Science & Technology

A New Kind Of 'More'

By Robert Krulwich

Published September 10, 2013 at 7:45 AM CDT

You've heard, maybe, about "Simple Living"? It's what some people do, Gandhi-style, to simplify their lives. They shed possessions. They watch their carbon footprint. They choose to live with less. They have what they need, and that's enough.

What's the opposite of Simple Living? (Everything needs an opposite, right? Read Hegel.) Well, if you want to conjure Simple Living in reverse, it's not gluttony. Anybody can buy too many shoes. No, the opposite of Simple Living should also be a movement with a name, a style — and lots of fans.

I just found them. They're imaginary, but that's OK. They show up, oddly enough, in a web advertisement for a Cadbury chocolate bar called Boost. The ad was created by a whip-smart design team, (with offices in Australia and New York) and the movement they've imagined they call "More-ing."

"More-ing" is what it sounds like; it's for people who want more, but the giddy surprise is what More-ists want more of. Imelda Marcos, the former first lady of the Philippines, famously filled her closets with shoes, but good More-ists are sly, cleverer than Imelda. They crave more subtly, choosing to hoard what nobody normal has thought to hoard ... for example, bicycle locks ...

Or hood ornaments ...

Or sneaker tongues ...

On their best days, More-ists get wildly inventive. Why should basketball courts have only one hoop at the end? Why not "more"?

When a More-ist looks at a doorknob, it looks lonely. Thus the "doorknob wedge."

The Glue Society has made a video, featuring a charismatic leader/activist named "Leo," a man who supports his pants with many, many suspenders. Leo has big dreams for More-ing of which, he tells us, there will be more and more ...

The Glue Society makes the most wonderfully odd advertisements. Until this More-ing thing came along, my favorite was an ad for an orange soda that asked how many of its customers get hit straight on the head, pinpoint, by an erratic Soviet spy satellite while playing beach paddle ball with a bear? You'll find the answer here.