This paper undertakes an analysis of two divergent strategies aimed at driving culture towards the extremes: one involving stark minimalism and the other, gaudy maximalism. The former approach is predominantly embraced by the avant-garde, who possess the means to surround themselves with an array of commodities, thereby creating a distinguishing factor in a world characterized by excess and unification. Conversely, maximalism, whose origins can be traced back to the conception of luxury as abundance, seeks to eliminate fear. This study investigates the representation of minimalism and maximalism in a vast corpus of English-language articles. Specifically, the research addresses two questions: 1) How are the representations of lifestyles expressed in the most popular articles related to minimalism and maximalism? 2) What meanings do these representations convey? The primary contribution of this work is a set of meaning categories linked to the ways of justifying and realizing the minimalist and maximalist orientations. The findings of this study shed light on the discourse surrounding minimalism and maximalism, as well as illustrate how deeply entrenched these lifestyle choices are in contemporary social and educational systems.