworking space.
And he says the only clothes he owns are two versions of the same outfit.
Johnson says he owns so little that he has even been able to get rid of his backpack. "I gave that up two months ago," he says.
He says that for him, this lifestyle isn't cumbersome or confusing. "That's what's great," he says. "When you don't own things, you don't have to keep track of them. You just show up."
The NPR article pretty much misses the point of Podshare: you pay one fee and you have access to five different flophouses, each with their own built-in workspace. They want $50 a night. Motel 6 in Hollywood wants $100. It's a cheap, transitory boarding house with a website, basically. "Steven T Johnson" is overpaying for everything. Lyft/Uber are now two to three times as expensive as the bus. A gym with a laundry service in Hollywood is Equinox at a minimum which is $300/mo (plus laundry). And his $1000/mo to stay in Hollywood is about $400 more a month than I pay for my shithole in Cypress Park, which is a 30-minute bus ride away. He's invested heavily in not committing to any one place to live. And maybe he can't scrape together the nut for a deposit... but fuckin' Equinox to 24-hour fitness is $250/mo savings. if Steve were to find some roommates his burn rate would drop precipitously; Craigslist on roommates in Hollywood puts it between $600 and $1200/mo.
...I don't know if you've noticed but NPR is a surface-level feel-good liberal-lite puff-piece haven for crusty 'boomers that can't stand Fox News but still look down their noses at anyone under 30. They're USA Today pretending to be the Wall Street Journal only for people who like pledge drives. And since the Republicans are constantly threatening to kill them they've got this weird Theon Greyjoy attitude towards conservatives wherein they don't want to make them mad but they can't help noticing the world is burning. Podshare is basically an e-hostel. Give "Steven T Johnson" a Eurail pass and he isn't even weird. Down in LA my neighbor is in a band. He's a fucking success. He spends about 8 months a year touring and has been on late night TV like three times. He also lives with like five roommates in my shithole neighborhood. The problem is for sensationalists like NPR there's no tidy 2-minute angle on "kids are generally poorer than they were when you were one."
Hurt means you feel. Hurt means you haven't accepted it. From the bottom of my heart I'm sorry. My instinct is to blame the 'boomers but fuckin' hell all they did was spend what they had. GenX invented the Internet and between Brin, Page, Bezos and crew this dystopian hellscape you call work is on us, man. Hey you can watch Netflix on your phone that's pretty cool right?
I've noticed their day to day coverage is toothless but this story something else. They're still the best broadcast news in the country and their affiliates or whatever like pri and Public Radio Exchange will occasionally do actual journalism. If your gonna dismiss them out of hand you miss comedy gold like the time an economist had to seriously consider the statement that trade wars are good and easy to win
Yeah. I think we're in a weird area with minimalism right now, where for some it's a philosophical choice, for others a fashionable trend, and for an unfortunate many, a result of economic reality. It makes me wonder how many of the first two groups are actually members of the third group, but for the sake of sanity, convinced themselves that they consciously made a lifestyle choice instead of having that lifestyle forced on them.