The Shitthropocene
26 comments
·March 20, 2025alamortsubite
Etheryte
Maybe this is just an urban legend, but I recall hearing that the reason Patagonia stuck to its roots so strongly is exactly because of what happened to North Face after the original owners sold the company. It turned into just another fast fashion brand, producing new junk season in, season out.
anonu
(Maybe TMI) Last week my wife was admiring a pair of Patagonia boxers she gave me over 10 years ago. I did note they still looked great after probably a few 100 cycles of washing and drying. I commented that Patagonia made great stuff and actually cared about their materials. So this video is timely.
I'm reminded about what Scott Bessent, the new Treasury Secretary, said earlier this month: Cheap goods are not part of the American Dream [0]. In the US we love our big houses and we fill them up with crap. When the crap overflows it just gets stored in our big garages were we also put our oversized cars. [1]
How we got here today is just the result of the post-WW2 world-order. Global trade was designed to make cheap stuff. While labor rates skyrocketed. So you make more money but you can surround yourself with status symbols and things that supposedly make you more comfortable.
[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/06/treasury-secretary-bessent-s...
metroholografix
> I commented that Patagonia made great stuff and actually cared about their materials
Last I checked a lot of their clothes were full of forever chemicals and processed plastics but maybe they've made progress.
https://www.insidehook.com/gear/patagonia-major-microplastic...
chneu
It's worth mentioning that Americans (or the industrial revolution) made a ton of formerly high status goods available to everyone. Specifically meat. Those high status goods have absolutely insanely high environmental footprints.
Most people didn't regularly consume red meat before industrialization. However, once we made it "cheap", the everyman could eat steak for dinner every night! Same goes for all kinds of goods, especially plastic.
It's wild how many things changed around the turn of that century, for the worse, but we accept all these things as just the way things are and should be. Like, seriously, widespread use of toilet paper is just over a century old. That's not that long for something most people probably assume has just always been that way.
Sorry if this is a bit off topic. It's just something that boggles my mind; how close we are yet so far away from our past.
maxglute
> Cheap goods are not part of the American Dream
The difference in manufacturing between a $100 and $500 jacket is like 20-30 bucks of material and labour. Patagonia boxer and dollar store boxer like $2. Occasionally you have products like $4 costco wool socks with same performance as $40 darn toughs.
Reality is US can fill their big houses with cheap, none crap, but brand extraction,market segmentation etc.
world2vec
100 cycles of washing and drying over a decade? Really hope you're not wearing it frequenty, that's 10 washes a year! o__O
anonu
I maintain a 2-week supply of boxers, but do laundry every week. Over 10 years theres roughly 520 laundry cycles. I change my boxers at least once a day. Assume each boxer has equal probability of being selected, so it creates a 50% chance of being in that wash cycle. So its feasible that they've been through ~260 wash cycles.
thfuran
Right. And that's one wash every 36 days, so if he has a dozen pairs of underwear and "a few" means three, the math checks out for regular use.
tylershuster
A few 100
MisterTea
Those underwears have so much character they can literally stand on their own.
LargoLasskhyfv
I think you've forgotten to mention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self_storage
fauria
YouTube link: https://youtu.be/4TsndZxysts
thomassmith65
I hope Patagonia paid Diane Morgan for impersonating her voice and her Philomena Cunk character.
mandmandam
As long as they stuck Belgian techno anthem "Pump Up the Jam" in there somewhere, I'd say she's cool with it.
Pump up the jam, pump it up, while your feet are stomping...
null
benrutter
Looks interesting (haven't watched yet) - people into this might also want to check out "Buy Now" (I think only on Netflix: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt34350086/) which is a pretty good documentary on the same subject.
lif
oh the irony of this being a Crapagonia product..
"plastic microfibers are us"
https://www.wsj.com/articles/patagonias-poly-hypocrisy-blend...
pmdulaney
Shitthropocene. Shittification.
Just say no to neologisms that incorporate the word shit.
ishopatbakers
I agree it fits into the same category of Millennial Cringe like those books with curses in their title. Or that energy bar brand that says there’s no BS in it…
marcosdumay
It's "enshittification" BTW.
And why say no to a word that almost perfectly describes the phenomenon? My only complaint is that it should be "shittocene".
pmdulaney
Thanks for the correction.
I just think our society is descending into ubiquitous poor taste fast enough without such words rattling around in our brains. But I'm old-fashioned; I had similar reactions to "The Dead Kennedys", "The Butthole Surfers", and "The Vagina Monologues".
marcosdumay
Yeah, that's where I disagree. This phenomenon is inherently in poor taste, it deserves a bad name.
The actual phenomena that require serious discussion like lack of market protection, lack or consumer protection, lack of contractual protection all have serious names that allow for the discussion. So the bad name isn't an impediment to anything important.
johntitorjr
[dead]
windhaven
Eh, I kind of get why they did shit“thro”pocene, since that also integrates the idea of anthropocene (that we’ve entered an era where the world is shaped by human effects) that’s been bouncing around for the past few decades.
“We’re affecting the world, and part of it is that our products have become terrible so they produce more waste”
null
I have a half-dozen pairs of North Face pants I bought when I was climbing a lot in the mid 90's. They're seriously out of style, but I wear them all the time because I love how practical they are. Except where I've damaged them due to my own negligence, every pair is still in great shape. It's incredible how well they've held up, and I have other garments and shoes of that era from TNF, Patagonia, REI, and the like that are the same.
During the pandemic, I bought two more pairs of TNF pants (my first since the 90's). Different styles, but within weeks each had developed holes in the pockets, then other weird problems. I hung onto them for a couple years because they were still new and I hate throwing stuff away, but I stopped wearing them because they sucked, then finally, I tossed them. All of the pants from 30 years ago are still going strong.