Why diamonds are bullshit

I get that they believe their happily ever after begins and ends entirely on their wedding day. I get that they would want a big gigantic ring to commemorate that at least until the credit card bill comes in.

I get that diamonds are shiny and pretty. But guys, let's be real. Diamonds are silly. In my humble—although admittedly not engaged—opinion, they are not worth it. Let me try to persuade you with a few reasons you should get married sans diamond. Then some archduke in the s made a diamond ring for his bride I should note he died in a mountain of debt after living beyond his means. But De Beers knows that diamonds are worth only what they mean to the buying public, and diamonds may be in crisis again.

Americans are waiting longer to get married , and progressive social politics have opened up the idea of who can get married, and made people question whether or not marriage needs to be the end point of a committed relationship. The recession once again spooked a generation out of such an impractical investment. De Beers knows, maybe better than we do, that perfection is a moving target. There was no first conversation about marriage with my partner, Matt.

It had always been there, the assumed outcome from the moment we got together for the third time. The second time, at 21, I felt the weight of forever bearing down on my shoulders. Matt left a key for me for when I returned, and I waited in their bed, eating boxed cookies they had left and listening to a playlist they had made, until my eyes rolled shut.

I woke to Matt sliding into bed and enveloping me, and to the thought that I would never have to do anything else. But by morning we both knew where we were going. Years later, I gave my partner a diamond ring. The diamond had been passed to me by my aunt, and was passed to her from my great-grandmother—a bit of luck since we were each the eldest or only granddaughter of our generations. My aunt had it reset in a yellow-gold ribbon-esque setting, too big for me, but it sat in my jewelry box, ready for me to do whatever I wanted with it.

Lauck needed to sell a product that people either did not want or could not afford. His solution would haunt men for generations. He advised that De Beers market diamonds as a status symbol :.

The next time you look at a diamond, consider this. Nearly every American marriage begins with a diamond because a bunch of rich white men in the s convinced everyone that its size determines your self worth. They created this convention - that unless a man purchases an intrinsically useless diamond, his life is a failure - while sitting in a room, racking their brains on how to sell diamonds that no one wanted. Movie idols, the paragons of romance for the mass audience, would be given diamonds to use as their symbols of indestructible love.

In addition, the agency suggested offering stories and society photographs to selected magazines and newspapers which would reinforce the link between diamonds and romance.

Stories would stress the size of diamonds that celebrities presented to their loved ones, and photographs would conspicuously show the glittering stone on the hand of a well-known woman. The Ayer plan also envisioned using the British royal family to help foster the romantic allure of diamonds. Even the royal family was in on the hoax!

The campaign paid immediate dividends. Twenty years later, an entire generation believed that an expensive diamond ring was a necessary step in the marriage process. The De Beers marketing machine continued to churn out the hits. It worked so well that De Beers arbitrarily decided to increase the suggestion to two months salary. The domination is complete. What, you might ask, could top institutionalizing demand for a useless product out of thin air? Monopolizing the supply of diamonds for over a century to make that useless product extremely expensive.

Before , diamonds were very rare. In , enormous deposits of diamonds were discovered in Kimberley, South Africa. As diamonds flooded the market, the financiers of the mines realized they were making their own investments worthless. As they mined more and more diamonds, they became less scarce and their price dropped.

The diamond market may have bottomed out were it not for an enterprising individual by the name of Cecil Rhodes. He began buying up mines in order to control the output and keep the price of diamonds high.

By , Rhodes controlled the entire South African diamond supply, and in turn, essentially the entire world supply. One of the companies he acquired was eponymously named after its founders, the De Beers brothers. It requires a balance of ruthlessly punishing and cooperating with competitors, as well as a very long term view. The owners initially refused to join the De Beers cartel, joining three years later after new owner Ernest Oppenheimer recognized that a competitive market for diamonds would be disastrous for the industry :.

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You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Thread starter kmoro Start date Nov 25, Joined Sep 13, Messages 1, Hi All, Notice that I am not going to ask if you think diamonds are bullshi, lol.

I have a single male friend that is constantly going on about how stupid it is to buy diamonds. I have never made the mistake of thinking diamonds are an investment. I just simply love them I think that things are worth what people are willing to pay I dunno - maybe diamonds are bullshit but I still love them. What do you think? Related topics:. Joined Oct 24, Messages 11, Turn around and walk away.