In 1769, the French philosopher Denis Diderot (1713–1784) published an essay titled "Regrets for my Old Dressing Gown, or A warning to those who have more taste than fortune."

In the essay, he complained that owning a single luxurious item—a fancy robe—led him to overspend on other luxuries to match it, resulting in misery. He felt like he didn't own his stuff, that his stuff owned him.

"My friends, fear the touch of wealth. Let my example teach you a lesson. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence has its obstacles," he wrote.

Diderot's complaint about the expensive dressing gown makes a lot of sense: once you have one nice thing, you tend to want everything else to match it, or you want to buy all the accessories that go with it, and then you're drowning in your own consumerism. You miss your old stuff. Your money is wasted, and you're losing your grip on who you are as a person.

The scholar Grant David McCracken agreed, defining "the Diderot effect" in his 1988 book Culture and Consumption as "a force that encourages the individual to maintain a cultural consistency in his/her complement of consumer good." McCracken explains: "From the moment of introduction, a new good begins to demand new companion goods. The individual who assents to the first demand finds that it is followed by a hundred others."

And that's the Diderot effect: it's when buying stuff makes you want to buy more and more stuff to go with it, which causes you problems like waste, clutter, debt, guilt, and despair.

Part of speech:

Noun, the countable kind: "Companies are relying on the Diderot effect to keep you coming back to buy more and more."

Other forms: 

If you like, you can capitalize the word "effect," too; "the Diderot Effect."

how to use it:

"The Diderot effect" is a rare term, but if you define it as you use it, or provide enough context, your listeners will understand it. They've probably experienced it, too.

You might talk about companies who use or employ the Diderot effect or profit from it. Or you might talk about people who fall victim to the Diderot effect or struggle against it.

examples:

"I recently had a Diderot moment of my own. Appalled by reports of the alleged health threats from plastic cutting boards, I searched for a substitute made of wood and found a beautiful end-grain maple specimen... Sure enough, I was soon ordering food-grade mineral oil for maintenance. Then I realized that my decades-old butcher block dining table looked hopelessly shabby near the new cutting board. With limited funds left, I decided to refinish the table myself — which required the purchase of an orbital sander."
  — Edward Tenner, Milken Institute Review, 23 March 2025

"Ever bought yoga pants on Amazon because they’re on sale and instead of hitting 1-click purchasing for checkout right away, you decided to add three different colors, a new top + upgrade your water bottle?... Filling your cart with extra stuff you don't need isn't where the Diderot Effect stops... we need to understand exactly how to curate, eliminate + ultimately focus on the things that matter most to us." 
  — John and Sherri Monte, Elegant Simplicity, 5 January 2023

has this page helped you understand "the Diderot effect"?

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.

study it:

Explain the meaning of "the Diderot effect" without saying "spiraling into overconsumption" or "buying stuff for your stuff."

try it out:

Rose Fres Fausto has lots of ideas for how to protect yourself from the Diderot effect. Here's my favorite:

"Treat your closet or your house in general as prime real estate when making another purchase. Before you bring home any gadget, clothing, or other items, ask yourself if it deserves the space it will occupy in your home."

Would this work for you, personally, to protect you from the Diderot effect? Why or why not?

If you like, use this space to write. (To save your work, copy and paste it into an email or a document.)

before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Fragments.

In each issue, check out an excerpt from a master of American prose, one in which I've changed the lovely sentence fragments into ugly but grammatically correct sentences. Try restoring the excerpt to its original glory by chiseling those sentences down into fragments.

You can check out some examples here.

Try this one today. It's from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle:

He is only about five feet high, but even so these trousers are about eight inches short of the ground. You wonder where he can have gotten them or rather you would wonder, if the excitement of being in his presence left you time to think of such things.

That is because he is an inspired man. Every inch of him is inspired—you might almost say inspired separately. He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and swings to and fro; he has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical; and, when he executes a turn or a flourish, his brows knit and his lips work and his eyelids wink—the very ends of his necktie bristle out.

To see the original version, scroll all the way down.

review this term:

1. A near opposite of the Diderot effect would be a tendency to spiral into more and more _____.

A. ultra-niche hobbies
B. medication and self-care
C. decluttering and minimizing

2. The book _____ helps counteract the Diderot Effect.

A. I Was Told There'd Be Cake
B. The Grass Is Always Greener over the Septic Tank
C. No New Things: A Radically Simple 30-Day Guide to Saving Money, the Planet, and Your Sanity

Answers to the review questions: 1. C 2. C From the game: There are lots of different ways to render each highlighted bit into a fragment! If your version pleases your ears, then you did great. Here's the original version: He is only about five feet high, but even so these trousers are about eight inches short of the ground. You wonder where he can have gotten them or rather you would wonder, if the excitement of being in his presence left you time to think of such things. For he is an inspired man. Every inch of him is inspired—you might almost say inspired separately. He stamps with his feet, he tosses his head, he sways and swings to and fro; he has a wizened-up little face, irresistibly comical; and, when he executes a turn or a flourish, his brows knit and his lips work and his eyelids wink—the very ends of his necktie bristle out.

a final word:

I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love. I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words. From my blog: On vocabulary...       36 ways to study words.       Why we forget words, & how to remember them.       How to use sophisticated words without being awkward. On writing...       How to improve any sentence.       How to motivate our kids to write.       How to stop procrastinating and start writing.       How to bulk up your writing when you have to meet a word count. From my heart: a profound thanks to the generous patrons, donors, and sponsors that make it possible for me to write these emails. If you'd like to be a patron or a donor, please click here. If you'd like to be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com. A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.