Sometimes I don’t even try to be a smart consumer anymore. Anyone who has gone grocery shopping with me knows that I get paralyzed if I try to choose bodywash. I can never seem to remember what I bought last time or if I liked it.
I find it deeply troubling that there are so many choices. You can get bodywash with yogurt in it! But why? It bothers me a lot that I don’t know why. There is bodywash just for men, because men’s skin must be different than mine. There is bodywash with moisture beads and lotion ribbons and spermaceti* in it. It’s not just that I can’t choose, it’s that facing the array of choices makes me want to know why there are so many. I will stare at the shelf for much longer than is reasonable, hung up on this.
Too many choices means no choices at all. This paradox has been well-documented,** so I know what’s happening to me. The reason that there’s so many bodywash choices is that that’s how consumer capitalism works. That is the only reason there is yogurt in some bodywashes. The only reason.
I could do a lot of research on bodywash. I could look for magazine reviews, environmental audits of the company, any number of consumer review sites. I could even type “bodywash” into a number of Twitter search tools and look for tweets that look like legit people talking about their positive shower experiences. Or compare different brands on Social Mention and see which one rates best in the positive sentiment category. There are numerous ways of easily finding consumer information in this glorious age we live in.
Or I could let it go. I could realize that maybe I don’t need to know why there is yogurt in some bodywashes before I decide to buy it or not. I need to start asking myself some questions:
1) Does it matter? I have no allergies to sensitivities to scents or chemicals, they all cost about the same, and cynically, I think their environmental impact is probably all about the same too, so in this case, the answer is a big “nope!”
2) Is it worth my time? Will doing the research save me a lot of money? Enough money to make all the time I could be spending not reading about things like bodywash worthwhile? Will I learn something valuable? Am I really interested in this? In this case, again, nope!
When that fails, the best thing for me to do is to go shopping with a friend who will gently (or not-so-gently, as the situation warrants) pull me away when I start furrowing my brow. Or blindfold me, spin me around until I’m dizzy, and pick up the first one I point to.
This does not just apply to bodywash. It applies to a lot of decisions I have to make. Just because all the information is there, doesn’t mean I have to engage with it. It doesn’t mean that it matters. I can’t be informed on everything. Do I want to know about yogurt in bodywash, or do I want to spend my time on something meaningful to me?
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*That last one is not true. I hope.
**See, for instance, this book that I haven’t read and don’t intend to because it’s message has already permeated popular discourse. ***
***Citations like this show why I did not choose to become an academic.
