After five years of the nomadic student life, I’ve come to intimately understand the critical first necessities of moving into a new place: in the bathroom, toilet paper, in the kitchen, Trader Joe’s frozen pizzas and in the bedroom, well, a bed. The first two items are trivial to acquire, but finding oneself a bed often proves more challenging. My preferred solution, which developed over the course of many hectic migrations, is now well-established: travel to the nearest IKEA, purchase the cheapest bed they sell, assemble it according to their cute Swedish instruction cartoons and enjoy a restful first night in your new home.

This is precisely what I did during my most recent move. My roommate, who also faced the challenge of bedless-ness, took a considerably different tactic, one that I had never considered. She rented a minivan, toured all of the local Goodwills and Salvation Armys, found an acceptable used bed to buy, and drove it back. How novel! But it’s funny how things work out — despite our varying approaches, we ended up with the exact same bed (the DALSEV, for you fellow IKEA maniacs), and we found that we had paid close to the exact same price.

Our differing approaches to bed shopping reveal conflicting attitudes towards modern consumerism, an issue entrenched in difficult contradictions and coated in a sticky layer of admittedly deserved guilt. I default to IKEA not only because I have no income, but also for somewhat deeper reasons. Due to the enormous scale of their mass production operations, IKEA’s wares are dirt cheap, but still well-designed and often delightfully beautiful. Their message is cheerfully populist — by offering especially thoughtful design in an economically accessible way, the company undermines the classism that is often strengthened by the relative power to buy stuff.

The extreme accessibility of IKEA products also makes them internationally ubiquitous. A friend in Aachen, Germany and I have the same orange flor-de-lis-covered bedspread, each purchased at our respective local warehouse. I find myself tickled by this universality, but many modern people are discomforted by the loss of uniqueness and rareness. It parallels our attitudes towards music — some are happy to unite in a common love for Justin Timberlake, while others feel they must update their playlists whenever their favorite band accumulates too many fans.

This resistance to the universal in favor of the rare is often also a fight against perceived commercialism. The interests of corporate entities like IKEA lie in making money, a goal which can often be achieved by cultivating a base of dependent, controlled consumers who are such devoted fans that they happily commit acts of free marketing (like writing articles about their products in college newspapers). Corporate control is certainly frightening — we’d like to think that companies are serving their customers, but what if it’s the other way around? Indeed, many people, probably including my roommate, view the ubiquity of IKEA products as the tightening grip of an unwelcome corporate hand around our throats.

Ironically, her efforts to escape the death grip of commercialism were futile, in some sense — she ended up with an IKEA bed anyway. But she probably still feels better than if she had taken my route, because objects that are unceremoniously stripped of their specialty through mass ownership suddenly regain some sparkle when they become second-hand. They come attached with a story, or more interestingly, a mystery, about their past; they seem to be imbued with a newfound authenticity. The very same coffee mug that seems soulless in a heaping pile of its peers at IKEA can suddenly assume meaningful character when discovered at a thrift store. The problem is, of course, that the coffee mugs are still, nevertheless, the same. The authenticity, alas, is only a fantasy. And it’s especially hypocritical to self-righteously oppose consumerism when we are still so clearly participating, albeit indirectly.

Is there a better answer than cheap mass production or buying used? Perhaps. In response to these concerns, a new creative culture focused on synthesis is developing. A blog called “IKEA Hacker” documents one especially interesting manifestation of this trend, in which various contributors reinvent new household objects from existing IKEA parts. Some are small modifications, like inventive light fixtures and re-imagined tabletop/legs combinations. Others are more whimsical, like a turtle terrarium made from a TV cabinet. All the projects share a sense of unique identity and personal meaning, but maintain the common accessibility that characterizes the IKEA parts they are comprised of.

By finding a dynamic process in products that have always been merely static objects, these hackers de-commodify the commodity in a way that neither ordinary IKEA nor thrift store purchases can do. The creators are inspired, not controlled, by their purchases, and the authenticity of their creations is legitimate because they develop it themselves. It might just be that the best modern design for the people is by the people themselves.

Caitlin is relocating again in June, and has a fantastic DALSEV bed you might like to buy! If interested, reach her at niltiac "at" stanford.edu.