I love being a Millennial. Being a Millennial is great. Being a Millennial doesn't make me yearn for death. 2000$ to exist is a steal
This is a living hell
Remember, socialism is evil because in socialism you won't own anything.
Meanwhile, capitalism creates this…
I've recently seen a random Youtube video (about the Unity pricing changes) that was talking about capitalism and what it was meant to be, and one key point that has stuck with me is that capitalism should absolutely hate rent, and the early capitalism was against it.
IIRC the reasoning was that rent was mainly a feudalism thing, and also because it doesn't really provide much value, since you aren't necessarily using it to invest and offer a better service to the one who's paying it, you're just extorting money from them.
The video was also mentioning a term, which may be totally made-up but I really like, which was technofeudalism - which describes the recent trend of every company trying to switch to subscription models, so they can also extort rent from you for using the internet, without providing a better service. Paying monthly for seat warmers in a car? Paying monthly for a guitar tuner app? Paying monthly for X? That's not capitalism, that's just plain feudalism - there's no added value or improved service, they are just slapping on unreasonable costs because they can.
I just woke up, and seen the video a few weeks back, so my summary of the main ideas of the video may be totally wrong. I also have no idea what sources, if any, was the video based on, so it may be total bullshit. But I like the term, technofeudalism sounds cool, and the idea is pretty intuitive to quickly share, while sounding like something that makes sense. But that one video is my only source I have about it, II don't even know whether that term exists or is made up. I'll try to find the video later.
EDIT: It was this one.
It's a lot more affordable in places other than Hollywood
My library-card costs 8€ a year and I can work there all day long in a nice quite environment. Internet is free, so are beverages. It also has a streaming-service and I can rent consoles and such there as well. I dont understand why someone would pay 600€ a month just for a desk to work at
It's just where he lives. All the things he pays for is more than what I pay for a 4 bedroom 2 living room house, fuel for my vehicles and water bill, that allows me to wash clothes whenever needed. You'll hear how expensive shit is mostly from city dwellers. They live packed in with millions, competing for the same housing and jobs, and think you're ignorant or a dullard for not wanting the same things they do.
I don't think that's fair
If I could go live out in the woods by myself with my dog I'd love to do it. As it is I've moved out to a pretty rural area of my state because I hate living in the city.
However, prices are still pretty damn high out here, I just get a bit more space. On the other hand I have to go into work once every two weeks, and starting in a few months, I'll have to go in 3 days a week. Driving in with traffic takes anywhere between 2 and 3 hours. But finding a job in my field closer to me is next to.impossible. so a lot of people live in the city, and chose to live in small hutches with 3 or 4 roommates. A lot of them would leave if they could too.
The only thing that might be prohibitive is meetings or calls. But lots of libraries have little meeting rooms for you to be a bit louder in.
It's €pe, not the land of "free"(as in being dead). For me municipal library is 0₽, city library 0₽ and State Library that has every single book published in country also 0₽, but you have to be in right city.
Internet is free
And in Europe libraries are homes of knowledge, not warehouses of books. What is legal in Europe will get Internet Archive in trouble in the USA.
Last time i used library internet was a couple years ago, €4,50 for 15 minutes and on their outdated computers that do everything is slow as possible.
It took 14 minutes to print a single sided page from a government website.
Right? This guy is really not smart if he's paying $600 a month for a desk. He could go to a Starbucks everyday and spend $10 in food each day, and it would still be half the price to sit at a table and use wifi.
Hell, I'm pretty sure he could buy a desk and have it delivered to him for less than $600.
One library an hour away across town by Uber cuz dude has no car or we work right down the block probably.
That's fucking criminal. You could pay for a camping lifestyle with 5g access for half that and get the same amenities. 1400 dollars for a bed is insane.
Imagine the landlord renting out two rooms, with two bunks each in a small unit.
$5,600 every month without having to work for it, maybe change a lightbulb occasionally. Even people who get that as wages need to pay for transportation to work, which cuts into the income- but not the landlord who gets it passively.
it’s insane, the cost. and the root? the insane idea that we should be able to make a profit. and worse, make it off living beings. no one needs to make a profit, only a living. profit is theft and greed and it’s killing our species.
(he’s right about not owning things. it’s freeing. one thing you can’t get back is time. no things, no chores.)
We need legal standards for pay so the employees stop being a profit center. If you can't make a profit without exploitation then you don't have a business; you have a criminal organization masquerading as a business.
Camping requires public parks to camp in, otherwise we're back at square one.
You mean like a national/state forest/park with designated camp sites available for 14 dollars in two week periods?
You'd just need to rotate around the area because they don't let you stay continuously. So every 2 weeks you go to another camp.
I don't understand why these people don't just leave those economies of the big cities that they can't afford to live in... and before anyone piles on I do agree that people should be making more money and things should be more affordable but to live like this versus living much better elsewhere for the same amount of money seems like a fairly easy choice
Jobs, careers, medical realities, cost of moving itself, etc. Basically structural reasons to our society. The rural areas are offloading jobs to the cities. They have been since World War 2. So while it might be feasible for someone in a Goldilocks zone of having the money to move and not having their career yet, most people aren't in that zone.
If people don't leave people won't make more money. Market is saturated because everyone wants to live in the big city no matter the cost, and most of them want to work in tech.
If 50% of them left for smaller towns wages would go up and housing would go down. But no young tech workers want to live in a small town.
So, take the above with a grain of salt because it is, after all, green text. The numbers may be bullshit. The entire thing may be bullshit. Who knows.
But that said. $2000 monthly is more than my mortgage, utilities, insurance, internet, cell phone, and fuel expenditures combined in the same span of time. That is insane. (With what I overpay towards the principal on my mortgage puts me above that, but I wouldn't technically have to. I'd just like to actually own my house some time this century, or at least before I'm dead.)
Why anyone would deliberately choose to live that way is beyond me. There isn't anything special about my situation; I live in the here and now, at precisely the same date and time as this dude, in the same country, in a major metropolitan area. I'm not an executive, CEO, or landlord. I work in the durable goods industry, for fuck's sake.
2000 a month isn't enough for my 2 bedroom 30 minutes from the nearest city. But it was an upgrade from my 2600/month 600sqft apartment on the outskirt of said city. Fortunately we don't pay utilities due to the shady number of rented dwellings on the single property. But we pay more for shittier Internet, and are limited to 1 cell phone provider option. Congratulations, you bought at a good time. I don't hold it against you, but I ask that you understand that the market isn't like that any more. We're looking at 600,000$houses in our current neighborhood, 750 to be in the edge of the city, and they aren't exactly ready for habitation, but that's okay, they'll be bought and flipped (poorly) and resold for 50% more on top of current asking by next summer.
Assuming they aren't just rented out.
You live in a high cost of living area. I don’t hold it against you, but I ask that you understand the market isn’t like that everywhere.
Cost of living (COL) is relative to the area …
I suspect you live in some small town or rural area
I really don't, but I'm also not dumb enough to try to rent in Hollywood. I live along the Baltimore-Philly-NYC corridor. Not exactly the middle of nowhere. Housing prices are insane since the pandemic here too, but not nearly as insane as spending $2000 a month to rent a bunk bed and a desk. (No word on what his gym membership costs, either.) As others have said here in these comments, they're getting whole apartments for the same or not much more money. At that rate, Ikea will sell you a desk; all you gotta do is ask. That's a $600/month come up right there, compared to this lunacy.
Even at today's ludicrous interest rates, the mortgage on a half a million dollar home is somewhere around $2807 monthly, principal and interest. For someone willing to spend $2000 a month on nothing, that doesn't sound like much of a stretch to me. Normal suburban homes around here have settled down to $350-550k, or you can buy a condo for a little over $100k. Spend less, pay less.
Seems to me homeboy works remotely. Does he actually need to have a Hollywood address? I'll bet you he doesn't. Even if you want to be "minimalist," or whatever the fuck, a van to sleep in the back of or a trailer on the outskirts of town will still be yours after you're done paying for it. FFS.
Meanwhile I, living less than a hundred miles from the green text, can't find an apartment to rent for under $2k, and the median house prices for the county are north of a million dollars. If by some miracle I could put down 20-30% down, the mortagage would still be $4k. My electric bill alone is over $300. I'm glad it's working out for you, but I would be interested in knowing where you're at, because this shit here isn't working.
I live in a decent sized city (but not what I'd call a large one -certainly not LA size) Good luck finding a one bedroom apartment for under $2000 if you want a place without roaches, mold, and bullet holes. The OP suggesting it might be that expensive someplace like downtown LA doesn't seem crazy to me.
It's not one or the other though. Op could find a room for rent in a house that gives him more privacy that just renting a bed, even in LA. The expense isn't really the issue, it's the shit conditions he's choosing to live in.
Two bedroom apartment where I am is 2500. And that's because our land lord is nice and just looking for some extra money. A two bedroom actually goes for 3k easily.
Shit is fucked out here.
Your mortgage doesn't go up at the same rate as the market though. What year did you buy, because my in-laws just sold their mobile home for $700k @ 7% interest.
Yeah, I mean, I have a roommate. We share a single family house with 3 bedrooms, and splitting rent and all utilities are $1600 each, and i live in the super nice area, with a washer and dryer down the hallway from my bedroom. I live in a large city. I'd shoot myself if I had to pay $1400/month to just rent a BED. With no privacy and surrounded by others. This guy, if a true story, is fucking crazy. At that point, he's making choices to live like that. To assume that the way he's living is common is asinine.
"Works in social media advertising"
Boyyyyy. RUN.
Yep, did this for a couple years. Sucked my soul dry.
Landlords, landlords as far as the eye can see.
I'm sure Marx would be impressed at how after his writing swept across the world, we managed to turn most of the world into someone else's private property that we all have to pay to use lol.
Cyberpunk dystopia, here we come!
Image Transcription:
A photo of a young man sitting at the top of a set of wooden steps attached to a bunk bed. Between the two beds is a chalkboard with "1", an arrow pointing up, and "Zach" written on the left side and "Mike", an arrow pointing down, and "2" written on the right side. Under the bed is a gap with a pair of shoes and a couple of hard plastic travel bags. Tucked between the stairs on the left side of the bunk bed and the cement wall is a bicycle. A pot plant is barely in frame, and the floor appears to be bare cement, the doors and wall a temporary wood and clear plastic.
Underneath the image is a 4chan post reading:
'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. 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 thing, you don't have to keep track of them. You just show up." He pays $1,400 a month to rent a bunk and an additional $600 a month to rent a desk to work at.'
[I am a human, if I’ve made a mistake please let me know. Please consider providing alt-text for ease of use. Thank you. 💜]
Sounds like homelesness but taxed and with extra steps.
Never will I except owning nothing. If that becomes the only reality I will upgrade myself to domestic terrorist.
With a borrowed gun?
This is probably the type of guy who assaults an FBI field office with his buddy’s brad nailer.
I believe the word you're looking for is "accept." I agree with the rest of your premise.
Unfortunately it has to stay, so your comment makes sense
I own six things if you count all of my books as one thing. You will have to burn me with my books before you take them away from me.
I assume this dude is some kind of extreme minimalist or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Minimalist for 2k/month sounds kinda fucked up tho :D
At that point, convert a van or something. It'd be a better move
For real, this guy is just terrible with money. What the fuck is he renting a desk for $600 a month for when Starbucks has free Wi-Fi?
Maybe there is, though.
As someone growing up with a hoarder, I have felt this compulsion strongly.
I have adversely nuked my files on my PC before because it's lower stakes than actual items. I desire full oversight and to know the purpose of everything to know whether or not it is needed, and I constantly fall far short.
I made the stupid decision to use a low-capacity SSD as my boot drive along with the decision that "This is my boot drive, nothing except my OS should be installed here.", and now, years later, I can't update my graphics card driver because it's full.
Is this not just a meme lol why would you assume this is real
I'm not sure millennials are 27 anymore.
I think that would be right around the cut off, most sources I'm seeing online have millenials going up to and including 1996, which would be this supposed person's likely year of birth
27 is zillenial not millenial.
Green text = bullshit.
Sarcasm*
Paying $2000 a month to be homeless lmao
Only 2k to be a child again? Sweet
If I have to live like this somebody is gonna die that's a fucking promise. I refuse.
If I have to live like this *somebody is gonna die
Is it you?
Yes
Itll be somebody like me. I snore like a small rhino. No one would put up with me in this situation.
Also, this is not living.
You'll own nothing, and be happy!... sounds like the WEF has control over 4Chan now
He could probably own a car if he stopped using the ride share. He's probably spending close to $600 a month for the rideshare service unless he's splitting the cost with others. Average rental in Hollywood is (and this is the highest, which is twice what I found elsewhere) $5k a month. I'd rather split rent with some roommates and have a place of my own. Work from home instead of renting a desk. That's $2k alone to put toward rent. Two or three roommates and you could actually save money.
His lifestyle is a lifestyle driven choice, not a cost driven choice. He's paying extra for that lifestyle. Forget food costs since he can't very well prepare much food without owning storage space, so it's eating out all the time for him.
I think what’s… I guess sad, for lack of a better term, is that this dude in Anon’s story is literally the embodiment of “you’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy”, which is terrifying because who the fuck doesn’t want to own anything? The only difference between a homeless person and this guy is that the guy spends $2k a month to be practically a homeless person.
That's the ridiculous part of this. He's literally paying to be homeless and is happy about it. Like, buy the car and sleep in it. That would literally save him more money and he still could be "free" of possessions.
Gives a whole new meaning to freedom isn't free.
Owning a car is one of the worst choices you can make though, even with the expense of things like uber i'm pretty sure at worst it breaks even.
Johnson decides to live like a pleeb in an area that's costly. Johnson's story sounds like there isn't an alternative.
I work in the same industry and have net of 2700€ a month after taxes and rent.
Don't get glued to geographic location that eats all your hard earned money.
In fairness to him, we don't know what his net is. How much he makes or what he has left over after paying that $2k per month isn't mentioned. He could be sitting on an enormous savings.
... Which I guess is okay for him, specifically, assuming that hypothetical is even true, but it's still an outrageous amount to be paying for what he's getting.
The bed next to him says Zach ⬆️ and Mike ⬇️ not Steve? 🤔
Well, yeah, he gets the staircase.
This is Bay Area, you fool. What did you expect for $1400, a pillow?
Look at it this way.... if renting was somehow better for you as a consumer, then what would be the motive for a company to rent you a desk, rent you a bed, rent you a car. For short term things, sure. But financially it isn't better for you to rent forever.
In 30 years you'll still be spending that money on a bed each and every month, or you could have paid for a house and now be living rent and mortgage free.
He owns his own business and is doing this by choice. They don't go into numbers, but the fact that the article is titled "The Affluent Homeless" makes me think he's not struggling. The guy is atypical, but the people saying he's a socialist or he's being crushed by capitalism are reading their own politics into this.
My guess is that he's doing an extreme version of Lean FIRE. I know a few folks doing less extreme versions. They own little, don't go out much, and save every dime to retire as early as possible.
At least one person I know who did it retired in his mid 30s, then came out of retirement when his investments crashed at the beginning of the 2020 lockdowns. His skills were out of date so he started making way less than he was making when he retired.
The extreme run to retire early is so odd to me. Not that I think you should work until you die, but like... go out and do things while you're young, even if you have to retire at 68 or whatever. Use some of that money to live your life. What if you do nothing but work and then die in a car accident at 29?
There are two big reasons for this shift: the price of housing and student loan debt.
Holy shit, I thought this was some ridiculous hypothetical. This person willingly chose the pod.
The pod space things are criminally overpriced and sometimes dangerous. There was this video of someone showing "futuristic" pods made of cheap plastic and electronic-only doors.
If a fire breaks out in these spaces, people will die. I don't understand why a fire marshal would even allow these places that are filled with dozens of people and no emergency exits.
A trailer park or a tiny home sounds like a penthouse suite compared to these places. But they will build these and charge this much because people are that dumb. I get that LA housing costs are extreme, but surely there are many things you can try to do before this.
But they will build these and charge this much because people are that dumb.
It's not so much that people are dumb, it's just that there's nothing else like it available without those issues.
That's fucking depressing. Though the question I have is - from the looks of it, he works remotely, so why even bother living in such a high cost area? I'm pretty sure this kind of money can rent a much nicer place, possibly even in the same state.
As someone that lives in SoCal, you are correct. You can rent a room for cheaper than what he's paying. It just won't be in Hollywood. Still, I really don't understand why most people would want to live there, as that area is pretty much trash.
WTF, I pay about that much per month for a whole-ass house and utilities?
Lives in Hollywood
Well there's your problem
This is more austere than when I lived in college dorms. 2 sets of clothes? That means this dude is washing them daily. It's also a lie unless he's working out in his street clothes. It also means 100% remote work, which is nice. But not having a nice shirt/dress means interviewing might be a problem.
Not even the most ideal state of communism advocated for shit like this. You still had personal possessions.
That means this dude is washing them daily.
Nonsense...with that kind of lifestyle, you can go 2 or maybe 3 days easily before changing to the other outfit. Especially if you workout in your underwear and then shower while still wearing the underwear.
Has anyone said "You will own nothing and be happy"?
Unt zen you vill unterstand
I understand perfectly now. I dont think you understand what Im saying though.
I agree with learning or joining an apprenticeship but totally disagree with the sentiment "be an adult, take 5 mins to diagnose and 20 mins labour." Even the tenner for parts is presumptuous.
Just to be clear as well, Im not one of those stupid cucks you mentioned, I just know DIY repairs might not be as straight forward as you make it out. Of course internet access would make it easier, some people don't have the capacity to learn things that way. Aside from that some repairs require wildly expensive equipment to complete it.
You basically just generalised putting up a shelf or something for making any repair you want at home instead of asking for help which is kinda crazy because the average person is a lot more dangerous than we give them credit for.
All it takes is for someone to decide that an electrical problem doesn't need a professional, do it wrong, and burn their house down, and their neighbours or maybe a block of flats.
Very true about repairs. There is so much truth in this video
I'll take the bait! I definitely wouldn't say renting is BETTER, but your comment definitely exposes some privileged views. Not everyone has the skills, competency, time, or cash on hand to manage their own repairs. There's also other advantages to renting. Most obviously is the fact that it's a lot easier to move - signing a new lease is so much less of a hassle than dealing with all of the things involved with selling and buying a home. This was somewhat mitigated by having equity, but right now it can take 5-10 years to have positive equity in a home.
Don't get me wrong, the article is absolutely dystopian, dude's paying 1400 a month for a shoebox. There is a lot that's ridiculous about his situation, but to throw out all of the actual advantages renting can have is as disingenuous of a take as if I were to say buying is a gamble. Call it copium, or say I'm a cuck, whatever but it's definitely not a clear-cut victory on either side
Edit: motivated -> mitigated. Thanks autocorrect.
The bank says I'm too poor for a mortgage so I pay more than a mortgage to rent a studio.
I have no desire to own real estate even though I can totally afford it, AMA
Same. The restrictions on mobility freedom aren't worth it for me, especially when things like local amenities and crime are so variable.
As an example, been living here for half a decade - buses have gone from every 8min to every 20-30min (and every hour on weekends) and crime has gone through the roof - law enforcement regularly drops by for my external security footage for everything from theft, assault, and homicide. Bus stop that was just a 30 second walk from my door was moved 3 mins away. There are many, many more reasons too, but those are the only ones really worth mentioning.
If I "owned" the house I'd be stuck, who would want to buy it for possibly less than the bank loan for me to move on? Not to mention the complicated process of getting that sorted
The price someone would pay a repairperson to fix things is already factored into rent. If a homeowner didn't have the time/energy to fix the thing, the homeowner could just hire their own repairperson and be in the same situation, except not me renting.
there should be an option for both
renting is preferable for a lot of folks, exclusively having the option to rent being bad doesnt automatically make purchasing a house better in every scenario
be an adult take 5 mins to diagnose the problem and order the $10 part and do the 20min labor yourself for a change
Yeah I tried to do that. I figured out the gaskets on the toilet had worn out and were leaking. Turned into about $200 in parts and consumables as I had to dremel off the bolts due to bad corrosion and replaced other parts that were in bad shape while I was at it. I'd done my research, quadruple checked the manuals and resources. Guess what happened? I had some leaks on the new gaskets and a new leak on the water intake hose.
I also took the trap out of the sink to clear a clog because it was full of gunk. I put it back in wrong and didn't realize it until months later so now the problem has grown significantly and the floor is damaged
I'm just paying a plumber to fix it because every time I've tried to fix plumbing I've made it significantly worse and at greater cost than just calling a plumber, no matter how much I try to make sure I've got the right tools, supplies and process.
Not everyone is handy, so not everyone can fix it themselves. This is why humans specialized, not so much because not everyone could do it, but because some people are so much better at certain things that its better to let people do more of what they're good at and let them get better at that then to have everyone be moderately okay at everything.
I don't have the heart to tell my wife that I'm clocked out from life and waiting for it to end eagerly, because after multiple quiet attempts, I'm too cowardly to do it for fear of survival with disability.
I use the prospect of a fatal heart attack as my primary gym motivation. It works.
I hope you get the help and support you need, stranger.
Meaningful help is a luxury most Americans cannot afford. Most "help" available to peasants is just enough to get you off the ledge and back into your very real problems.
I was a practicing psychologist for 10 years, this fact is why I stopped. Get paid garbage to help a poor person with clinical depression approved for all of 3 sessions to get them PRODUCTIVE again making money for someone else, or get paid well to help the people propagating everyone else's misery as they literally complain about not having good enough fiscal years despite having too much. I'm in IT now.
I appreciate your words. You're a good person. Good luck to you.
I know the feeling. My biggest regret with regards to my suicide attempt is that I lived. Living with a disability fucking sucks.
I wish I had something a little more sis-sis-boom-rah to say.
I can get behind a sparse life (although not for me lol), I get it... but not paying 2 fucking grand a month for the privilege. Christ.
So many extracting value without adding anything.
Rent-seeking is anti-capitalist, at least according to Adam Smith. It's actually closer to feudalism than it is to free enterprise.
I very much doubt Diogenes paid rent.
This young man should be an inspiration to the rest of you, an ideal tenant and employee that gives every penny he earns back to the economy. The world would be better off with a few more Steven T Johnson's and a few less Greta Thumburgs.
Based, the planet won't save itself! Such and efficient way of living!
Nobody forces anyone to live in the big City.