The Hunger

There’s a Rihanna issue of i-D Magazine and some weeks she looks like the coolest person alive and other weeks she looks like a disaster, but both versions of her deserve to be on my wall.

I tell myself I’m above wanting things. Ate local greens for five years, dismissed fast food, judged people staring at their phones on the train. But then McDonald’s started selling Big Mac sauce in bottles—in Australia, naturally—and I realized I’d been lying the whole time. The sauce was always going to be good. Admitting it is just cheaper than pretending.

The hunger for things doesn’t disappear, it just gets more expensive. A camera with 50 megapixels because your phone isn’t enough. A smart ring that shows you how many people liked your tweet in real time—yes, someone invented hardware specifically for the feeling of sitting on a train wondering if anyone saw your post. A clip-on lens that promises to make your iPhone photos look professional. These are objects that say something about who you want to be without you having to explain it.

And then there’s the stuff that’s just funny. Kim Kardashian made a photo book of selfies and somehow convinced people to buy it. That’s genius in its purest form. A Nike Air Force 1 in white and red for Black History Month looks clean, whatever that means anymore. A Hello Kitty collaboration with a Japanese streetwear brand feels like it shouldn’t work but it does. Louis C.K.’s comedy special costs five dollars online and it’s probably the best five dollars I’ve spent.

Somewhere in California, there’s a marijuana vending machine. The future they promised us turned out to be: convenience, automation, every need turned into a product you can want on demand. It’s perfect. It’s ridiculous. It’s exactly right.

I spent years convincing myself I was above the hunger. Turns out I just had better taste in what I wanted to want.