j.r. leonard

Yes, it's ridiculous! My point though is about what it says about the discourse that the sensible version of her complaint gets immediately buried in hyperbole

I wasn't even clear that there was a "sensible" kernel in the middle of all of that.

I think there was! Videos of thin women altering large clothes to fit themselves would potentially be hurtful for larger women to watch. (I'm thin-ish and was not left in a *better* mood after reading a blog post where a modelesque woman got vintage jeans altered.) However...

...the problem comes when there's the shift from 'this makes me fleetingly sad' to 'buying and altering clothing from thrift stores is THEFT and CLASSISM and and and. When, very obviously, no.

So we end up with a not-unjustified Well Actually about there not in fact being a used-clothing shortage. When it's like, it doesn't seem the root of the problem was a fear of larger clothes running out... yet that was expressed in the tweets!

I also saw in her thread other commenters broadening the complaint to "how dare people who can afford to buy new clothes shop in thift stores". Even though environmentally, it's a better thing to do.

Yes, that was a ridiculous claim. My point is a yes-and: yes, her requests were absurd, as were the echoes they received in the thread. But I think there's something about our moment that makes a non-absurd version of her grievance impossible to express

why would it need expressing though? Is every "fleeting sad" worth conveying to the universe?