If Minimalism Wants to Survive, It Must Evolve Away From Minimalist Bros and Insta-Perfect Homes

Welcome to the third wave of Minimalism

According to Google Trends, Minimalism is dying. People are Googling it less than one, two, three years ago.

Honestly, I’m not surprised. People have heard the same Minimalism tropes a thousand times before.

To survive, Minimalism has to evolve into something more useful. Something less perfect. Something more attainable than what the previous two waves of Minimalism have given them.

Because Lord knows we need the movement more than ever.

First, we had Minimalist Bros. Now we have Insta-perfect minimalism

I’m all for (positive) extreme movements that push boundaries and move the needle.

That was the work of the early minimalist bros. You know the type. Dudes living with just 44 possessions. Dudes who packed up their life and lived wherever their followers told them to go.

Interesting? Absolutely. Needed? Definitely.

Relateable to a family struggling with their 300,000 items and overstuffed diaries? Not so much.

So slowly, minimalism evolved. And because we live in the Zuck years, it evolved into an Insta-friendly genre. Aesthetically pleasing, small but impossibly clean homes.

This is where we are right now. And this shit is popular. Over 27 million Instagram posts have been tagged with #minimalism.

Minimalism as a concept may be downward trending but beautifully curated interiors are forever, I guess.

As a writer who has written her fair share of minimalism articles, this is where I see Minimalism right now. Stuck in Instagram and all the trappings that comes with the platform.

In other words, Minimalism is stuck in its S.M.A.L.L phase…

Minimalism is a casualty of Social Media-Abetted Lightweight Living (SMALL)

You heard the acronym here first, folks

SMALL is my way of expressing how social media — especially the visually strong, fast-consuming heavy hitters like Instagram and TikTok — reduce everything into a lightweight version of reality.

The sort of content that is easily digestible but leaves you hungry and unfulfilled.

In terms of Minimalism, it’s easier to amass tens of thousands of followers through the curation of beautiful but heavily curated interiors or experiences than it is to get into the meaty nitty-gritty of what a life lived with less truly means or looks like.

It’s easier to regurgitate what thousands of minimalist blogs have written about before than it is to offer honest reflections.

Everything gets stuck at the beginning. How many articles are there out there called some iteration of “how to get started with minimalism” or “5 hacks to begin decluttering your home”?

Even few of the minimalist big-hitters (besides, arguably, The Minimalists themselves) move beyond this.

This is why Minimalism is at risk of dying. These “how to start” blogs are useful certainly. But if you never move beyond surface-level, you’ll eventually lose people. They might dabble but once they’ve done a declutter and established some (admittedly important) habits, they might sit there and wonder…what next?

Where do I go from here? Do I really want to read yet another blog post on how to organize my kitchen? Do I really need another inspirational quote plastered over a pretty picture of a sunset on my Insta feed?

Or do I need something actually useful and attainable for a normal, overworked, harassed, exhausted human being?

The problem I have with SMALL minimalism is that it doesn’t actually do all that much to further the cause of minimalism or living more simply. And in our current economic, social and cultural climate, we arguably need nitty-gritty Minimalism more than ever.

You can’t consume your way out of your problems

Instagram tells you a picture paints a thousand words, so how’s this one for you:

Image credit: Google Trends

This is the Google Trends graph for “Minimalism” searches for the last 19 years. The spike is January 2017 when The Minimalists released their film. Since then, its popularity is slowly decreasing.

This is not the graph I want to see. It’s not like life has become more meaningful since 2017. People still spend on stuff. They still want the big house and the big car.

More than ever, we need a movement that champions intentional living.

But Minimalism has always suffered from an image problem. Thanks to those cabin-dwelling bros back in the day — and the minimalist art movement that came before it — minimalism is still considered an extreme lifestyle.

Meagre. Depressing.

When in reality, the only thing extreme is the level of consumption we have been gaslighted into thinking is normal.

Capitalism thrives on never-ending growth — it’s literally a pillar of this economic model. But in reality, we can’t grow at the rate our overlords would like. There aren’t enough hours in the day to make enough money to buy all the things we’re told we can have, nay, deserve.

We need Minimalism — or some iteration of it — to temper our never-ending search for the holy consumption grail.

Which is why I’m calling for Minimalism’s third wave.

I’m calling for Minimalism’s third wave. Its best wave

For Minimalism to work, it needs to become more real.

I’m not talking social-media “real” where someone breaks down on camera for thirty seconds tearfully telling you about how decluttering saved their life. In a truthful, deep-dive kind of real. In a place where people spend less time demonstrating decluttering hacks and more time delving into big-hitting subjects.

I want to see Minimalist big-hitters get mad. I want to see them passionate. People are tired of banal social media and online personalities, they want some life in their feed. They want life in their life.

This is the space in which I want to see minimalism thrive. An honest, gritty place that gets angry at the system and figures out practical, useful ways to put it right.

I want Minimalism to talk about popular culture. The demise of the American Dream. Food and its place in the movement. Family — and more than the trials of living in a three-kid nuclear family, please. I want it to go where few Minimalists are prepared to go.

No more SMALL Minimalism. Let’s make it big and interesting and imperfect and customisable.

And relevant.

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I owe Minimalism my current life. Without discovering it nearly a decade ago, I wouldn’t have built a successful business. I wouldn’t have sold everything to travel the world. I certainly wouldn’t be writing this.

When it’s adopted properly, it can be life-changing.

But it’s ready for a new lease of life. For new, fresh voices that do more than post pretty pictures on their grid or sell you minimalism courses that say little more than “throw your unused shit out.”

I want Minimalism to find its place in our ever-evolving culture. A culture that desperately needs a voice of reason to cut through the batshit craziness that is 2023 and beyond.

Forget the extreme. Forget the impossibly gorgeous home. Come ride the third wave with me. It’s fun. I promise.