i’m on a quest to defeat the oligarchy.

the modern lifestyle is a trap designed by p3do billionaires...

if you pay close attention, almost every aspect of our daily lives has been colonized by a few greedy corporations. the soap in your bathroom, the apps tracking your every move, the bank holding your paycheck, and the industrial food systems poisoning our families are all owned by the exact same monopolies. they use convenience and pretty packaging to hide the destruction, exploitation, and waste behind it all.

i’m over it.

as a hobbit at heart, i want nothing more than a quiet, simple life with good food, “longbottom leaf”, cozy home filled with books and, did i say good food?

but we can’t enjoy a peaceful shire while we're actively funding mordor. the corporate machine only exists because we give it our data, attention, and money every single day.

we need to stop participating.

i’m done feeding the machine, and i'm looking for a fellowship to embark on this quest with me.

concerning hobbits...

i'm katy. i’m an eco-minimalist, a mom, and hobbit. if you've read tolkien, you know hobbits love peace, quiet, good food, and simple things which is me in a nutshell. my resistance to this shit system started long before i had the words for it. i was the kid who never felt fully comfortable with the way things were, but like everyone else, i eventually got swept up in the machine. i bought the trends, the lies, and the myth that we could consume our way to happiness. it took years of painful unlearning to realize how deep this shit actually goes (and i'm still learning). once you see the trail of suffering and greed behind nearly everything we buy, eat, or throw away, you just can't unsee it.

my path here wasn't a clean, perfect line. i grew up in reston, virginia, the daughter of hard working parents, one a sicilian immigrant. i dropped out of college, built a successful pet sitting business from scratch, and then shocked my entire family by selling everything to move to los angeles completely alone. i became a yoga teacher, navigated abusive relationships, and worked whatever odd jobs i could find just to get by.

at the same time the pandemic hit and shut down the yoga studios, i went through a big break up. i started over from scratch and shifted my focus entirely on my other passion: earth. i founded ethikli sustainable market to prove that low waste, billionaire free living is possible. i grew it from a pile of boxes in my apartment into a real, brick and mortar, worker owned shop. then i became a single mom, stepped away from the business, and started over again.

today, i live slowly and intentionally for my son and for anyone else trying to raise decent humans in a system that makes it so damn hard. i’m not perfect. i procrastinate by aggressively reorganizing and decluttering my house for fun, i enjoy good ganja, and i say no a lot. "katy imp" is my self-proclaimed hobbit name and this site is where i share my journey. if you're ready to stop feeding the machine, you're in the right place. welcome to the fellowship.

the lore

i use lord of the rings framing because i love fantasy and, my fellow hobbit, tolkien hated industrialization and corporate greed as much as i do.
also, the parallels between the story and the modern oligarchy are wild...

the one ring = convenience culture: the ring tempted all creatures big and small. which, to me, is the ‘buy button’ and the ultra convenience of online shopping in general. corporations hook our brains on dopamine so we stay completely dependent on them and make us so addicted to the convenience culture they’ve build that we’re too lazy to seek out alternatives.

saruman’s army = corporate extraction: saruman hacked down ancient, living forests just to feed his underground furnaces and scale his war machine. that's literally factory farming, fast fashion, and big oil. they treat living, sentient beings and the earth as cheap, disposable resources for next quarter's shareholder profits.

the Palantír = big tech surveillance: this one always blows my mind... in the books, the seeing stones let the enemy look directly inside your head, tracking your fears and feeding you illusions to make you give up/go insane. the irony here is so wild it almost sounds fake, but tech billionaire lizard peter thiel literally named his multi billion dollar military surveillance and data mining corporation "palantir technologies”... because that is exactly what it does. it's the smartphone in your hand right now. tech monopolies track your literal every move to figure out exactly when your emotional defenses are down so they can throw a hyper targeted ad in your face.

the best part of the story, imo, is that the world was saved by ordinary hobbits who just wanted good soil (and herb), clean food, community, and quiet.

that's us. we are the free peoples.

we can change the future through the act of daily non-participation and slowly return balance to the earth.

how to embark on the quest

knowing where to start is one of the hardest parts of taking action, so i made us a map: the free peoples’ guide to defeating the oligarchy.

it’s a completely free guide (for lack of a better word) that walks you through the stages of the quest. please note that i’m currently on the quest myself and will continue to update it as i learn and grow along the journey. instead of trying to overhaul our entire lives overnight, it breaks the journey down into stages. and, you don’t need to do things in order, you can start with any path of least resistance for you. as a single mom, i know i will definitely be all over the map.

when you join the fellowship (any tier), you'll get access to the free guide immediately.

the oligarchy exists because we hand over our attention, our data, and our money every single day. let's stop giving it to them.

sign up below, grab the guide, and let's start rebuilding the shire together.