enough with the hello kitty already

On consumerism, disposable culture, expensive art, Vancouver's disappearing communities, and a world that seems to have forgotten what matters.

Honestly, enough already.

Bruno Mars and Hello Kitty. Hello Kitty at Burger King. Hello Kitty on clothing, bags, toys and collectibles. Limited editions. Special releases. Another thing to buy, another thing to own, another thing to convince ourselves we need.

And people line up to spend their money.

Meanwhile, people are sleeping outside in Vancouver. Families are struggling to afford groceries. Children are growing up in a world filled with uncertainty. People are getting sicker, lonelier and more disconnected from one another.

But there's always money for another product.

I know, I know. People are entitled to enjoy themselves. A Hello Kitty shirt isn't responsible for homelessness, and nobody should have to feel guilty about buying something that makes them happy.

That's not the point.

The point is the sheer scale of a consumer culture that can manufacture an endless supply of wants while struggling to meet some very basic human needs.

We have become exceptionally good at selling things.

I'm not so sure we've become equally good at looking after one another.

we used to make supper

Our parents cooked. Eating out was generally a treat, not an everyday arrangement. You learned how to prepare food, use leftovers, stretch a dollar and make something from whatever happened to be in the cupboard.

Now we have delivery apps that can bring a meal to our door without our having to leave the sofa.

I have a friend who spends $15 to $20 a day eating out. That's $450 to $600 a month, or $5,475 to $7,300 a year.

That's a considerable amount of money.

But there's another side to this story. My friend has become forgetful, and I've seen him do things around the stove that concern me. He can heat food, but he doesn't really know how to cook.

Perhaps convenience isn't entirely a choice for him anymore. Perhaps he needs some help.

That's worth remembering. Not everyone has the same abilities, resources or circumstances. People need kitchens, affordable groceries, time, energy and sometimes assistance.

Still, I wonder what we're losing when everyday skills become services we purchase instead of knowledge we pass along.

Cooking can mean independence. It can mean sharing a meal with a neighbour, making soup for someone who's ill, or inviting a friend to sit down and talk.

It can mean knowing how to take care of yourself without having to buy your way through every ordinary task.

We don't need to romanticise the past. Our parents had their own struggles, and not every family had enough to eat. But practical skills mattered, and many of us learned them because we had to.

What are we teaching the next generation?

How to prepare a meal, or how to order one?

dressed for the apocalypse

Walk around Vancouver and look at the lifestyle being sold to us.

The latest jogging clothes. The newest rain jacket. The expensive athletic wear. The gym membership. The smartphone. The delivery subscription.

People work from home, jog in technical clothing, order their groceries and meals, and keep their phones within reach at almost every moment of the day.

Some of these things are useful. Exercise is good for us. Technology can connect us. Working from home can improve people's lives. Vancouver needs rain gear.

I'm not suggesting we should all return to the Stone Age.

But what happens when every aspect of life becomes another opportunity to sell us something?

We sit for hours, then pay to exercise. We become exhausted, then purchase wellness products. We buy convenience because we're busy, and sometimes we're busy earning the money to pay for the convenience.

We are encouraged to optimise ourselves constantly.

Better clothes. Better bodies. Better homes. Better holidays. Better versions of ourselves.

And somewhere along the way, the simple business of being human can get lost.

Are we healthier? Are we happier? Are we more connected?

Or are we simply better dressed while trying to keep up?

hello kitty and the mountain of stuff

Here's the part that bothers me most.

Every object requires resources. Materials must be extracted, processed, manufactured, packaged and transported. Products take energy to make and fuel to move. Eventually, things break, become unwanted, or are replaced by the next new thing.

Some are kept and loved for years. Others spend a short time providing excitement before being forgotten.

And then what?

The drawer. The donation bin. The rubbish truck. The landfill.

Not everything is recyclable, and recycling itself doesn't make the environmental costs of production disappear.

The problem isn't Hello Kitty. It isn't even collecting.

The problem is an economic culture that depends on encouraging us to keep consuming.

Make more. Sell more. Buy more. Replace more.

And when the novelty wears off, start again.

Limited editions are particularly clever. They create urgency. People worry they'll miss out, so they buy now. Sometimes they buy multiples. Sometimes the pleasure lies less in using the object than in possessing something other people might not get.

We have turned wanting into a business model.

And the planet supplies the materials.

I like beautiful things. I'm an artist. I understand the pleasure of making something, owning something, or finding an object that speaks to you.

But there is a difference between creating something meaningful and manufacturing an endless succession of things designed to keep us buying.

We need to start asking whether the next thing we purchase will enrich our lives or simply occupy space.

when art becomes part of the sales pitch

This brings me to Vancouver's public art scene.

The Vancouver Mural Festival brought colour, creativity and attention to neighbourhood streets. Artists deserve opportunities, public art can be valuable, and murals can make an ordinary wall extraordinary.

But the festival also raised difficult questions about gentrification, development and who benefits when a neighbourhood becomes more attractive.

In 2016, the City of Vancouver provided a $200,000 matching grant for the festival through its Public Art Boost initiative.

At the same time, Mount Pleasant was changing. Housing costs and development pressures were affecting the people who had made the neighbourhood what it was.

Critics raised concerns about the relationship between public art, property values and the displacement of artists and long-time residents.

This is where the term artwashing enters the conversation.

Artwashing describes a concern that art and cultural activity can help give a neighbourhood an appealing identity while obscuring the social consequences of redevelopment.

It doesn't mean every artist is involved in some grand conspiracy. Artists may be working sincerely, creating beautiful things, and trying to make a living.

But good intentions don't eliminate the need to ask who benefits.

If a neighbourhood becomes more desirable because of its artists, its independent businesses, its street culture and its murals, what happens when rising rents force those very people out?

Who gets to keep the benefits?

Who gets the bill?

And who gets to stay?

The Vancouver Mural Festival announced its closure in January 2025, citing financial difficulties. Its history leaves us with questions about how public art is funded, how cultural organisations survive, and what happens when their financial models depend on sponsors and development activity.

Public art shouldn't have to justify itself solely by making an area more marketable.

It should be allowed to serve the people who live there.

who decides what art is worth?

Then there's the other side of the art world: the enormous amounts of money attached to certain artists, institutions and awards.

Douglas Coupland is a well-known Canadian novelist and visual artist whose work has explored consumer culture, technology and contemporary life.

His art can raise interesting questions about the very culture that produces mountains of consumer goods.

But I find myself wondering about the broader system in which art operates.

Who decides which artists receive major recognition? Who has access to wealthy patrons, prestigious institutions and substantial awards? Why can certain artworks command enormous attention and financial support while independent artists struggle to sell their paintings?

The Audain Prize, for example, awards $100,000 in recognition of an artist's career and contribution to visual art. It is not simply payment for producing one artwork.

There is nothing inherently wrong with recognising artists or supporting ambitious creative work.

But the contrast is striking when you look at the entire picture.

Some artists have access to established institutions and wealthy supporters. Others are trying to sell original paintings directly, hoping someone will appreciate their work enough to take one home.

Some artworks become cultural landmarks. Others never find a buyer.

And the value assigned to art doesn't always reflect the hours spent making it, the skill involved, or the meaning it holds for the person who created it.

Art is not merely a commodity, even though the art market can treat it like one.

I would like to see more room for art that serves communities, protects the environment, tells overlooked stories and brings people together.

And I would like to see independent artists have a fair chance to make a living.

Not every worthwhile thing needs to be expensive. Not everything valuable comes with a prestigious name attached.

Sometimes a small painting made with care means more to someone than an artwork worth a fortune.

the children are watching

What are our children learning from all of this?

They are growing up surrounded by advertising, online shopping, social media, constant notifications and an endless stream of things they are encouraged to want.

Many children also face real difficulties with mental health, social connection and the pressures of growing up in a digital world. Screens are not the only cause, and technology can provide genuine benefits. But we should be asking how we can give children a healthier balance.

Do they have opportunities to play outside, learn practical skills, build friendships and become comfortable with silence?

Do they learn how to cook, mend something, grow food, care for animals, or help a neighbour?

Do they understand where the things they own come from and where those things go when they are finished with them?

Do they know that their worth has nothing to do with the clothes they wear, the phone they carry, or the number of things they possess?

I worry that we are teaching children to become consumers before we teach them how to become capable, compassionate adults.

A phone can be a wonderful tool. A toy can bring joy. A beautiful jacket can keep someone warm and dry.

But none of these things can replace the experience of belonging to a community that cares whether you are all right.

the end is nigh

There's a fellow at Metrotown who regularly stands with a sign warning people to repent because the end is near.

I've often thought about walking beside him with a different message.

Not because I necessarily want to argue about religion, but because I think we have some urgent questions to ask ourselves.

If the end is nigh, what are we doing with the time we have?

Are we looking after our neighbours?

Are we protecting the natural world that sustains us?

Are we feeding hungry people and finding homes for those who have nowhere safe to sleep?

Are we passing useful knowledge to the next generation?

Are we making room for children to grow up without being told that happiness comes in a shopping bag?

I once told someone the story of a man caught in a flood who kept refusing rescue boats because he was waiting for God to save him. He eventually drowned, and when he asked God why he hadn't been rescued, God replied that he had sent two boats and a helicopter.

The point is simple: sometimes help arrives through ordinary people, and we fail to recognise it.

Perhaps the same principle applies to the world we are trying to save.

We keep waiting for someone else to fix things. Governments, corporations, wealthy philanthropists, new technologies, the next big idea.

Meanwhile, we have ordinary opportunities to make life better.

We can share food. Learn to cook. Repair things instead of replacing them. Buy less. Support local artists. Help someone who is struggling. Protect public spaces. Ask what happens to our rubbish. Demand that public investment benefits the people who need it.

None of those actions will solve every problem.

But they matter.

enough already

I don't hate Hello Kitty. I don't hate people who buy nice clothes, eat at restaurants, or collect things that make them happy.

I don't believe artists should work for nothing, or that all expensive art is pointless.

What I question is a culture that has made consumption such a central part of our lives that we can hardly imagine another way of living.

A world where a new product can generate excitement overnight, while a person sleeping outside becomes part of the background.

A world where we can turn neighbourhood character into a marketing strategy but struggle to protect the people who created that character.

A world where we can manufacture almost anything, but cannot seem to guarantee everyone a safe place to sleep, enough food to eat, and a reasonable chance at a decent life.

We have remarkable ingenuity. We have extraordinary creative talent. We have the ability to make things, grow food, share knowledge and solve difficult problems.

Surely we can do better than this.

Maybe we don't need another collectible. Maybe we need a little less stuff and a little more substance.

Maybe we need to put the phone down, cook a meal, invite someone over, repair the broken chair, learn a skill, plant a tree, and find out how our neighbours are doing.

Maybe we need to stop measuring success by how much we can afford to buy and start measuring it by how well we take care of one another.

Because the world doesn't need to be filled with more things simply because we have the capacity to manufacture them.

It needs people who understand the difference between wanting something and needing it.

People who can recognise beauty without needing to own it.

People who understand that a neighbourhood is more than its property values, a community is more than its branding, and a person's worth is more than their purchasing power.

And people who realise that we cannot shop our way out of every problem we have created.

So, yes.

Enough with the Hello Kitty already.

Not because a little cartoon cat is the enemy.

But because we have bigger things to worry about.

The end may or may not be nigh. But our time to start treating one another, our communities and our planet with greater care is already here.

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