The art of collecting
Everyone collects something and like the things we collect, the reasons for doing so vary. Some do it as a hobby, others see it as an investment, but how and why do we collect?
Petra Engels of Germany has a collection of 19,571 unique erasers from 112 countries. Barbara Hartsfield is a collector of 3,000 miniature chairs. Then there is Ralf Shröder who owns a collection of 14,502 sugar packets with one dating back to the 1950s.
To collect means to bring or gather together a number of people or things. Following that, a collection could mean two things — the process of gathering things, or a group of things or people.
As early as 105,000 years ago, humans collected crystals in the Kalahari region of Southern Africa. Originating in the 16th century, Wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities) were well known collections of notable items that were precursors to modern day museums. These were collections of relics, ethnography, geology, archeology from rulers and aristocrats to reflect their particular interests, as well as to establish status in society. Fast forward to 2022, there is a recent emergence of digital collectibles like NFTs. We will come back to that later.
Some people do it for pleasure while others do it for discovery and a yearn to learn more. There are also people who collect to show status, loyalty or attraction towards a specific subject which in return, forms a habit. However, we all collect because objects represent something that we value, or serve as a tool for us to connect with others.
There is a slightly darker side — psychologists argue that collecting may be motivated by existential anxieties because our collections are an extension of our identities that may live on even if we do not. In many ways, collecting can be a long journey that may never be completed.
“We know our lives are inextricably entangled with things and the earliest archeological records show that ownership of objects is a universal phenomenon that has existed across time, cultures and people.”
— Kiara Timpano, professor of psychology in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences.
It is not a surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought about a new (and maybe more extreme) culture of collection, a well known instance being the toilet paper crisis. As I was writing a draft of this article, I decided to make a list for myself as to the things I have been collecting in the last 2 years. Most of them boiled down to my new hermit life in my apartment — supermarket shopping and work.
My collections, so far:
- About 1600 bookmarked links in raindrop that are separated into over 20 folders with various tags
- Two recent projects 100 Days of Things I’ve Learnt (a collection of articles, essays and interviews) and 100 Days of Just for Fun (a collection of random fun links, sites and videos)
- An ongoing project listing observations and purchases from my daily supermarket food run — the objective was to find the best times and days for specific types of foods, at the lowest reduced prices
So this brings about the big question, why do we collect?
The Thrill of the Hunt
Our pre-historic ancestors were hunters that gathered food and materials, especially for the winter months. You never want to risk running out of supplies. Think about the mild panic you feel when you notice that you are about to finish that last packet of your favourite, delicious instant noodles that you brought back from Japan.
The act of accumulating is an evolutionary advantage because it gives us a feeling of security by surrounding ourselves with valuable possessions that we need to survive.
Then there is the hunt itself that can be summarised in four stages:
- The excitement of discovery draws us in because that is a sense of pride in finding exquisite items, especially if they are rare. Think about rare coin and stamp collections.
- We want to dig deeper beyond the surface down into that intriguing rabbit hole to discover more. For example, as part of my recent observational study at my local supermarket, I recently discovered an aisle full of food with reduced prices. What’s the next step in this rabbit hole?
- Diving deeper into a niche — how low can these marked down foods be priced at without compromising on quality? And how many can I buy?
- By sharing our collection with others, we get recognition and admiration in our community. Think about vinyl collectors and the reaction of others when a rare, limited edition vinyl is shared.
This leads to the next point.
Enhancing our Lives
Humans are social creatures that like to belong. Through our love of certain items, we discover peers and groups of people that share similar tastes. This creates a community which grows over time. Within the community, it is inevitable that we would compare our collections to others. However, you cannot deny a good feeling when someone reacts positively to a good find that you have made.
For example, it is no secret designers like to hoard cool websites in a bookmark folder somewhere. When Bob shares an awesome website that no one has heard of in a slack channel, his fellow designer friends would be raving about it. In return, Bob feels like he has made a great discovery and contribution to the channel.
Here is another example. It is the summer of Berlin in 2018 and the temperatures are at 38 degrees. Everyone is melting in the heat. Programmer and Berliner Jesse Pinho created a map of all the air-conditioned places in Berlin. I remember seeing this being shared repeatedly in most expat Facebook groups, as well as the original reddit thread. The idea was great and filled with many positive reactions from fellow Berliners. Additionally, others could add to the map to contribute to the collection for everyone else.
Endowment Effect
We tend to value things more once we own them. With the 100 days of Just for Fun project, though the content and links were not necessarily mine per say, I felt an increasing, pressing need to curate each link more and more as I inched closer and closer to day 100.
It was this strange feeling of knowing that it may be coming towards an “end” soon, and that each link I was about to share had to be really worthy of the last few remaining “spots”. Even with the second project, 100 Days of Things I’ve Learnt, I have noticed a similar phenomenon and I am barely at day 60.
Intellectual Process
According to neuroscientist Shirley M. Mueller, an intellectual process provides intellectual satisfaction. This is because gathering and curating things requires some discipline and knowledge on the matter. Through the collecting process, we gain a mastery of a subject through specialised knowledge and expertise.
Think about news articles people like to collect on a specific topic, magazine subscriptions or even the books you have on your bookshelf. Or maybe computers.
I remember hearing about the entire process a friend had to go through to build his own gaming PC. It started with lots of research on community forums, articles, in shop experiences, followed by more time spent looking for the right parts at the best prices. After that, came the harder part of then piecing all the individual parts together to form a fully functioning gaming computer. All of that was part of an intellectual process and the rewards were not just the physical object, but a sense of pride from new skills and knowledge.
Showcase of Wealth and Status
Magpies collect shiny objects for display in an attempt to attract a mate. The bird displaying the most objects of highest quality will get the best mate. Similar to magpies and historical Wunderkammers, we may just collect to flex like when you own an NFT.
There are more common examples such as designer bags, limited edition shoes, but the latest player in the field are NFTs. For example, a 50-second video by Grimes sold for almost $390,000 in an auction and similarly, a tweet was sold for just under $3 million. These can be described as a contagion — when people collect celebrity’s belongings, they are seen to be imbued with the individual’s essence, like the video by Grimes.
You could argue that such expensive purchases are a form of investment. This is not new in the world of fashion where limited edition collections sell out within hours of its release, or consumers purchase classic items that over time, only go up in resell value as it is no longer available in the market.
LOEWE’s Spirited Away collection was released this January and on the day it was made available online, most items sold out within a few hours. No doubt, £1,850 for a mini bag is part of a flex but after plenty of googling online, many collectors have also mentioned that Loewe is one of those classic designer brands that are worth investing in, similar to Hermès or Chanel.
Joys of Buying
Moving on from spending crazy amounts of money on digital collectibles and bags, sometimes buying may not necessarily mean actual shopping but rather the enjoyment of spending time looking for interesting things. In this case, the motivation to collect is the joy of buying.
FOMO is the fear of missing out. We may be motivated to collect so that we do not miss anything. For example, I went through my bookmarked links in my entire raindrop app and noted about 1600 links in total. However, off the top of my head, I can probably only remember about 15 of them distinctively and am not even sure what a majority of the others are. This is because very often, things are just collected into a folder and then forgotten about.
Re-arranging a Collection
On the topic of folders and collections, one could argue that arranging or re-arranging a collection is also part of collecting. Not only does it illustrate an accumulation of taste of knowledge, it also demonstrates organisational skills to arrange everything in a certain, logical manner.
What about collecting and lists?
Your mind loves it when a plan comes together — the mere act of planning how to do something frees us from the burden of unfinished tasks.
— Tom Stafford, The psychology of the to-do-list
In The psychology of the to-do-list, Stafford highlights a system from David Allen’s Getting Things Done known as filing effectively:
- An archive: store all the stuff you might need one day (forget it until then)
- A current task list in which everything is stored as an action
- “Tickler” file where reminders of things to do are organised in
Similar to the art of collecting, list making reduces anxiety because it helps us select and prioritise things. They help create a sense of inner mastery as well as contain a sense of inner chaos which makes our load feel more manageable. Think about a situation where browser bookmarks or bookshelves did not exist, how would that look like?
Whilst this idea of “filing effectively” focuses on to-do-lists, the same concepts can be applied to collecting in a similar manner:
- Archive: we store a vast collection if items on a certain subject
- List of actions: things are curated into a concise and more exclusive collection
- “Tickler” file: various mediums for each collection i.e: a microsite to share websites that are designed in a brutalist style
What is interesting about the entire process of collecting is that the act of searching and collecting is when we are most engaged. Perhaps this is because of the primal nature associated with the thrill of the hunt where we desire something so much. Once the object is obtained, we feel happiness, but only temporarily. Similar to filing things, it ends up as another item in our archive and the whole process resets again.
Regardless of why we like to collect, it is clear that collecting is an important part of being human. We do it because it makes us feel something, whether it is pride, joy or even just simple satisfaction. Collecting data on markdown food prices each day between a fixed time slot serves a purpose to solving a focused objective. As a designer, the organisation and transformation of data into real life meaning makes me happy.
However, as pointed out by neurologist Shirley M. Mueller, nothing beats the feeling of excitement from the initial chase like searching through the supermarket aisles for that orange reduced label, or an antiques collector going through piles of items in a flea market.
This may also explain why collecting goes from being an activity to a passion as we are constantly looking to experience that same thrilling feeling over and over again.
