You are likely among the throngs of Americans who go gift-shopping in November and December. Maybe it’s for supplies to make homemade candles, or maybe ingredients to bake several dozen cookies. A new television, a new robe, a used book. Face it: You’ll want to buy something.
This year, Americans are predicted to spend up to $682 billion during the holidays, 4 percent more than last year. In fact, winter holidays are the second most profitable “spending event” of the year, according to the National Retail Association, just behind back-to-school shopping. This is good news for retailers, of course, but what does it say about consumers?
Most of us believe climate change is human-caused — 68 percent — and fewer of us see “being wealthy” as essential to the American Dream — 40 percent. To me, that translates into “we see a connection between consumerism and environmental destruction” and “we don’t need things to be happy.” Yet many of us still charge toward retail stores at the hint of a discount.
Fortunately, better options are thriving on social media. Hyper-localized gift-economy groups are popping up all over Facebook, in closed communities where neighbors graciously give their stuff for free. Items range from furniture to food, from automobiles to appliances, and everything in between. I’ve seen people try to find new homes for their pets, and there was once, because of tragic circumstances, a woman offering enough pumped breast milk to fill a full-size freezer.
In my community, there are two main gift-economy groups you can join, both with more than 1,000 members and both managed by volunteers. One is the Buy Nothing Project, basically the mother of all local gifting networks. The movement started a few years ago on Bainbridge Island, just outside of Seattle, and has since grown to over 2,000 discrete Facebook groups worldwide with about 450,000 members, according to its website.
I joined the local Buy Nothing group about three years ago, at first a spectator more than a participant, but my relationship with these networks has deepened over the past year. I’ve procured a 12-inch lid for a hardworking sauté pan then gifted three crates of vintage vinyl to a mother recovering from surgery. I’ve picked up baby clothes and toddler playsets, clean and wonderfully absent of stains or fingerprints then given away Tory Burch heels worn only once for a wedding. I’ve seen people offer computers, car seats, and concert tickets. No item has sparked more joy for me, however, than a set of shiny, vintage Sesame Street ornaments I picked up a couple years ago.
There is a downside. One of the criticisms you’ll hear about joining these sorts of groups is that, well, people are flakes, and your neighbors are people — you do the math. A colleague, a member of the Bainbridge group, once told me: “I like the idea of it, but then you realize you put so many hours into getting somebody to finally pick that thing up. And for what? A spatula.”
That’s a common complaint, and it’s my biggest one. However, one of the reasons for tolerating the occasional hassle is this, stated by Buy Nothing itself: “The Buy Nothing Project is about setting the scarcity model of our cash economy aside in favor of creatively and collaboratively sharing the abundance around us.” That’s why, even after fuming in frustration from last-minute cancellations and items that turned out to be slightly warped or faded, I’ve become more involved than ever before. It’s taken me a while to notice, but I feel more connected to the people around me, to my community, and that’s a special thing. I grew up in the suburbs and recently returned there to live with my mother and raise a family. I have often felt stifled by the place — too judgmental, too isolated.
But these days what I see among my suburban neighbors is generosity and kindness. Sometimes these Buy Nothingers communicate poorly and sometimes they act self-entitled, but they’re generally good people with big hearts.
In addition to the obvious economic savings, the occasional hassle of giving and getting free stuff actually has a more profound advantage: You feel the physical and mental burden of having to gift every item you no longer want in your home, and it’s an embodied lesson in the cost of consumerism that’s quite effective (much more than reading a book about consumer waste or, well, those statistics on holiday spending I tossed at you at the beginning of this piece). The posting, selecting, messaging, coordinating, all those things entail some kind of commitment.
Sure, it’s an inconvenience and demands my time. The good news is that it slows me down and connects me to my neighbors. For that, I’m grateful.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy