Anyone can buy a stupid Birkin bag

But like, can you make one?

Artists and makers: I hate to break this to you, but you’re missing an opportunity to flex right now. Creatives are running scared of AI and digging into the drama of how it’s stealing our jobs and maybe it is but IT WILL ONLY HAPPEN IF WE LET IT.

We have an opportunity to capitalize on our ability to make stuff as we slide into…who the fuck knows what, but probably something bad. A perspective shift might be helpful, so as always I’m here to offer an unpopular opinion.

One of the glorious things coming out of Trump’s taxes on our goods is that it’s lifting up the curtain on what luxury goods are truly worth. The same people supplying knock-offs are the same people supplying Temu are the same people supplying the esteemed fashion houses. It’s all the same shit. People buying luxury goods are buying the privilege of broadcasting how much money they have and nothing more. That’s not original or interesting. Having a lot of money is the most boring thing in the world because you’re not creating anything, you’re just consuming.

Anyone can consume.

It takes magical fucking unicorns like us to create things.

Every time I’ve watched crochet have a moment in [redacted] Fashion Week I’ve rolled my eyes so hard because crochet CANNOT be made by a machine – it is literally not possible. The reason for this is that crochet requires one live stitch which needs to go into a specific place that is tricky to find unless you know what you’re doing while using a specific tension. Machines can’t do this, only humans. It cannot be calibrated. Whether you buy a crochet garment in a discount store like [redacted] or from a high-end designer like [redacted] (I’m not trying to get sued by Walmart, Amazon, Temu, or Etsy here), that crocheted item was made by hand.

When a crochet item is being sold at scale, there is a 100% chance it is made by someone who is not being paid what their time and talents are worth. When a crochet item is being sold by a prominent designer…I’m pretty sure the markup on the fucking yarn is not being paid to the fiber artist who spat out enough of that thing to stock a garment manufacturing facility, and also sure that the value of the yarn does not account for the markup, so extrapolate this not-sharing exorbitant profits down to whether the yarn is acrylic (likely manufactured in substandard conditions with uh…plastic which worries me for our health) or a natural fiber (100% chance natural fibers were not sourced ethically for those garments, unless the designer is demonstrating a farm-to-garment supply chain, which does exist so buy from them if you’re in that market).

This is a lot of words to say that people who buy crochet garments or accessories from anyone other than directly from a crocheter who is charging an appropriate price for their work are being snookered while also fucking the fiber artist. Maybe they aren’t aware that a human being paid slave wages in inhumane conditions had to make the thing. Maybe they do but don’t care. Maybe the flex of owning The Thing from The Brand makes them feel better about themselves and who cares what went into making the thing. Or maybe they see all their friends wearing the viral hat from [redacted] so they had to run out and get one to so they could be part of the tribe.

This is true for literally anything. Fast fashion. Home goods. Art. Books.

If it’s affordable someone’s getting fucked, because things made with creativity and intelligence are and should be expensive, but we’ve gotten it backwards because capitalism and the brands that are expensive are the things exploiting the people who deserve to be paid for their work, and also the cheap “handmade” things are exploiting the people because scale.

Being able to take an idea that comes out of your brain and source the materials to make it and understand how all those things work together while also having the talent to assemble the thing?

THAT IS THE FLEX.

Not the stupid Birkin bag.

Not the car.

Not the house.

Not the jewelry.

Not the Home Goods hauls to refresh your décor every season.

Not the designer clothes with the giant logos you buy so you can rent what you’re wearing while advertising their brand.

Not whatever the fuck is viral on TikTok today that will be off-trend tomorrow.

Not your stupid fucking Temu shop like a billionaire hauls which actually…gonna be shopping like a billionaire for your stupid plastic shit by the time Trump’s taxes are done with you.

As I’ve talked about before relating to zines, there’s been a lot of pressure on creatives to take The Thing but Make It Professional, in a weird cosplay of being an art manufacturing facility rather than a creative human.

I might be wrong, but as things get weirder and harder in the US and AI renders the internet functionally irrelevant, I think we’re going to see a backlash and a demand for proof of humanity. Wonky stitches. Run on sentences with typos. Unstable furniture. Frankengarments. Broken things repaired. Wabi-sabi. Grunge. Glitch.

PROOF OF HUMANITY.

This won’t be an aesthetic, it will be a flex of what humans like you are capable of creating, much like the mamas who sewed dresses for their little girls using feedsacks during the Great Depression. It will be an appreciation for all of the people who abandoned their pristine lawns to grow food for their families during the pandemic and who have shared those skills with their friends, family, and community. It will be an acknowledgement of all the writers who have set off on their own adventures to report on local community, to cover politicians and courts on their own dime, to teach people the skills they spent time and effort to learn. The people who have learned to repair broken things will be revered. Those who have learned to exist without technology will be saviors when they teach us their ways. And when the world gets bored with AI generated content – and it will – we artists and makers and writers will be here.

Last week I was texting with a friend about a specific thing over the course of a few days (I take my time responding to non-work emails and texts, which sometimes annoys people). About midway through our conversation things shifted -- it was clear they went from responding to me from what was in their own brain to using AI. I know them well enough to tell the difference. It was unsettling. I don’t want to talk with a Siri who has a good idea of what a person might say, I want to talk with the human I’m connected with.

How have we gotten so busy that we can’t be patient with our friends? How have we gotten so pressured that we feel like an immediate AI-generated response is better than waiting until we have time and bandwidth to write a human response? What is the appropriate response to “I was having a conversation with you and then suddenly I was having a conversation with your AI?”

I stopped responding.

I was thinking of all this while I was sewing some giraffe heads I cut out of a toddler dress to a pair of ridiculous jeans I picked up when the Macy’s in Philadelphia was going out of business and having clearance sales.

Ridiculous Jeans

Adorable thrifted toddler dress omg

Ridiculous jeans + dress and I’m just getting started

These jeans have a story. I love them so much despite their fast-fashioness. They’re comfy, they fit, and they’re weird. They’ve been everywhere with me since I bought them – Key West, Philly, New Orleans – they’re my BFF jeans who are forgiving as I gain stress weight and will be just as forgiving when the weather turns and I start running again and lose it. I would sleep in them tonight if their cuffs weren’t coated with whatever was in the gutters of Bourbon Street the other day, but that hasn’t stopped me from sewing giraffe heads onto them.

No one will ever own a pair of pants like these. No one but me will know their story (except you, dear reader). They are one of a kind. That is a flex bigger than a closet full of Birkin bags and Louboutins and quiet luxury combined, because it was borne of all the imagination and skills and talents I’ve assembled in my Very Human Life. There are many people who spend insane amounts of money on things they wish they could create but can’t, and who have to settle for buying a mass-manufactured faux-handmade identity instead because their priority is consuming, not creating.

They are the poor ones.

We are the rich.

The meek shall inherit the earth.

Present yourself, and what you create, accordingly.