on japanese stationery and overconsumption
It’s Hobonichi Day today, which means that the 2025 lineup for the Hobonichi Techo system goes on sale at 7pm Pacific time on Jet Pens’ and Yoseka Stationery’s respective websites. I’m writing about this because I’m annoyed, and annoyance is what motivates me to attempt any sort of critical analysis.
Before I get into it, I need to emphasize that I’m happy that more people are into the fountain pen and stationery hobby, and especially Japanese products. I felt pretty alienated around 2019 when I was excited about these things. I’m happy that in a world populated by touch screens and digital technology, more people are rediscovering the tactile joys of dragging a pen across a sheet of paper.
What I’m not happy about is how much of it is about overconsumption of planners and accessories instead of actually using them. A lot of my favorite journaling YouTubers have a tendency to switch planner systems multiple times throughout the year. I’ve noticed an uptick in this noncommittal relationship to planner systems simply because there are so many options now. Frankly, I’m sick of hearing people’s excuses for buying more notebooks. YouTube in general has a toxic culture of overconsumption with things like haul videos, and while I’ll admit to enjoying many of them in the past, these videos now make me deeply uncomfortable.
Because I wanted to focus on ‘following through’ more on things this year, I think watching people frantically purchase things they don’t need is calling attention to my own behaviors. I plan to purchase a couple things tonight despite the anxiety of knowing that I may not be able to snag the more popular items, but I intend to give most of them to my friends and family as Christmas presents. I have a small planner with a cover that I use for my wallet every day, so I’ll be getting one more of those. But I’m not buying a planner with dated daily pages, I’m not going to set myself up for failure by purchasing things that require such a big commitment. I’m no longer okay with blank pages, I want to reduce my waste as much as humanly possible.
Earlier today, I attempted to buy a camera that I’ve been eyeing for months. My credit card was declined and I had to call the fraud department. The retailer’s website wouldn’t allow me to use that credit card even after I cleared things up with the credit card company. I could buy it on another website or call the retailer so they manually enter my details or whatever, but I kind of like that this added friction forces me to ‘sleep on’ the purchase some more. I dunno.
I read some advice the other day that said not to listen to music when you’re writing because the music might set a tone and lead you to believe your writing is better than it is. I think that’s happening right now, oh well lol.
Misc. notes:
- I’ll post my monthly recap tomorrow.
- There’s something screwy with bearblog’s timestamps and it may show that this is published on 9/1 instead of 8/31… I’m too lazy to look into it tbh.
- I’ll update my film/TV log tomorrow or early next week. I had covid 2 weeks ago and it really screwed with my sense of time and productivity. I’m still having GI issues and I’m really upset that the California guidelines for quarantine/etc. are a joke now, but that’s a whole other conversation.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Hope you’re doing okay.