#getting very frustrated at how when i try to debunk the Thrifting Discourse

[nonasuch]

your thrift store write up doesn't even account for gentrification and white people going out of their way to enter underprivileged communities of color for clothing, or the corny trend of thin people taking any nice quality plus size item they can find to "upcycle", ive seen both with my own eyes and it seems like you're just ignoring both of these very valid points that poor people have about the mainstream granola ass thrifting community 💁🏽

...so, this is the exact framing I am arguing against, actually.

Because this framing ignores the realities of the secondhand economy, especially the part about the 24/7/365 firehose of new inventory. the overwhelming majority of these items are not scarce. we are not competing for a limited resource. there will be a new truckload tomorrow.

I cannot overstate just how much clothing gets donated in the US every year. Most thrifts turn their entire inventory over every couple of weeks, and often they literally can’t process new inventory fast enough to get it all out on the floor.

(and yes, in the decade or so that I’ve been going to thrift stores on a near-weekly basis, prices have gone up somewhat, overall. You know what else has gone up in price? Fucking everything! Commercial rents are bonkers. Calling it gentrification is blaming the wrong end of the problem — you’re holding individual shoppers responsible for the much larger forces that are keeping wages flat.)

Maybe the thrift stores are very different where you live, but mine are not plagued by wealthy white people arriving from far-off exurbs seeking plunder. Most of the thrifts I frequent are within 15 minutes of my apartment, in the community where I live, which is majority-POC. The people I see shopping there are my neighbors. The people who work there are my neighbors, too, and we support them by shopping at their store.

Also, if that actually is happening — if minivans full of rapacious white soccer moms are driving an hour-plus into neighborhoods that make them nervous, in numbers that actually affect the bottom line of the stores they descend upon — then that would mean that thrift stores in low-income majority-POC neighborhoods are... regularly getting large cash infusions? Which they use to pay their staff (who mostly live in the same community) and support any charities they’re affiliated with? and that’s... bad, I guess?

Are the thrift stores in my area just wildly different from everywhere else? What am I missing here?

Also! I agree that it’s shitty to buy plus-size clothing only to cut it down! I just disagree that this happens with enough frequency to put a dent in the firehose of new inventory. It’s very visible, because the people who do it like to post on social media about it, but that does not actually make it prevalent!

Really starting to feel like all this is an idea of ‘who shops at thrifts’ that’s largely based on the tiny minority of thrifters who constantly post about thrifting on social media.