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00:02:21.800What is your primary sense memory of thrifting?
00:02:25.820I think it's definitely, I would say touch. I probably started thrifting in the late aughts.
00:02:32.520I was in my team. I'm a millennial, so I was a teenager. And I just remember going through the
00:02:37.120racks and touching everything. And that was like such a unique experience because I feel like you
00:02:41.000don't know what you're going to find. So touching things was like the primary way that something
00:02:44.860stood out whether it was like a soft or warm sweater or jeans that felt like really thick
00:02:50.040denim um that was like a big thing for me for sure and I still think when I'm thrifting that's
00:02:55.240the primary I mean you can see some of that by visuals now especially with the kinds of things
00:02:59.920that are in thrift stores but it's still at the end of the day like I really don't feel like I
00:03:03.260know what I'm looking for until I touch it this is the culture study podcast and I'm Anne Helen
00:03:13.540Peterson. And I'm Kelsey Blamis. I'm a senior reporter with Business Insider. What was your
00:03:18.380primary thrift store when you're growing up? Oh, it was a Goodwill. I grew up in the suburbs of
00:03:22.640Chicago, and it was a Goodwill 10 minutes from my parents' house. And it was great. Like, I just
00:03:28.800have such positive memories of leaving there with always leaving there with something that I loved.
00:03:34.580And it's just, yeah. Mine was Goodwill in my hometown. And then in my college town,
00:03:39.360there were like four thrift stores just like within walking distance in the little downtown
00:03:45.440that were always filled with wonders and I think that like for me a lot of the memory of it was
00:03:51.560like thick polyesters of like from the 1970s and like things that were probably a kind of
00:03:58.340approximating almost like a Chanel jacket but like that were at the thrift store and lots of like
00:04:04.960moomoo's because when i think about a thrift like when i was first accessing thrift stores in the
00:04:11.42090s a lot of what was arriving there were clothes from the 80s and the 70s and then so you were
00:04:18.400trying to find something at least like at a specific point in time for me when i was like
00:04:24.040in the mid 90s you're trying to find stuff like old flannels first you raided your dad's closet
00:04:29.300and then you went to goodwill and you got all the old flannels that were there or oh yeah like
00:04:34.880cool uh 70s style skirts or the other thing that we only would wear as jokes would be like 80s
00:04:41.800prom dresses which were always in abundance oh yeah and then when I was in college I found like
00:04:47.280one year for a pop stars party I was Tiffany from the 1980s and I found like an outfit that I swear
00:04:52.980would go for a thousand dollars now that was like peg-legged trousers with stirrups and suspenders
00:05:01.120and then like a pink bodysuit, mock neck, and then a pink blossom hat, like Blossom, the TV
00:05:07.180character. Yeah. So I have so many really fond memories of finding everyday clothes, costume
00:05:13.620clothes, all sorts of things. And I think the reason we want to do this episode is because a
00:05:18.440lot of people have similar memories and feel that the process of thrifting has changed pretty
00:05:25.140profoundly over the course of, let's say like five, 10 years. What do you think? What's the
00:05:29.780time frame in your mind? Yeah, I would say 10 to 15. Maybe it would go back. I think five the
00:05:37.000past five years. It's been pretty rapid. Like the popularity of thrifting has increased so much in
00:05:42.160the past five years that it's it's basically mainstream, especially for Gen Z, but just
00:05:47.380generally speaking. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, I have the same kind of memories of, you know,
00:05:52.740a flannel. It's funny you say flannel. Some of the oldest things in my closet are flannels that
00:05:55.600I've had since I was like 14 that I thrifted um but yeah it has it has really changed and
00:06:02.020the popularity has exploded is the main thing but also just the way that what new clothes are on the
00:06:07.840market has also changed pretty dramatically in the past like 15 to 20 years so I think it kind
00:06:12.340of followed that naturally um as far as like the growth of fast fashion specifically yeah a lot of
00:06:17.760the things that I used to find at thrift stores were actually handmade yeah wow and that that
00:06:23.740probably has something to do with where i grew up which was a pretty rural place but that stuff was
00:06:28.680made to last right oh yeah but i was also always thrilled to find like a gap sweatshirt for ten
00:06:34.820dollars or something like that yeah what are the ways if we can kind of like put into buckets the
00:06:40.840ways that thrifting has become more popular and gotten worse at the same time yeah so i i guess
00:06:48.080it's good to define the difference between thrifting and i guess how you define thrifting
00:06:53.320Right. So I think of thrifting as going to this traditional thrift store where people dump like a box full of clothes they're just trying to get rid of.
00:07:01.980That's like a Goodwill or Salvation Army. And then when you go there as a shopper, you kind of are looking through these like really broad categories like women's tops or men's jeans.
00:07:11.080It's like, OK, what does that mean? It could be anything. It could be anything, any size.
00:07:15.660But today, a lot of especially Gen Z, when they say thrifting, they just mean buying something secondhand, which is so interesting to me.
00:08:01.540But part of the reason that thrifting at traditional what I think of traditionally as thrift stores has gotten worse is because of how big the secondhand market has gotten.
00:08:10.120And that's, you know, sites like Poshmark and and ThredUp and Depop and the RealReal.
00:08:16.020and also just like people, individuals who are just like selling, you know, not necessarily
00:08:20.580resellers who are making a business out of it, but they just are like, I don't need these boots
00:08:24.300anymore. And if I sell them, I'll have money to buy other foods. Yeah. So secondhand generally
00:08:29.280has gotten huge. And because of that, the traditional thrift store experience has gotten
00:08:33.740a little bit worse for shoppers. So it's a supply problem in two different ways then, right? Supply
00:08:40.280because there's less supply because people are going to sell their items at the secondhand market
00:08:45.400instead of just donating and then it's supply in terms of the quality of the items that are being
00:08:52.200donated right and especially you know a lot of people might still drop off their clothes at
00:08:57.920goodwill if they're like lower quality clothes but if you have something that's like higher quality
00:09:02.060you can sell it on facebook marketplace to like a neighbor very easily yeah and make a little bit
00:09:07.160of money off of it so not only are people buying the nice stuff up from thrift stores to then
00:09:12.540resell it less night stuff is going to thrift stores specifically the stuff that is making it
00:09:16.820to thrift stores is the stuff that's like cheaper and people don't think they're really going to
00:09:20.240make money reselling yeah yeah yeah like they know that if you brought that to say buffalo exchange
00:09:27.100that they would be like uh we'll give you a dollar for this yeah exactly or they won't even take it
00:09:33.540and yeah that's even become a problem like my uh my brother was just saying he tried to drop off a
00:09:38.880bunch of clothes at goodwill and they were like we don't take anything after 11 a.m like this just
00:09:42.900happened like two weeks ago because they just had to make a cutoff because they were getting so much
00:09:46.440clothes dropped off there so you know he couldn't even get rid of his clothes at a donation center
00:09:52.120which was like a very confusing experience um what's the name of that site wait i'm blanking
00:09:57.140on it the site where they send you like a bag and then you put all your clothes in the bag
00:10:01.440and then they price it and tell you how much they priced it and then they're like you can either0.98
00:10:06.000accept this or go fuck yourself yes i know i can't think of the name right now thread up0.99
00:10:12.200thread up thread up yeah that's yeah the hard thing about these places is that people are1.00
00:10:20.740desperate to do something with their clothes and this seems like a good idea but i also think
00:10:26.700people like have this new idea and it has to like it's all connected to even like the idea that you
00:10:31.800should be monetizing your hobbies too that like that you should always be making money off of
00:10:37.480things that you have in your possession in some way yeah definitely that if somehow you that
00:10:43.060there's like a i don't know what there's it says something negative about your productivity if
00:10:47.540you're not somehow maximizing the value of your totally yeah like if you just give things away
00:10:52.300even on facebook like and i i like i gave a dress that i had bought and never wore it never fit me
00:11:00.920quite right but it fit my friend perfectly i was like it's yours and there was a little part of me
00:11:06.660that was like oh you should have asked her for 20 this is my friend like just give her the dress
00:11:13.720yeah yeah it's like 20 that's not you don't need who cares no i totally feel that though and i i
00:11:22.180feel that it's funny because it is an exchange of like time too because i i instead of donating
00:11:27.020something i would like i should sell this thing but then i'm like well what kind of like time
00:11:30.480an effort on my part is going to take to sell it if I donate it maybe someone will end up with it
00:11:34.720who needs it more than if I try to sell it to somebody so so I think we should also talk a
00:11:41.320little bit about who was thrifting 20 years ago compared to now like who is thrifting for
00:11:47.040because I think that's something that like there are these nebulous ideas that like you know if
00:11:53.280you donate clothes it's for people who can't afford other clothes like and I don't think
00:11:57.520that's necessarily the case like how do you work through all of this in your mind totally one way
00:12:02.120to think about it is um and i had a professor who studies uh the resale market and thrifting
00:12:08.060describe this to me that she thinks of thrift shoppers um broadly in two categories which is
00:12:13.640need-based shoppers and trend-based shoppers and so need-based shoppers just what it sounds like
00:12:19.600people who maybe need something it's out of their budget they go to the thrift store to find a more
00:12:24.280affordable option. And then there's trend based shoppers, which I think you're getting more into
00:12:30.040these like trendy Gen Z thrifters who are scanning for something really special. They're just looking
00:12:35.480for something that's really on trend or really unique. The proportion of trend based shoppers
00:12:41.120has exploded. You know, 15 years ago, the majority of people at a thrift store would have been
00:12:46.040considered need based. And now that's almost inverted, like and it's expected to get more
00:12:51.480balanced out as well, just as thrifting continues to grow in popularity. So the problem with that,
00:12:57.760I guess, is that, and, you know, I should, I should specify needs-based shoppers don't
00:13:01.320necessarily need to buy all of their clothes at a thrift store, but maybe they need a new dress or
00:13:05.440a new suit for a job interview, something that's just like a big purchase item. And a thrift store
00:13:10.160is traditionally a really good option for that. Now it's, it's not necessarily because of these
00:13:16.060trend-based shoppers and, and resellers. So people who are selling, you know, specifically
00:13:21.080going to thrift stores to find clothes to sell to other people as a side gig yeah um they're kind
00:13:25.720of picking over like the highest quality goods at the thrift store and so it leaves very little
00:13:32.180for need-based shoppers and to the point where you know it might be cheaper easier more accessible
00:13:37.760to just buy like a fast fashion version like for a need-based shopper yeah like go to walmart
00:13:42.980and then you get at least have more choices and a size that works for you and a color that you like
00:13:48.340and all that yeah yeah yeah absolutely like it's kind of amazing the the level of like even like
00:13:53.400looking at amazon even just like yeah what you can buy at the price points and and you know they're
00:13:58.100not the highest quality but they might serve your purpose and you know in the short term um the
00:14:03.060problem with that is that those clothes don't last very long and so there's this like old economics
00:14:06.660theory called the boots theory which is the idea that you know lower income folks have to buy
00:14:11.640cheaper boots which don't last as long so to replace them more often so like ultimately it
00:14:15.880maybe like a worse, like worse financially for them. But short term, they have to buy the more
00:14:19.860affordable options. So I think it is becoming a bit of like a little bit of a problem, just in a
00:14:26.180sense that like needs based shoppers can't get those higher quality goods at the thrift store
00:14:30.240anymore. And I don't know if there's like a great solution for that. I mean, as long as like
00:14:33.900vintage is growing and resellers are growing, that that problem seems like that's going to keep
00:14:38.040occurring, compounded by the fact that there's less quality goods to begin with in thrift stores
00:14:42.040than there were 15 years ago right and it's not like you can like legislate like you have to show
00:14:46.800a certain income to be able to shop at goodwill right yeah goodwill doesn't want that either no
00:14:52.180so just so that we also have like some terms defined to start with when we think about thrifting
00:14:57.420there is the national and local thrift stores that are dealing primarily with donations
00:15:04.100there's also like vintage shops which are like a different sort of thrifting right like a vintage
00:15:11.920shop is like much more curated, much more expensive in my experience. Yes. And then
00:15:18.480Facebook Marketplace, eBay, Poshmark, ThredUp, all secondary market stuff. And then, you know,
00:15:25.820the other thing that I've seen more and more of and you talk about in your piece are companies
00:15:29.680that are hosting resale markets on their sites. So I was just looking at Patagonia. They have
00:15:36.900like a really robust one of what they call worn wear i know anthropology has one lots of other
00:15:42.220places how do those places work yeah it's interesting i mean so there used to be not
00:15:48.220necessarily resale but i mean like out in malls used to be like products that couldn't sell right
00:15:52.860or they just had like too much of them yeah um and i think some brands are realizing they can
00:15:57.880like capitalize on this whole resale trend by kind of hosting their own reselling yes but then also
00:16:03.200So just like moving product, that's like extra product, but it's like cheaper.
00:16:06.980It's in the brand's best interest to resell their own products on their site because they
00:16:10.360realize people are going to sell them anyways.
00:16:12.220So like, why don't we sell them associated more closely with our brand to get people
00:20:33.500Honestly, like I it's like if you search something specific on Depop, the results can be, you know, if you search like black sweater, the results can be so varied.
00:28:45.940I think there's several reasons why prices are going up at thrift stores.
00:28:50.740The question definitely gets that part of it, which is just that thrift stores need more people to go through the amount of donations that are being dropped off.
00:28:58.120I mean, you see these like it's hard to even imagine like how much stuff gets like just dropped off at Goodwills.
00:29:05.840Clothing, furniture like this is there are similar issues going on in the furniture space in this regard.
00:29:11.500you can see fast fashion hauls on TikTok where they're just trying on all these things that
00:29:16.540cost literally dollars and if they don't fit you're not gonna many people don't take the
00:29:21.560time to return those items they drop them off in boxes at thrift stores and that it requires
00:29:26.080it requires human humans to like look at it is this sellable where do we put it like if there
00:29:31.620is still a human eye that's needed to go through all those donations so that's one thing that's
00:29:36.580one reason why prices are increasing the other thing is that thrift stores are know what they
00:29:40.740have they know people will pay they're definitely getting just as thrifting has gotten trendier
00:29:44.700second hand has gotten trendier they know that they have something people will pay a little bit
00:29:48.380more for yeah and they so they raise the price a little bit and it's easy to be like critical of
00:29:53.480that but at the end of the day a lot of that stuff is going to be bought by a reseller and sold for
00:29:59.060significantly more than they're selling it for even if you know they're selling something for
00:30:03.020twenty dollars that they used to sell for eight um so that is part of it too they just know the
00:30:08.380demand is there um and also the other side of it is just like regular rising costs like rising rent
00:30:13.280and wages like thrift stores have to keep up with that as well yeah and it also matters if they're
00:30:17.820for-profit or non-profit right so like something a lot of people like value village here in the
00:30:22.800northwest is like a for-profit enterprise right so they're going to charge more if they can make
00:30:26.900more yeah i do think the labor component of this question is something that a lot of people don't
00:30:34.120think about a ton, which as this question writer points out, a lot of places rely on either
00:30:40.740volunteer labor or mandated labor or disabled labor, which you pay a whole lot less when you
00:30:48.240are paying people who are disabled and who are working with the organization through the disability
00:30:54.120office. And I think there have actually been a lot of lawsuits and a lot of agitation to try
00:30:58.480and raise that wage because it's incredibly low but if you want to pay minimum wage in
00:31:06.020most states you're going to have to charge more for the items even if you're getting a large
00:31:12.980influx of items so if you need the labor you have to pay it yeah absolutely and i think you know what
00:31:19.600what makes something expensive is all relative um to like i think part of the reason why we think
00:31:25.060like $20 for a nice sweater is expensive to thrift stores because it used to be cheap.
00:31:29.220Yeah. Also, because there's so many new goods that are cheap. I swear for less than that.
00:31:34.160Yeah. Like in a fast fashion site. So. Right. Right. That I mean, one thing is like,
00:31:38.200if you are clinging to your memory of finding a five dollar an eight, I don't even think you
00:31:43.520could get a five dollar like an eight dollar flannel. Now that that would be sixteen dollars,
00:31:48.680right like just the way that money works and then also that flannel is worth more than the
00:31:57.000$16 flannel that you would get at Old Navy say right yeah absolutely like the materials are
00:32:02.900actually worth more so some of it is that and there's just this like I think we have such an
00:32:08.480affliction with like obsessive deal mongering like that a thrift store has to be like everything
00:32:16.480should be one dollar and like if you want everything to be one dollar you can go to the
00:32:19.900dollar store and participate in that market of exploitation yeah yeah absolutely it's a great
00:32:26.160point i mean the the primary reason to thrift is not necessarily to spend the lowest amount of money
00:32:32.320yeah um and maybe it was it or and for some people maybe it still is but you can often find
00:32:38.280something cheaper again if you don't care about the quality new now um but that's maybe not the
00:32:44.280primary reason to thrift i mean there's i mean sustainability reasons um just like higher quality
00:32:49.020goods like you said that you can still find yeah do you think that what you know what is the pandemic
00:32:53.900like what role does that play in terms of like a turning point because i've seen a lot of people
00:32:58.840talk about thrifting pre and post pandemic yeah that's a great question i think thrifting blew up
00:33:07.520like right around the time of the pandemic like the past five years it kind of exploded
00:33:11.980um i don't know if that's a function of just like economic instability fuels people to think
00:33:19.000differently about their purchases i don't know if it's like i'm sure there's different factors
00:33:23.680at play but i also think part of it is like the like explosive growth of tiktok because i think
00:33:29.800there's like a huge thrifting community on tiktok gen z and sharing these like hauls and like look
00:33:35.100what i and it's hard not to watch them it's like what did you find at the thrift store because
00:33:38.860you're kind of getting that secondhand high of like when you go to a thrift store and you find
00:33:41.960something special. I think that's definitely played a role. Totally. I also think it's just
00:33:46.980kind of notable too for millennials who are looking at Gen Z, like finding clothing that
00:33:52.460was from our years and thinking of it as vintage. Yeah. And there are feelings that come along with
00:33:59.680that, like thinking about a going out top as vintage. The other thing that I was thinking
00:34:05.840about, and I don't think it has anything to do with the pandemic per se, just that like time
00:34:10.900past. A lot of times when I watch Rush Talk videos and post those on my Instagram, people
00:34:19.500remark to me in the comments or in my DMs how odd it is to see these young women who are obsessed0.65
00:34:29.640with expensive brand name things, some things that are like golden goose shoes, right? So0.67
00:34:37.040shoes that cost more than $500 a pair and then also I got my jewelry at Amazon right like don't
00:34:44.660even know what which Amazon store because it's probably called like 1922 KKG or something you
00:34:50.980know what I mean like they don't know what it's called but then adding in for class or for like
00:34:56.880some sort of like differentiation like my grandma's ring and there's just flattening that I think is
00:35:04.820difficult to conceive of for people for us that are older that like that's not weird to them it's
00:35:11.200not weird to have fashion and pair it with vintage whereas i think like millennials especially older
00:35:17.660millennials and gen x are like no your entire identity either needs to be abercrombie or all
00:35:24.460grandpa's closet like that yeah you have to choose one yeah yeah that is fascinating that is a good
00:35:31.140point because as much as you know thrifting has become very popular gen z gen z also consumes a
00:35:36.420ton of fast fashion um and even though they cite you know part of the reason they thrift is for
00:35:40.880environmental reasons but then obviously they're so there are trade-offs obviously you're spending
00:35:45.500power when you're when you're young is different um so i think that is part of it but yeah the the
00:35:51.100branding obsession i think a lot of gen z is really into brand names um specific brand names
00:35:56.960Like when they and maybe that was always the case. But yeah, it does feel like there is this unique mix of like as long as they have this one brand name item mixed in with everything else, then they're signaling, oh, I'm I'm I'm trendy. I'm with it. But I don't need everything to be like special or or expensive. I don't know.
00:36:15.020Yeah. Well, and then there's also the thing that I think has been around for a long time, which is this idea that, like, you should always have a new outfit. Like, when I was, like, all I wanted was to, like, always have a new outfit. And fast fashion facilitates that, but so does thrifting.
00:36:31.240just an abundance of clothing in your closet and you can combine those two in ways that like
00:36:39.320make you feel like you have an abundant store of clothing to choose from whereas now and i think
00:36:46.440this happens as you age for many people like i want fewer clothes i want to not choose i want
00:36:53.620smaller closet and so yeah i think like one thing that i think we're arriving at is that
00:37:00.820a lot of our feelings about why thrifting sucks are actually just like developing feelings about
00:37:06.880clothes yeah that makes sense like having more of a a particular or more of a specific way that
00:37:14.240you view clothing and how you how you acquire clothing and what each individual piece means
00:37:18.460or doesn't mean yeah or feeling the contradictions too of clothing like what it means to to want
00:37:24.500to be on trend versus classical items but then also like not wanting to spend so much money on
00:37:32.500clothes but then not wanting to participate in fast fashion like they really just come into
00:37:39.140conflict in ways that are difficult to unravel yeah okay we have a wild card question i can't
00:37:46.620wait to see what we come up with as the answer this comes from ally and it's about an experience
00:37:52.440of in-person shopping. At my local Goodwill outlets, the bins, there are usually one to two
00:37:58.460groups of rowdy young men, maybe 18 to 21, who sprint around the store digging through the bins
00:38:04.440of clothing and goods. They seem to arrive together and they're on a mission. They dominate the space
00:38:10.240and they're the first to line up when the workers release new bins. I can't tell what they're looking
00:38:15.280for, but they pile up their carts high and I always wonder what they're up to. Is this a part
00:38:20.440of an online selling network do they have a boss are they a collective p.s i'm also jealous of their
00:38:27.120sheer strength digging through the bins requires muscle they have clear advantage the stronger you
00:38:32.400are the more you can thrift okay we talked at the before we recorded that neither of us know
00:38:39.060the exact answer to this question we do not know who the like the hordes of men are but do you have
00:38:45.660a working theory do you have an idea of who these men could be yeah i think i think it's possible
00:38:52.500they're making content right that's like what i can oh that's like my quickest solution and i
00:38:58.760don't know if it's like look at the crazy thing we found or like how to take on i did search a
00:39:03.960little bit for this and it wasn't i didn't find much um so i don't know i i imagine that they're
00:39:10.580they're somehow making content about searching through the goodwill bins which are like
00:39:14.480a beast of their own to figure out how to how to tackle i think yes i love that when i heard
00:39:21.060this scenario i thought okay this is how they're making money when i should have put on my content
00:39:26.560making brain to think like oh yes this is like incredible content for someone right like it
00:39:31.520could be i mean we did this sort of thing like this we just did it for like parties right you're
00:39:36.540like find the weirdest thing that you possibly can in the goodwill bin right and then wear it
00:39:41.740to this party like there's so many possibilities but they could also be reselling like they could
00:39:46.680be finding unique cool stuff and then whatever they don't actually use they just re-donate to
00:39:53.740goodwill right yeah absolutely they definitely could be reselling and just looking hoping they're
00:39:58.900gonna get you know one thing that's a big i don't know a big a big sell i don't know yeah
00:40:04.760and i will say that the people who um come to the the rummage sale on the island are all dudes
00:40:11.220really yeah like at least the ones that i've seen like most visibly like sorting through stuff and
00:40:17.600that sort of thing can you tell if they're shopping for themselves or if they're shopping
00:40:21.280to to resell stuff i mean they looked cool like like it looked they looked like they would wear
00:40:27.440some of the fines that they got but then i think also i love that she notes that like this is an
00:40:34.540incredibly physical activity yeah so you need like robust strapping young men in order to get to like
00:40:41.200the really good stuff to sort through. So, yeah, I think I think it's probably a mix of content and
00:40:47.500like also just like fucking around with your friends. Like that was something that my friends0.96
00:40:51.260and I would do. We'd go to the mall or we'd go to the thrift store. Yeah, absolutely. And I think
00:40:57.500the Goodwill bins specifically are a little bit of like a free for all. Like people are just really
00:41:01.520kind of. So, yeah, that would make sense to you just messing around. Do they have a boss? Are
00:41:07.460a collective yeah just content making just i really want to know where this person is like
00:41:13.260where geographically this is happening and then maybe we will be able to like do some like
00:41:18.180research to figure out um yeah okay the last question which i think will set us up to talk
00:41:23.000a little bit more about the future of thrifting too is about just how difficult it is right now
00:41:28.580to get rid of stuff i know we're talking about the abundance of thrifting but how hard it is
00:41:33.240to get rid of other stuff including clothes and this comes from allison why is it so hard to get
00:41:39.140rid of perfectly good possessions whether you're trying to sell the stuff or just give it away
00:41:43.060it can turn into a part-time job just to unload the things you don't want and as a middle-class
00:41:47.540woman who grew up clipping coupons and mending holes in clothes i feel way too guilty to throw
00:41:52.020perfectly good stuff in the trash all right i think it's actually easy to get rid of stuff
00:41:58.800if you live in a place with a stoop culture or with a like pickup culture so on my island if
00:42:05.960you post free pile if you put it on next door people will come and get stuff almost always
00:42:11.720in new york city if i put something on the stoop be gone within 10 minutes yeah i i agree if i want
00:42:19.800to get rid of something for free it's not i don't find it to be difficult um you know if i list
00:42:24.440something at facebook marketplace and i usually i get a response um i mean i think as far as like
00:42:30.460dropping it off at thrift stores that don't want to take it or you try to you know go to like
00:42:34.720buffalo exchange and get money for your clothes and they won't pay for them um i think it just
00:42:39.400comes down to the fact that we have so much stuff it's like really hard to appreciate how much
00:42:44.120overconsumption now versus uh you know the 20th century it's just like people just used to have
00:42:50.600so many less things. So there were just fewer things we're trying to get rid of. Now, so many
00:42:54.940of us have so much stuff. There's just literally not enough places for it to go. Yeah. And enough
00:43:01.480there's like as high of a demand as there is for thrifting. There's either not there's just not
00:43:06.180the infrastructure, I think, or the resale market isn't quite built out enough to handle all of the
00:43:11.340stuff that we are actively trying to get rid of. And I think remodel culture really feeds this
00:43:16.980to some extent um the idea that you should be refreshing your home refreshing your wardrobe
00:43:22.440that everything should be new and like i think there's there's always some tension here with like
00:43:29.020middle class people's idea that like oh this used shabby worn sofa someone should want this
00:43:37.660i don't want it but someone else should want it yeah instead instead of thinking about like
00:43:44.380even if someone has less money they want new nice things too right like and it's even with
00:43:51.080furniture it's a lot easier to buy a hundred dollar couch on amazon than to buy a hundred
00:43:56.980dollar couch that's covered in cat hair on facebook marketplace that you have to
00:44:01.300go pick up yourself yeah i'll say that one trick my mom used when dramatically downsizing
00:44:08.400her home when she was moving out of the house that where she had lived for a long time0.56
00:44:13.080when she listed stuff on facebook marketplace she charged like five dollars because if you charge
00:44:19.920something it makes the person much more likely to come up and get it like get it whereas if she was
00:44:26.480just saying like it's free and someone would say oh i'll come get it then they just wouldn't come
00:44:30.620get it oh interesting so it would create a lot more work for her to like try to find the next
00:44:35.940person who said that they would want it so charging five dollars for my my little pony palace
00:44:42.540meant that the person actually came and got it and wanted yeah yeah that totally makes sense
00:44:48.100yeah i think i think you mentioned remodel culture i think that that really gets it like just
00:44:53.240generally just the way that we think it's normal it's for the objects we buy to have less of a use
00:44:58.540case in our own lives yeah time wise um i mean like you know literally again i i furniture i
00:45:05.560think is a really relevant comparison where you know in the mid 20th century if you wanted a
00:45:10.220cabinet you would like go to go somewhere and like pick something out or ask for it in your
00:45:14.860dimensions it would often get custom made it would take maybe a month to get or more to get
00:45:20.220delivered to you and so when you got that thing you kept it for just a really long time and you
00:45:26.100know it's like why we see with our grandparents have had the same furniture for 50 years and but
00:45:30.720now i can i can literally i expect if i want a new dresser i can get it in two days um yeah and
00:45:35.660so it just kind of fuels this whole like i don't then i don't feel attached to it i don't feel as
00:45:39.980committed to it i don't feel as i feel not bad about giving it away and getting a new thing and
00:45:44.460i think it's the same thing with clothing yeah absolutely i will say that there are like if
00:45:49.200you're willing to put in the labor there are places like you just have to kind of research
00:45:53.720for like okay here's where a place would need a dresser or like all baby clothes and baby stuff
00:46:00.740like there is a specific place in the town near me that accepts baby stuff whereas most thrift
00:46:05.240stores do not because of there's all sorts of like safety regulation stuff about things like
00:46:10.640car seats and that sort of thing and like if you feel whatever feelings about like goodwill and1.00
00:46:17.500resellers and all that sort of thing women's shelters are always looking for clothes that0.98
00:46:22.420go directly to people who need them most right and especially for things like higher end items0.99
00:46:27.840that you probably won't get anything in resale for them I'm talking about like the work clothes that
00:46:34.940don't quite fit you that you bought in 2015 those are great to donate to a women's shelter because
00:46:40.380they're always looking for professional wardrobes that don't just like go like in a big huge pile0.53
00:46:46.680it's more like oh it becomes this little shop where they can go and shop and pick out things
00:46:51.940that they like because just because someone doesn't have as much money doesn't mean that
00:46:56.580they don't still have preferences yeah absolutely and I think that's great advice if you're trying
00:47:01.140to get rid of something to look for something in your area that is more specific not just like
00:47:06.280we're going to drop off donations we're going to drop off this specific kind of item who needs
00:47:10.320this yeah that's a that's a great way to to hope like at least give your stuff new life that's
00:47:15.540that's valuable yeah and we also got a ton of questions were from people who were like
00:47:19.420i think that middle class people are actually the ones getting these things on buy nothing groups
00:47:23.880and i'm like who cares if this person's putting in the labor and they want this thing and they're
00:47:28.980gonna use it like yeah what you care about is it's not yours anymore yeah absolutely yeah and i do
00:47:36.080think there's this idea that like there's not enough stuff to go around so like but at the end
00:47:41.540of the day there's so much stuff that people no longer want which is why so there there is enough
00:47:47.160I mean, the quality is evolving of what those things are, but there is definitely like if we can avoid sending something to the landfill, it's a good thing.
00:47:55.860What do you think thrifting is going to look like in 10 years?