I’m working through worries about secondhand gift-giving
I have been riffling through antiques stores for nearly a decade, always on a search for clothes, decor and furniture. Almost all the furniture I own is a hand-me-down from family or a thrift find; same goes for my decor, vinyl collection, and sweaters.
While buying secondhand started as an expression of personal taste, I’ve made more of an effort in the last few years to start shopping at thrift stores and Facebook Marketplace because of the ongoing stress I feel about climate change, as well as my budget as a college student and now a full-time writer.
As I’ve thought about gift-giving this holiday season, with supply chain issues adding to my general dread about the environmental impacts of buying new, I’ve been considering buying gifts for my friends and family from secondhand stores.
It has come with an uneasy feeling: I feel weird buying gifts that aren’t pristine and unused, even if my family is also fond of secondhand shopping. From there, I’ll begin to spiral about ethics and scarcity within secondhand shopping, class hierarchies and all the different ways to look at secondhand gift-giving until I’m exhausted. So, in preparation for the holiday season, I leaned into that feeling.
The Gift, a 1925 essay by sociologist Marcel Mauss, looked at gift-giving as a form of social contract, where each person relies on reciprocity. For me, these feelings likely come up because the perceived value of a gift is lower than what someone’s gift for me may be valued at, even if the actual values are roughly the same.
Jennifer Le Zotte, an assistant professor of history and material culture at UNC-Wilmington, mentions that it is indicative of a lifestyle where you’d have the time to seek out these items, and may change the quantity you receive.
“I don’t think you can buy as many gifts, which might indicate that we have the expectation for more gifts than is at all reasonable, practical or enjoyable for many of us,” Le Zotte told me. “the meaning gets diluted for the getter, as well as the giver, and we’ve all got this mutual anxiety about not doing it right.”
This anxiety continues when you consider how challenging it is to get rid of a secondhand gift; since most thrift or vintage stores have final sale policies, these gifts can’t be easily exchanged for a new size or the money it’s worth.
On top of personal anxieties, there’s a larger debate going on about who should be thrifting: if I buy secondhand, am I taking away from people who need these things?
This is a thought process is circulated on social media, based on online resellers presumably buying more than they need, leading secondhand stores with poor quality clothing and convincing corporations to raise their prices. Le Zotte has said these assumptions may not be so cut and dry; in reality, only a small fraction of what gets donated is sold in stores, and production is still outpacing secondhand donations.
Instead, the majority of unwanted products still head to landfills; clothing may be shipped to places like Ghana, where about 40 percent of the garments are unwearable upon arrival.
If you want to give more ethical gifts, you have options. If you’re worried about buying up potential presents at thrift stores but don’t mind buying used, consider supporting local vintage shops. If you dislike secondhand shopping, consider buying smart: going to local stores so you can avoid the pitfalls of online returns, buying organic fabrics or gifts that are well-made to avoid future waste, spending money on experiences and services, or even just giving gift cards so a person can get what they want or need.
Not to sound like Charlie Brown and Co., but maybe the best way to incorporate your ethics into your holiday shopping is just to not buy as much. Pull yourself away from ads and societal pressures to spend lots of money on lots of things that you or your loved ones may not want or need, and choose to focus on the people.
This story was originally published November 29, 2021 at 12:00 AM.
