What I Learned From Mulan Doll Collectors and Care Bear Fanatics

Recently, I have joined a group chat called “Shifty Thrifting”, the hub of the Tumblr blog of the same name. If you haven’t heard of them before, they’re a submission-based blog where people send in photos of the most unholy abominations that their local Goodwills and other thrifting spots have to offer.

Take it back! Take it back!

The chat consists of multiple different “channels”, each based around a different topic of conversation. Most of the time, though, you’re immediately drawn to “General”, where members post images of their thrifting collections and talk about them with other community members.

Something that you quickly notice upon entering this channel is that every member has their own “niche”. A notification pings in the chat, and I think to myself “hey, that’s the person who collects Mulan dolls”. Someone responds to a thrift haul I posted, and I know that it’s the person who collects shirts with logos of popular companies that are actually just about Jesus.

You know the ones.

I admire the collection of a person who has dedicated themselves to collecting every possible Care Bear and listen with genuine interest when they differentiate between the generations and their differences. I learn about the ins and outs of the LOL Doll waves, and awe over someone’s awesome collection of bootleg Pokémon toys.

There’s a lot going on in this image, but I think my favorite part is how they can’t spell “jump” right twice in a row.

If you ask the Shifty Thrifting chat what their collections consist of, you’re bound to get a wide range of answers. Mr. T. Arthropods. Vintage tupperware. Angry Birds. Marge Simpson-esque necklaces. My personal favorite, “horses, but not in a ‘i like horses’ kind of way, in a ‘i am fascinated by people who are obsessed with horses’ way”. People on this group chat all have incredibly specific interests (in case you’re wondering, mine is Furbies). But that’s not what makes them memorable. The best part of the Thrifty Shifty community is how supportive it is of its members.

If I post my shelf of seventeen Furbies, I know that I will get praise and maybe even some questions from the chat. These people do not care in the least about my Furbies. They have no interest in bringing home furbies of their own from Goodwill, and some of them are even afraid of them. But they know how happy my collection makes me, and thus share in my excitement. If they see a Furby in a thrift store on their next outing, I am bound to get a message about it—and maybe even an offer to trade them for it. Alternatively, if a group member posts a picture of the new My Little Pony they just scored, a product I don’t have a lot of interest in, I still congratulate them and mention how pretty their color palettes are, or how soft the manes look.

I think too often we are wrapped up in our own opinions of other people’s hobbies, especially when they’re something out of the norm. When introducing to people the fact that I collect Furbies, I usually play it off as a joke. Part of the reason why I do this is because I do realize that it’s a rather niche interest that seems like it shouldn’t be something a college student is interested in. Mostly, though, I’m not about to take the ten minutes out of my day to sit down every stranger I met and explain “no, seriously, you don’t get it, I use these things as comfort objects and they fulfil the steps of anxiety grounding and they make me genuinely happy and…”

I tried using this approach upon entering Shifty Thrifting. I talked about how haunted my dorm probably was, and how my Furbies were probably a hive mind that were slowly in the process of taking over my mind. There was some response to this, mostly people talking about their fear of Furbies. But I noticed that even more people were genuinely interested in my collection. I dare say that they seemed intrigued. Congratulatory, even. They were impressed by the size of my collection, and wanted more pictures. They wanted stories of how I came into owning each Furby. They traded stories about Furbies they had seen in their local thrift shops. Some even confessed to wanting Furbies of their own. For the first time, I didn’t feel ashamed of my hobby.

I wondered how many of them felt the same way. How many of them had been made fun of for collecting bones, or astronaut merchandise. Why? Why take the time out of your day to tease someone for something that brings them genuine comfort? That’s a question that the inhabitants of Shifty Thrifting have all encountered in their lives, and has shaped that way they interact with one another in the chat. They have created an online oasis where oddly specific hobbies can be celebrated, and I have loved every minute of my stay there.

If there’s one lesson to take from Shifty Thrifting, it’s this one: let your freak flag fly. Don’t apologize for your interests if they’re not hurting anyone.

Oh, and that thrift shops are goddamn horrifying.

Seriously, why?

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• goodwill
• Hobby
• thrifting