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Figure 2.7: Still from
the Story of Stuff
(2008)
2.2.9.3 The Story of Stuff (2008)
The Story of Stuff is an animated documentary sponsored by Tide’s Foundation and
researched, narrated and developed by Annie Leonard, a researcher and an activist. It is one
of the very first of many modern motion infographics. The Story of Stuff disguises its core
idea about the complex problem of excessive consumerism (which goes against capitalism)
by simply introducing the idea of finding out where the stuff people use every day comes
from. The Story of Stuff contains all the important element of modern day motion
infographic, and illustrates perfectly how amotion infographic can benefit by having both the
attribute of infographic and motion graphic. It simplifies complex problems using easy to
follow animation, and it makes use of social media, something common for motion graphic.
The movie was posted online and has been shared and watched by over 2 million people
around theworld according to YouTube statistic. Theway amotion infographic like The Story
of Stuff is available for free on the internet is unique in that it serves not only as public
service announcement, but also as free entertainment. This sets it apart from other
documentaries that people have to pay money to watch in theatre or buy on DVD.
Documentaries of the same type that promote sustainability and social responsibility such as
Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth (2006), Food Inc. (2008), and Wal-Mart: High Cost of Low Price
(2005), are not available for free even long after those movies were released on DVD, which
defeats these film’s original purpose of informing as many people about the issue as they
possibly can. Because it is free to watch, The Story of Stuff was shown in classroom all over
the world and translated into more than 15 languages. As of July 2010, LA Times claimed
that The Story of Stuff has beenwatched bymore than 12million people.
Watching The Story of Stuff is like watching a teacher standing in front of the classroom
explaining a power point presentation. The animation does help, but the way the
information is delivered is still very didactic. This may be one of the factors contributed to
the highly argumentative comments under the video on YouTube. The story of stuff come in
episodes, and was only later combined to form one whole movie. The length of the movie
