Dear Story of Stuff Supporters, Partners, Friends –
Happy Anniversary.
It has been a full year since we released the Story of Stuff on line. And what a year at that!
We’re celebrating the anniversary by launching our international page today. Please visit www.storyofstuff.com/international.
One of the many surprises in the response to the film was the flood of offers and requests we received fortranslated versions. We have received well over 1,000 requests from all over the world. We are starting with an initial 10 languages in subtitled format and will add additional subtitles and dubbed versions in the coming year. Another dozen languages are already in the works and will be added shortly.
We worked closely with allied organizations in other countries to complete the translations. Each group that contributed a translation has agreed to serve as a regional contact for viewers interested in sustainability, consumption, waste and related issues in their area. This way, we hope that that the translated versions not only spread the message, but strengthen connections among people who want to work for change around the world.
We are now at 4.8 million on line views, with a steady average of 6,000 – 11,000 new ones a day. The list of the op 25 countries, in terms of viewership, is below. We will be tracking this to see how it changes with the addition of subtitled versions. If you write for a blog or newsletter in another language, please tell people about www.storyofstuff.com/international
Thank again to everyone who asked us about translations. Special thanks to our friends around the world who volunteered their translating services (they are listed on the credits section of the international webpage) and Nathan Embretson, who works with the Story of Stuff project and is coordinating the translations project.
As always, if you have any ideas, feedback, we would love to hear them!
Very Sincerely,
Annie Leonard
The Story of Stuff Project
For those of you interested in the international reach of the film, below are the 25 countries with the highest numbers of online viewers, with the current number of views recorded in each.
1.United States (2,627,202)
2.Canada (600,312)
3.United Kingdom (135,477)
4.Australia (100,454)
5.Mexico (98,384)
6.Germany (95,794)
7.Israel (84,897)
8.Brazil (83,037)
9.India (66,330)
10.Spain (60,624)
11.Portugal (46,427)
12.France (45,422)
13.Netherlands (43,971)
14.Romania (43,891)
15.Argentina (33,352)
16.Sweden (32,500)
17.Italy (31,648)
18.Singapore (27,105)
19.Turkey (24,746)
20.New Zealand (23,045)
21.Colombia (22,147)
22.Switzerland (21,673)
23.Belgium (19,927)
24.Austria (19,147)
25.Greece (17,086)
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December 10th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Taiwan has at least two!
Thanks for your work. Keep it up!
December 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
Hi, great movie and most effective educational tool. Very good effort in translation, but there doesn’t seem to be download options for .flv or .mov of subtitled versions of the movie. I am interested in Spanish version for screening purposes. Is there a way I can’t find, or is it due later? Greetings and keep up the effort.
December 11th, 2008 at 10:30 am
I am not a blogger, but could not resist a response to the “Story of Stuff”. I was impressed and amazed at the simple way you addressed this complex issue. It was clever, understandable and insightful. Bravo!! On the other hand, as I was about to order a copy to use in a Conservation class, I heard the 911 Bush reference. First of all, it took me away from the message and into a political debate. (I was really surprised and put-off by the way you trivialized his response to 911 as a message to go shopping and ignored his many calls to prayer for our country and the victims’ families.) See what I mean…suddenly I am focused on the details of what he did or did not say or do, and I am questioning the motive under the message because it has a partisan, political agenda feel. For example, I can’t show it to kids whose parents may be staunch republicans, so I can’t use it in educational venues. Don’t misunderstand me…I am not a big Bush fan, but I think this personal attack results in misdirection, when the focus should be on awareness of and change in the system. And why blame only one of the many politicians involved? Why not keep the message consistent by using the more general government symbol? I really wish you could make a non-political version of this so that I could use it in my classes and presentations. Please let me know if one becomes available. Thanks for your willingness to hear this.
Pam Pate
December 11th, 2008 at 11:37 am
what about Turkish language ..?
we are 70 million people and small percentage of our people knows English.
December 12th, 2008 at 6:11 am
Where can I find a Portugese version please?
December 12th, 2008 at 6:52 am
Hi
I am glad India figures in that list. I had offered to translate into at least 3 other Indian languages – Hindi, Tamil and Malayalam.
Good work
December 13th, 2008 at 6:46 am
If you relate your numbers to the countries’ populations, they show huge variations in impact. Could you do a per 1000 population view number ?
That would show up sensibilities in some surprising countries not normally associated with sustainability (and shame some others). Absolute numbers really don’t tell the story.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers.
December 14th, 2008 at 5:59 am
Dear Annie
sonday morning 13th of december, i assisted your very good and instructif story of stuff, my congratulations.
i am working on the design of waste incineration plants in switzerland, germany and italy. here some comments on dioxine:
as you know dioxine is beeing produced in all types of open flames, even in fireplaces using natural wood. in europe emissions of incinerators are limited in the dioxine content of 0.1 ng/m3 (10-9 g/m3) of flue gas. This limit is beeing used in many countrys of europe since many years und became know standard for all europe. mesurements shows values of normaly 10 times less. the capture of dioxine is done normaly in catalists where the dioxine is oxidated to this low limit, or dioxine is filtered with actif charcol. this are techniques wich are well known and wich should be adopted in the USA urgently.
best regard
Johannes U. Weiss
December 17th, 2008 at 2:11 am
Annie, you totally rock. My Beloved and I have just started a blog about global warming, stuff and environmental consciousness raising. I’m putting a link to your site in there.
December 23rd, 2008 at 3:43 pm
Congratulations! That’s really cool that you have translations available. Just found your site and bookmarked it. I look forward to viewing its contents hopefully before the year ends.
I sincerely respect the work you are doing and I hope that you will be given the strength to carry on whenever it is you need it.
All the best.
December 23rd, 2008 at 4:23 pm
What a great concept. Too bad you had to start by trashing the greatest government and country ever to exist on this earth. Sorry, but you are dead wrong when when you say it is the govenrment’s responsibility to “take care of us”. You are nothing but a liberal idiot hiding behind the environment to push your broken liberal views.
December 29th, 2008 at 11:00 pm
great movie!
is it possible to get it with spanish subs? this should be shown in every school of every cities around the globe, so our children can see it and understand it, the middle-class ones, I mean, the ones that have the possibility to learn and make the change, not the ones who suffer it directly.
In Argentina, my country, big corporations such as monsanto own huge (HUUUGE) percentages of the land and are ruining it, with the acceptance and connivence of those who are elected to prevent such things.
It’s time for all of us to understand that we are one, and it’s our responsability to start looking for each other and for our planet.
Congrats, and keep on the great work you are doing.
December 31st, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Thank you for this wonderful work! You mentioned translating this movie into many languages. I’d like to see it captioned for our Deaf and Hard of Hearing friends, and/or interpreted into ASL.
Keep up the good work.
January 3rd, 2009 at 2:57 am
Thanks for this informative clip…
I think that the way we are behave was deployed, we become addicted to consume whatever is the result.
However, I strongly believe that in the comming years we will see a new economic system that appreciate the earth, resources, friendship and weather. Moreover, we will try to change the concept that syas ” if you buy more, the economy will get better”
Actually, that is what I am working on with my friends in Vancouver Island University-MBA program.
January 4th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Your movie is great work!!! Greetings from Germany!
Your recycling Florian
January 14th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Congratulations! We too are interested in the Spanish version for screening purposes. We are working with sustainable rural development and this “stuff” could be such a wonderful help in the educational process.
January 15th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Great video. Amazing concept! I wacthed in Portuguese and forwarded the link to all my contacts from Brazil. I also posted about it on my company’s corporate blog at http://blog.institutoinovacao.com.br (in Portuguese).
January 21st, 2009 at 11:55 am
That was an awesome video. Very eye-opening and powerful, yet simplistic. I’m so happy to hear about the translations. Keep up the great work!
January 21st, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Great site, great effort. We have a project on the oven, we want to launch a sustainable magazine which can be used as a forum for designers and creatives to give ideas to people to reduce the environmental problems at home.
We would love to be connected with you. It really is a great site, congratulations, and still working for our planet.
Mexico is not a trash can. Is a great and rich country with so many natural resources, and we don’t want to lose it. We got to fight for it.
Count on us. Congratulations.
January 22nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
I am in 5th gread and my teacher showed us this and I thought is was great!My hole school should know about this by tomarow because I will send it to all 900. Or as many as I can. How can I help at 11? I help a lot but I want to help more!
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Awesome film. Thank you for getting the word out there – I can’t believe I’m only finally seeing it though! But it looks like it has made its way across the globe, so that is wonderful. I’ll pass it along some more.
January 25th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Congrats for the video!!
I stayed in U.S. for 3 months and feeled suprised percepting how it works over there. Let’s think about it!!
I sent the link to all of my friends in Brazil and hope we leave a good world to our grandchildren!!
January 27th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
Great video!! When can we expect to see it in Japanese? We run a Japanese University and would love to be able to share it with them.
January 28th, 2009 at 12:42 am
I like your message – however, now that people have stopped buying ’stuff’ and the economy is going to hell everywhere, what is your solution? I think you have over-simplified the world economy and the solutions, and the proof of that is in the daily news. Just what did you think was going to happen if we all stopped buying the ’stuff’ in the stores? Why is this not addressed in your video? While I realize Americans didn’t stop purchasing because of your message, the result is sadly the same. Sure hope your videos are free, because we certainly can’t afford to buy them now.
January 28th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Thank you for the video, and I, unlike Pam, have no trouble showing this video to my students.
Pam, the reference to Bush and September 11 is not blaming it all on him. It was used as an example of what the American consumer is required to do to be a good American. I remember the speeches and the mention of prayer, but I remember–very clearly–the call to shop to show the terrorists that they hadn’t brought down our country.
In any classroom, I take time for discussion of all issues that arise and allow the students to work through them for themselves.
Often, when people hear something that calls their own behavior into question, they look for the obvious “agenda” in whatever is making them uncomfortable (it’s called cognitive dissonance). Rather than run from that discomfort, learning and education and yes, even maturation, is about facing it and working through it–even if at the end of the analysis, you decide to reject it. Part of why Americans are mass consumers comes down to responding to the peripheral marketing message. If we actually thought about it, we wouldn’t go buy it. But then, I guess that’s the point.
January 29th, 2009 at 11:48 am
We should all wear t-shirts with non-consumer messages when we go at the mall or supermarket
And send everyone we know a likt to this website.
It’s something we cam easily DO !
February 1st, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Thank you so much for all the hard and inspiring works, Annie. I am so enouraged by you and your works.I’ll try to do something for your project in Chinese communities.
February 5th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Ya know … its a great concept and I agree that people should stop being such nutty consumers. That being said you paint a picture of crazy consumers are some huge groups of people that don’t care what they consume.
Most of you just don’t even realize that you are causing it ….
like well this site….
After all you ARE selling DVDs
I do love the irony
Maybe we should all go live like the farmers do in this fine country …. but then you would be voting republican…
wait … that’s not such a bad thing.
February 7th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
What about Bahasa Indonesia? We are about 240 Mio. people and not so good at English…
Thanks
Taufiq
February 9th, 2009 at 3:04 am
I would love to use this video with my Deaf and Hard of Hearing students, but you don’t seem to have a English subtitled or close captioned version yet. If I buy the DVD is it captioned in English?
I have a unit coming up on Consumption and your video would be perfect. Do you have any expected date of release of the subtitled version?
Thanks!
February 10th, 2009 at 2:28 am
Notice how Japan isn’t even on that list? It needs to be! Next to America, Japan is the biggest consumer and traditonally they won’t buy anything if it’s even a little bit used… this needs to change! Please add a Japanese translation so I can show it to all my students.
February 11th, 2009 at 10:12 pm
Great video. Its easy to understand and relate to.
February 25th, 2009 at 12:48 am
hi there,
I am a teacher of American Literature at an international school in Hsinchu, Taiwan. I teach many “American Born Chinese” students; the majority of our seniors go to the United States for university. In the American Literature course, we cover Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, so the story of stuff fits in perfectly. Especially due to the way that technology is seemingly deified over here, particularly anything perceived as new and trendy,as ipods are. So this film hits many significant point for my students. We then have a week long summit in our classroom full of further research on the state of our global environment, taiwan’s environment and the happiness factor, both individually and collectively, at the American and Taiwanese level, collectively. This includes also round table discussions where we discuss and attempt to problem solve, coming up with solutions, both local and global, personal and collective. It’s a great video, this is my favorite unit to teach. Thanks so much, and let’s all keep up the good work. Especially with the personal/collective happiness factor. We all contribute to the feeling of goodness or discomfort around us. (I also teach AP psychology and meditation, as well as I am a Reiki Master.)
February 26th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Congratulations!! The material is awesome, and I can’t wait to use it with my students here in Brazil. Congratulations again. I can’t think of any other thing to say. This work is so necessary, and it’s so well done. It should be on everybody’s personal textbooks, mp3s, mp4s, pcs, whatever new gadget daily created for our consumption. Keep it up and count on me.
March 24th, 2009 at 6:04 am
for more than 2 weeks now, I have repetedly offered my help to the posted email adress on getting an italian translation and dubbed version organized, but no response…. maybe someone can help me to help here ??? for the rest I am absolutely amazed by what impact the clip has taken…. please continue… benjamin
April 6th, 2009 at 1:42 am
Two things to include in the next edition: 1) The ingredients of every phramaceutical/psychiatric pill that is swallowed by anyone, ends up in the ocean because these chemicals don’t break down like natural compounds. In other words, everything from Advil to Zoloft is excreted in the urine and proceeds down the sewer system and ends up in the ocean. We know that most pharmaceuticals have serious side effects on humans; imagine what a concoction of all of them mixed together will have on fish, dolphins, whales, etc! And the second item to mention is the trash vortex in the middle of the ocean: Due to ocean currents there is a floating trash pile the size of Texas consisting of plastic trash, water bottles, etc. Marine life eats the decomposing plastic ‘cus to them it looks like plankton, but they die from starvation ‘cus the plastic has no nutritional value! There are more than one of these floating trash vortexes around the world.
April 6th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Regarding how schools train future consumers, please see: A brief history of compulsory education by teacher John Taylor Gatto: johntaylorgatto(d o t)com/historytour/history1.htm
Note: Mr Gatto will be interviewed now (11:07 pm) on CoastToCoastAM(d o t)com (you can listen live on that website)
May 5th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Hugging trees over the net…
When Al Gore became the international spokes person for taking action against global warming, the environmental movement went from being a bunch of marginalized tree huggers to an international people’s movement. His film, ‘An inconvenient trut…
May 13th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Every person in every country should watch it, great work!
May 13th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
This video is the biggest communistic piece of lies to infiltrate into our youth. Where does she get all of this information that she quotes as an expert without telling the whole truth.
Just because this number of people have watched this does not mean that they totally agree with this socialist agenda.
This will lead you to the truth:
http://newsbusters.org/forward/30125
May 27th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Translation with subtitles does not have the same impact at all; the power of the audio visual effect gets diluted.
I have many friends in Latin America, France and other international regions that I would like to send the link but I will wait for the dubbed translations.
Is there a timeframe for the dubbed translation to spanish or french?
Rene
July 14th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I loved this work, and it’s ability to break down a very complex and terrifying problem – and even more, to inspire others to make significant lifestyle changes. However, I was so very, very dissappointed by the unprofessional and inaccurate reference to 911 and our then-president. As I recall, he most certainly made repeated public calls for hope and prayer. What did you gain from this obvious slam? I can only tell you what you lost. I was unable to continue watching what promised to be a terrific educational, inspirational tool. With that one careless comment, all of your previous points lost credibility with me. So sorry. I’ll stick to believable sources Michael Pollan and Sophie Uliano.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:52 pm
i’ve tried many times to make contact with you refering to donations! i mean, yes you have a donations page. MONEY donations. But what about work donations? i want to help spread conciousness, and i made a booklet of “Stuff” video, making the reference to the pdf. I edited the info (not manipulated it, just cropped it) and made some cartoons like the ones on the video, check it out here! http://hugopalomares.com/?p=258 i want to donate this work so it could hopefully help others! please contact me!
September 7th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Great blog. Do you know of any relevant Reiki forums or discussion groups?
September 17th, 2009 at 8:28 am
Please, you have to visit this other two web sites for more information given by suitable professionals of all around the world.
http://www.crisisenergetica.org/
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/
WE HAVE TO CHANGE THIS SUICIDAL WAY STRAIGHT TO AN ABYSS WITHOUT RETURN…!!!
September 22nd, 2009 at 5:50 pm
Are you all crazy??? This video is pure propaganda! It inaccurately portrays capitalism and the current consumption of the environment. I agree that we all need to be good stewards and such practices work well within a free market system. The slam of President Bush was inappropriate, the stat on the number of trees is wrong, the purpose of government is NOT to look after us and provide for us and the inaccuracies go on and on. If those of you in other countries, and even some in the United States of America, want socialism… well OK, but not in the USA. Socialism is not what our country was founded upon nor is it what this Republic stands for. Even though many of you try to tell us what our country is about, you are WRONG! Lastly, and worst of all, you are going after our children – again. LEAVE OUR CHILDREN ALONE! We do not want to teach this nonsense and we do not support the TIDES Foundation who made this video.
We The People does not mean taken care of by the government! This is pure communist junk!
September 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 pm
And you justify the lies, half truths, distortions and propagandist symbolism as credible education how?
September 23rd, 2009 at 1:52 pm
This video has been debunked as full of half-truths and outright lies. You can find the debunking Critique video on youtube or a number of other sites.
I would encourage everyone to at least listen to the other side of the story of stuff before frightening kids into thinking that they are destroying the planet