"Many of you feel for the lamp."

November 15, 2018 4:44 PM

In 2002, Ikea released an ad about a lamp that had an interesting stinger. 16 years later, they released a follow up.

And this time, we get a happy takeaway.

posted by NoxAeternum (86 comments total)

I cannot lie, I am crying because that damn lamp ad RUINED ME in 2002.

THANK YOU.
posted by kimberussell at 4:52 PM on November 15, 2018 [38 favorites]

*sniffle*

All good lamps go to heaven.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 4:53 PM on November 15, 2018 [16 favorites]

As an inveterate crouton petter, this is very gratifying.
posted by merriment at 4:53 PM on November 15, 2018 [19 favorites]

WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME OLD MAN??
posted by evidenceofabsence at 4:53 PM on November 15, 2018 [34 favorites]

Dang, I don't know. That thing was out in the rain for a long time.
posted by sageleaf at 4:55 PM on November 15, 2018 [29 favorites]

Regardless of what that man said, I still feel bad for the lamp.

I love lamp.
posted by 4ster at 5:04 PM on November 15, 2018 [19 favorites]

See? you've fallen for it. You've grown attached to the lamp, and you are crazy.
posted by unliteral at 5:16 PM on November 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

In the early 2000s, Carlsberg had an ad (which doesn't seem to be on YouTube) in which a guy was shown putting his college apartment-style furniture and knickknacks out on the curb because "they just don't go with the new couch." The tagline for this campaign was "Welcome To Your Carlsberg Years." I always thought some other brand should have followed that ad up with one where a bunch of Younger Cool Guys happened across all that stuff on the curb and delightedly took it home to decorate their pad; "Welcome To Your Wildcat Years."
posted by The Card Cheat at 5:19 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

I remember that first ad very clearly and am delighted to see this sequel. Delighted and a little taken aback that it has been sixteen years since the first one. Oh my God, I'm so old.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 5:26 PM on November 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

The girl in the second ad carries the lamp like it's a cat or something and I found that totally distracting. Nobody carries a lamp like that, even if it is weirdly anthropomorphic.
posted by axiom at 5:32 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

It made me wince when the metal lamp that was sitting out in the pouring rain was taken home and plugged in after a new bulb was screwed in.

(And that old bulb was working when it was unplugged)
posted by BlueHorse at 5:44 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Now how am I going to illustrate the pathetic fallacy?!?
posted by praemunire at 5:44 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Yeah- I've been using the old advert in my lectures on music and emotion for years.
posted by leibniz at 5:48 PM on November 15, 2018 [12 favorites]

/never saw original ad.

...watches...

(bursts into tears, now hates creepy old man)

...watches new ad...

(bursts into tears again, still hates hold man)
posted by aramaic at 5:52 PM on November 15, 2018 [29 favorites]

I'm so scared for that little girl, now! That lamp was put out because it was cursed!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:54 PM on November 15, 2018 [10 favorites]

The person who introduced me to the original ad with some glee over the stinger happened to also demonstrate a habit of swift kicks to the curb in ending relationships, one which I shouldn't have been surprised eventually was directed towards ours.

I feel a bit lighter watching Ikea recant. Even a little.

Yes I know, pro sustainability doesn't validate anthropomorphizing furnishings, now it's time to see if I can get through a rewatch of The Brave Little Toaster, I suppose.
posted by wildblueyonder at 5:55 PM on November 15, 2018 [13 favorites]

> praemunire:
"Now how am I going to illustrate the pathetic fallacy?!?"

Steve's got your back.
posted by signal at 5:57 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

I'm reminded of Golden Time.
posted by sydnius at 5:57 PM on November 15, 2018

I remain unapologetically on the side of the man in the original ad, and do not recognize the new one as canon.

Lamps don't have feelings, so we are crazy for sympathizing with one.

I feel like this is very simple.
posted by officer_fred at 5:59 PM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

You shouldn’t anthropomorphize lamps. They hate that.
posted by Betelgeuse at 5:59 PM on November 15, 2018 [51 favorites]

Crummy old 70s gooseneck lamp sat out in the rain overnight but still works great the next day.

Ikea's cheap shitty lamps fall apart in 6 months if you leave them next to an HVAC vent with an unusually strong breeze.

The ginger waif knows quality when she sees it.
posted by xthlc at 6:05 PM on November 15, 2018 [29 favorites]

Hey, the first ad really is a terrific example of the pathetic fallacy in action!

Also, I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one whose first response to the second ad was NO NO NO THAT LAMP HAS BEEN OUT IN THE RAIN DO NOT JUST PLUG IT IN AGAIN ARRRRRGGGGGHH.
posted by thomas j wise at 6:08 PM on November 15, 2018 [8 favorites]

Great ads... Great ads... But that girl's family had spare LED bulbs fifteen years ago?
posted by drezdn at 6:11 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Those sixteen years were not kind to him.

Or perhaps... it was he who unkind for sixteen years.
posted by BiggerJ at 6:13 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

please I must know the title and the composer of the background music. it seems so familiar that it is driving me crazy,
posted by 256 at 6:15 PM on November 15, 2018

I was always susceptible to this kind of thing, and ever since I had a kid, I'm crying at commercials at a level I used to do only when I had a fever.

That's a long way of saying that the lamp and stuffed animal tea party destroyed me.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 6:26 PM on November 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

The takeaway from this narrative in two parts:

When using an IKEA bulb, always refer to the manufacturer's specifications.
posted by not_on_display at 6:31 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

please I must know the title and the composer of the background music. it seems so familiar that it is driving me crazy

AdWeek has you covered: "Oscar-nominated composer Ren Klyce, who created the original ad’s music, returned, contributing a contemplative track that manages to sound hopeful without seeming intrusively upbeat."
posted by warriorqueen at 6:37 PM on November 15, 2018 [6 favorites]

please I must know the title and the composer of the background music
MIT Out Sound - Ren Klyce.
posted by unliteral at 6:43 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

Pixar had already done most of the groundwork on anthropomorphizing lamps. Pixar is a reasonable explanation for why the little girl decided the lamp was an imaginary friend.

I had a lamp like that. They were terrible but indestructible. She could probably have picked it up out of a bucket of water, plugged it in, and had it work.
posted by ckridge at 7:00 PM on November 15, 2018 [15 favorites]

Wait. Why hasn't the old guy gotten any older?
posted by ckridge at 7:02 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

I'm destroyed by the fact Mefi-style Crouton Petting has an actual literary term and it is "PATHETIC FALLACY"
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 7:02 PM on November 15, 2018 [7 favorites]

Everything has an emotional charge to me. Everything.

One way or the other. Way too much the other.
posted by jamjam at 7:05 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

I was mad because the original ad cured me of my crouton petting and now they’re just giving it back. LEAVE ME ALONE
posted by bleep at 7:06 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Less than 400 people have the Klyce last name. It appeared in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries. No known history of the name or meaning.
posted by Oyéah at 7:15 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

I’m another one that has my empathy installed at a setting a little too high. It results in some kind of weird physical nausea when I’m around even pretend suffering or, for example, when someone tells a lie. I also get serious vicarious embarrassment/dumbchills. So yeah, both of these ads got me pretty misty-eyed. Glad for the sequel - they did it really well. Yay lamp!
posted by darkstar at 7:28 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

I remember thinking the original ad was really funny, ha ha, yeah it's super weird and dumb to feel sad about a lamp! Well, I was a preteen then and the adult I am now is NEAR TEARS over the happy lamp ending so I guess that's growing up.
posted by capricorn at 7:37 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Lamps have feelings. So do photocopiers and armchairs. However, those massage chairs in airports and highway rest stops are carnivorous so watch out.
posted by Peach at 7:40 PM on November 15, 2018 [11 favorites]

I don't generally feel for inanimate things (anymore, I did as a kid) because now I watch, for example, a Toy Story movie and think, wait: if inanimate things are "alive" and conscious, then is their inevitable decline and deterioration a form of torture? Do they feel pain? Lonliness? Oh god, are our landfills full of suffering objects crushed in filthy darkness?

So in that scenario, thinking "Phew, lamps don't have feelings" is a relief from an existential nightmare.

I am pained by wastefulness, so I'm happy the lamp found a home while it still worked, and I hope one day it will be responsibly recycled.
posted by emjaybee at 8:04 PM on November 15, 2018 [14 favorites]

Lamps don't have feelings, so we are crazy for sympathizing with one.

But we are also crazy for putting things out on the curb if all they need is mild repair.

We are also not crazy if we pick up things that someone other wasteful person put out and refurbish them (my best score - a fantastic pair of boots that fit me like a glove, that someone else put out on the curb because ONE ZIPPER was broken, a problem that cost me less than $20 to fix).

I don't know if I was a crouton-petter about the lamp first time around, and I like that IKEA is now on board with the "reusing things is good" bandwagon. I'm more retroactively annoyed that "wait, 16 years ago you were the one who was encouraging people to just get rid of stuff in the first place. YOU STARTED THIS, Ikea."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:21 PM on November 15, 2018 [11 favorites]

You don't have to feel empathy for the lamp for it to be an emotional ad. I think it's just as easily read as a meditation on the connections we create with places and people that we sometimes unthinkingly or unknowingly put by the wayside, unaware of that person's reciprocal connections. The lamp is the friend you've forgotten to call in months, the people in your hometown who wonder after you long after you've forgotten their faces, the co-worker you only realize how good a team you made after you have a new job, the lamp is each of us for every time it's happened to us or by us. The Lamp is a symbol of the universal and unnoticed sorrows of life.

If you look at it as a cycle, it seems obvious that the woman in the first ad had a similarly long time with that lamp, and there could have been a similar montage of her studying at college and having a movie night and stuff. That lamp is clearly too old to have been new 16 years ago, and that new lamp appears to be part of the 'adultification' of the home that many young people engage in, and if we assume that the woman in the first ad had similar familial experiences with her parents and the lamp as the girl in the second ad, we can also read it as a coming of age story. She has shed her childish things, and bought an annoying standing lamp like a grown-up.

Ultimately, I think the real take-away is, where can I buy that first lamp? That sucker seems invulnerable, and it seems likely that in 16 more years we'll have another ad with a young child finding it in the ruins of a city, taking it to their cave, dismantling and using the wiring to make snares for cave rats, and then the same unaging old man telling us "You feel sorry to see the lamp disemboweled, and that's crazy. No electricity has been produced since the bombs fell."
posted by neonrev at 8:31 PM on November 15, 2018 [35 favorites]

so much depends
upon

a red
wagon

glazed with rain
water

because she
left it in the front yard

poor wagon!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:41 PM on November 15, 2018 [9 favorites]

No sale, IKEA. You're not selling durable goods, AND you don't get to take back "that is because you crazy" which has served me well these sixteen years.
posted by ChurchHatesTucker at 9:12 PM on November 15, 2018

Kremlinologists suspect this change in attitude toward the lamp may be related to Kamprad's passing a while back. Kamprad, callous to the end, always refused to make light of the subject.
posted by zaixfeep at 9:16 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Lamps have feelings. So do photocopiers and armchairs. However, those massage chairs in airports and highway rest stops are carnivorous so watch out.

This is the most correct thing I've ever read.
posted by thivaia at 9:21 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

reusing things is much better

/have picked up many things from the garbage, including lamps
posted by jb at 9:33 PM on November 15, 2018 [1 favorite]

Reading emotions into non-human things is how we got domesticated animals, and domesticated animals is how we got lamps, so I always found that first ad a bit of a low blow.
posted by Merus at 9:40 PM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

...domesticated animals is how we got lamps, so I always found that first ad a bit of a low blow.

Ever try to break a wild lamp? They can't be used afterward.
posted by zaixfeep at 9:50 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

> And that old bulb was working when it was unplugged

I think the point was that the incandescent bulb was replaced by a modern LED bulb. (They take so much power compared to LEDs, it's worth replacing them even if they aren't burned out yet. At least in most civilized places where they don't burn coal.)
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:56 PM on November 15, 2018 [3 favorites]

Location note: 0:20 in the second commercial seems to be Wilkins Avenue in Toronto. Curiously, it's a private street.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:30 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

The first ad was funny because of twist ending.
The second one was mawkishness trying to convince us that ikea wants us all to reduce/reuse/recycle when their megabusiness model is to move as much mass-produced, limited-lifetime, flat-pack furniture as fast as possible.
If the ad had been made by a thrift shop/charity shop/goodwill, then sure. But this just insults your intelligence.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:52 PM on November 15, 2018 [4 favorites]

Ikea congratulating you for reusing something is like Exxon congratulating you for getting slightly better gas mileage in your new car.
posted by GuyZero at 11:04 PM on November 15, 2018 [5 favorites]

Location note: 0:20 in the second commercial seems to be Wilkins Avenue in Toronto. Curiously, it's a private street.

The house the girl goes into is very Toronto.
posted by GuyZero at 11:07 PM on November 15, 2018 [2 favorites]

plot twist: the girl in the first commercial is the adult of the young girl in the second. they both have red hair. the young girl grows up and moves into the house she picked up the lamp from. she remembers to put the lamp out when she gets older, not because it is damaged or unwanted, but to complete a time loop that was created by Ikea. in the future Ikea accidentally invents time travel when they're trying to perfect the 76th iteration of the Malm dresser, and marketing quickly realizes that they need to create these commercials using the same girl/woman to maximize customer retention. then they quickly destroys the time machine before the Malm becomes self-aware.

they do not know it was the Hektar lamp that became self aware.
posted by numaner at 11:19 PM on November 15, 2018 [33 favorites]

(And that old bulb was working when it was unplugged)

I thought that too, but upon rewatching several times I think it's supposed to be reflecting the light from the new lamp in the window, but they made it so bright where the bulb is that it looks like it's on.
posted by numaner at 11:21 PM on November 15, 2018

you make sure it ends up in a place where someone who can appreciate a cool-looking lamp can get their hands on it, even if you don't want it anymore.

Where I live, putting it out on the curb is doing just that.
posted by praemunire at 11:21 PM on November 15, 2018 [12 favorites]

The girl in the second ad carries the lamp like it's a cat or something and I found that totally distracting. Nobody carries a lamp like that, even if it is weirdly anthropomorphic.

What, you never had tea parties with your childhood lamp?
posted by Emily's Fist at 12:20 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Many of you feel mad at IKEA.

That is because you crazy. It has no feelings.

It just exists to make you buy things.
posted by a car full of lions at 12:24 AM on November 16, 2018 [19 favorites]

I don't generally feel for inanimate things (anymore, I did as a kid) because now I watch, for example, a Toy Story movie and think, wait: if inanimate things are "alive" and conscious, then is their inevitable decline and deterioration a form of torture? Do they feel pain? Lonliness? Oh god, are our landfills full of suffering objects crushed in filthy darkness?

Turns out that Pixar themselves have been having ruminations on that topic.
posted by NoxAeternum at 1:51 AM on November 16, 2018

I’m always amused by the IKEA-products-are-terrible-and-fall-apart mythos, because my apartment is one quarter antiques predating 1899, one quarter mid century dumpster finds, and one half IKEA items from a thirty-year spread and the only thing that didn’t last were the wooden folding chairs rated for wispy urbanites and not my social circle in the worrisome-BMI set.

If you have even a modicum of materials awareness, you know which things are stupid (items with loadbearing joints in composite wood), which things are gorgeously plain (Ivar, till exempel), and what stuff is okay, but worthy of hacks, like the 49-buck unfinished pine bed frame that I modified by trimming down the headboard to match the radiator it backed up to (because ew) and added a pair of extra legs to the central spine so that bears could get rambunctious in it without slapstick comedy.

Even if advertising adaptive reuse is just a marketing gesture, it’s still promoting the idea of adaptive reuse, and anything that drives Americans away from the design horror of Marlo, La-Z-Boy, and furniture from Target serves the species well.
posted by sonascope at 4:50 AM on November 16, 2018 [14 favorites]

The ads seem to illustrate a shift in IKEA's marketing. The takeaway from the first ad is a pretty typical consumerist message..."Throw away the old lamp, even thought it still works, because the new one is better" The takeaway from the new ad, though, is "Re-use is good"

The first ad always bothered me both because it blatantly encouraged needless waste, and it seemed to run somewhat counter, even 16 years ago, to IKEA's carefully-crafted marketingpublic image, all in a thick, heavy coating of pathos.

The second ad, while sending a more positive message, kind of talks as if IKEA has this great new idea...re-use!

One has to wonder, though, if the second ad would have ever been made had not consumers already embraced the re-use/recycle concept. That the second ad feels a bit like a global corporation preaching down to consumers is a bit off-putting.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:21 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

The timeloop suggestion is not bad bit incomplete, how does a new bulb fix a broken lamp? The girl brought it to her grandfather who piddles with it electrocuting himself inspiring the girl to become a famous doctor who saves the life of a scientist building a time machine who goes back, sees what must have happened, sneaks into the house and clips a wire on the lamp to close the loop. The lamp was fine, it was sabatoge, not the fault of IKEA.
posted by sammyo at 5:36 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Look, I watched The Brave Little Toaster, I know that used appliances are alive.
posted by jeather at 5:49 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

I’m always amused by the IKEA-products-are-terrible-and-fall-apart mythos

Yes, GOD, this really chaps my ass. Sure, there are some super cheap Ikea particleboard bookshelves or whatever that will fall to pieces the first time you sneeze in their direction, but the middle-range solid wood stuff is far better and far cheaper than any other alternative! When your sofa options are my grandmother's favorite furniture store, Ikea, or $2,500 mid-century modern antiques, Ikea CLEARLY comes out on top.

Jesus, I can't believe I'm defending a corporation like this. I guess I feel like the "Ikea sells crap" narrative is offensive to me, a millenial with a very small furniture budget who doesn't want to sit on thrice-handed-down bachelor pad sofas because I'm THIRTY-FOUR YEARS OLD.

(The commercials were crap, and the old lamp was far more aesthetically pleasing than the new lamp.)
posted by lollymccatburglar at 6:17 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

At risk of a total thread derail, can I just say that Toy Story 3 is the greatest film Pixar has ever made? At its core, it’s a pretty profound meditation on life and how it does/does not have meaning.

And that ignores the more overt messages of growing up and the loss that entails. Or how we participate and sustain unequal societal power structures. Or how we can work together to overturn those same structures. Or, we’ll, I could go on for a while because there’s just so much to appreciate in that movie.

As to the commercials, they’re effective bits of storytelling, although I think the second one does a better job of showing how we become emotionally attached to an object. The first one is more just a naked exercise in anthropomorphism.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:18 AM on November 16, 2018

What's the least amount of in-universe time that could logically be separating those two ads? I ask because the answer would seem to have troubling implications for the frequency of garbage pick-ups in that neighbourhood.
posted by Paul Slade at 6:28 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

I’ve always said IKEA is what happens when Target merges with Harbor Freight Tools. In general, everything has a more elevacted style and the cost is almost always cheaper than similar products from competitors but quality is a crapshoot. Some things are garbage no matter how cheaply sold and others are real deals.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:39 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Big Al 8000: I think you might enjoy this essay on the theology of Toy Story 3: A Religion for Toys, by R. Fiore (The Comics Journal, July 6, 2010).

Here's an extract:

In the theology of Toy Story, Andy is God and Woody is his prophet. He is more Moses than Jesus. For one thing, he is orthodox. In the theology of toys, the ideal is to be owned and to be played with. Of these two, it is more important to be owned, and to be owned by one God only. Andy’s room is heaven, and it is the dearest wish of all toys to dwell there with the Lord forever, though in the back of their minds they know this can’t be. If one cannot be both owned and played with, it is better to be put in the purgatory of the attic than to be passed on into the unknown, even if that means being played with. If one cannot be owned by the one true God, it is better to be played with. It is totally within God’s discretion whether one is to be played with or to be kept, and the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether (though there can be false or unworthy Gods, see Toy Story primus). Andy is the God of Gods, the ideal owner, who takes care of his toys, preserves their every accessory and plays with them as they should be played. As prophet it is for Woody to explain the ways of Andy to toys. Where others have doubts based on God’s apparent works, Woody’s belief is based entirely on faith. If Andy ever seems to fail his toys, Woody knows it can only be through error or mischance, and that the loving designs of Andy will manifest themselves if the toys serve faithfully. The central tenet of the Woody’s faith is, “Andy needs us.”
posted by Paul Slade at 6:47 AM on November 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

I’ve always said IKEA is what happens when Target merges with Harbor Freight Tools.

I dunno. I think it's more like as if SCAN had learned institutionally that there are more people in the world than middle-class white people. Harbor Freight is virtually all straight-up garbage that is useful when you don't mind if the tool you buy to use once lasts roughly one usage, with a materials stream that goes from Chinese scrap metal barges straight to US landfills, whereas IKEA actually does some materials engineering that uses the least material for the most structure in a way that benefits both them as a money-making institution, us as consumers, and the environment (and you'll never see an actively serviced recycling center in a Harbor Freight). They're all profit machines, but one at least acknowledges the existence of a future beyond an inevitable replay WALL-E.

As for design, Target is design for people who know design solely from TLC and HGTV. The world would be a better place with less of that tiresome crap from Starck and Graves.

IMHO, the real utility of IKEA isn't furniture—it's housewares, lighting, and soft goods.
posted by sonascope at 7:00 AM on November 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

if inanimate things are "alive" and conscious, then is their inevitable decline and deterioration a form of torture? Do they feel pain? Lonliness? Oh god, are our landfills full of suffering objects crushed in filthy darkness?

posted by otherchaz at 7:50 AM on November 16, 2018

Spike Jonze directed the original. Does anyone know who directed the follow-up? I doubt it's him, as it's sentimental in a way I wouldn't associate with his style.
posted by PatchesPal at 9:46 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

As someone who can't bear wastefulness, I didn't so much feel bad for the lamp as I felt bad about the lamp. It was a perfectly good lamp and shouldn't have been put out on the curb with the garbage. I'm glad it was salvaged and is being used and enjoyed.
posted by orange swan at 9:58 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Hm. I understand the emotional appeal of leaving a lamp on the curb, but it was still working.That's what charity thrift stores are for.
posted by annsunny at 10:09 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Metafilter: full of suffering objects crushed in filthy darkness
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:23 AM on November 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

Hm. I understand the emotional appeal of leaving a lamp on the curb, but it was still working.That's what charity thrift stores are for.

In Toronto that's a 10 minute drive. Or I can leave it on the sidewalk and it'll be gone in a day.
posted by GuyZero at 10:26 AM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe it's the empathetic fallacy, eh? eh?
posted by taterpie at 10:36 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

My wife and I binge on YouTube videos at the end of the week. I've queued these up, but put the original lamp video at the beginning of the playlist and Lamp 2 at the end.

We might not even finish our queue this weekend.

Heh heh heh.
posted by endotoxin at 11:05 AM on November 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Cool, cool- but the curb in this commercial isn't that place- it's the place where you put things to get rained on and possibly ruined

i mean, for those of us who live in rainy climates, those places are one and the same -- if i need to give away something and friends/craigslist aren't working, i *try* and time it for a dry spell of weather, but i can't always...
posted by halation at 1:02 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

The initial ad spoke to me in a very specific way. I’m always tempted to imbue inanimate objects with feelings (really projections of my own feelings about them), and to feel guilty about discarding things as much because of those feelings as because of any rational concern about wastefulness or environmental impact. I was raised on the Velveteen Rabbit, for example. It was genuinely a relief to be reminded that inanimate objects do not in fact have feelings, and that I do not have to feel guilty for not taking care of those feelings.
posted by snowmentality at 1:54 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

I've never seen that before. And it was Spike Jonze, thats fascinating.

Over here in the UK we had Chuck Out Your Chintz in 1996 which caused quite a fuss but turned out to be very influential. They followed that with Stop Being So English.
posted by memebake at 3:40 PM on November 16, 2018

Sure, there are some super cheap Ikea particleboard bookshelves

I guess, but my BILLY bookcases are now 22 years old and have survived 7 moves. (The key is, always fully disassemble and then reassemble your furniture. Trying to move IKEA furniture intact will almost certainly result in breaking it, it's not designed for that).

I don't think I've ever had any of my IKEA furniture break (I have gotten rid of some because I didn't want it anymore, it didn't work in new place, etc but not because it broke).
posted by thefoxgod at 3:57 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

While on one hand I do believe that IKEA really does peddle disposable crap, I too have a house full of decade-old IKEA furniture. Our metal bedframe and solid wood dressers are IKEA and all date from when I got married over 20 years ago. Our IKEA couches looked a little slumpy the day after we got them but 10 years later they look no more or less slumpy than that. Plus being able to remove couch and cushion covers to wash them is really great. The only furniture I haven't bought at IKEA is a bar and a sideboard from Crate & Barrel, but even then only because we found our local C&B outlet store where we got the sideboard for like 30% off. I will say that IKEA plates tend to chip more than I'd like, but we have almost a full set of 20+ year old IKEA plates as well.

In short, IKEA is a land of disposable consumer and thoughtful sustainable product design contrasts.
posted by GuyZero at 4:28 PM on November 16, 2018 [6 favorites]

Everything I've bought from Ikea has lasted so far *knocks on Ikea wood*, including a metal bed they no longer sell that's been with me since like 2008, and a Malm dresser since 2010. Like most everything else, if you treat them right they'll last.
posted by numaner at 5:19 PM on November 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Ikea has a whole range of products. Maybe in the past their stuff really was universally chintzy. I don't know. But all the stuff I've had of theirs (purchased at various times since the mid 00s) has been good, certainly better than the alternatives you can get for the same price from other stores. (Not as good as getting a solid-wood heirloom dresser from Goodwill or something, but a lot easier to bring home in your subcompact car.) Yeah, it's particleboard, but it's well-engineered particleboard.

Oddly, the only Ikea stuff that's gotten trashed in moves is the stuff I've tried to disassemble. I think they have a limited number of assemble/disassemble cycles before you start to rip out screw holes and stuff. YMMV, but when I set Ikea furniture up now, I just glue all the joints in addition to using their crafty little cam-and-post fasteners, which means it's basically fused together into one big solid unit. They're not coming apart or getting wobbly with anything less than a sledgehammer.

Lately though I've moved on from that, and started to just weld furniture from raw pieces of angle iron. It requires a certain commitment to the "Mad Max meets Restoration Hardware" aesthetic, but it's hard to beat the durability.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:01 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

Maybe in the past their stuff really was universally chintzy. I don't know. But all the stuff I've had of theirs (purchased at various times since the mid 00s) has been good, certainly better than the alternatives you can get for the same price from other stores.

They've made a shift in recent years towards more all-wood pieces (often solid birch) which can be easily disassembled and reassembled. They hold up surprisingly well, even in moves, and aren't much more expensive than the particleboard stuff. (And you're right, even the particleboard stuff is generally pretty well-engineered, as far as particleboard goes.)
posted by halation at 6:27 PM on November 17, 2018

Sometimes I wonder if 'IKEA' has become a somewhat generalized term for flatpack furniture in general, and that has lead to a conflation between big box, utter junk flat-pack furniture and proper IKEA furniture. Coming from a place where we were well aware of IKEA and jokes about putting it together and all that, but far, far away from one, I can easily imagine referring to the $20 bookshelf from walmart as a piece of IKEA furniture. My current computer desk is a curbside pick-up (check those curbs come May and June, people, college kids are a great source of free, barely used furniture.) and I guess I'd describe it as an IKEA-style desk, not knowing if it is or not.

IME, IKEA furniture is reliable in general, and fantastic if you go for the real wood offerings. Cheapest and easiest place to find simple, well-made raw pine furniture, which you can then stain as desired.
posted by neonrev at 11:26 PM on November 17, 2018 [1 favorite]