Over on Twitter there is an amazing thread about the costs of patterns and yarn and the way customers are so comfortable really publicly negging makers about their prices.
I want to strongly encourage you to check out Hunter’s Twitter Feed because she is an incredible designer and a wonderful thinker and writer.
Having spent my time in the trenches of Ravelry (starting in 2010 and backed off around 2015 for a whole bunch of reasons, mostly not related to the convo but to my own life), I have seen this happen so many times, the passive voice of the commenter, and makers (designers/dyers) being put on the defensive about their prices and the value of their art.
This time, I had another thought about the whole thing, and it oddly is connected to Pokemon.
Explanatory Comma* - For those who aren’t familiar with Pokemon it is a juggernaut of a product, starting with video games in the 90s, that now includes card games, apps, tv shows, toys, stuffies and all sorts of “stuff” that proliferates around a successful children’s product.
The whole idea of the game is that you need to collect, or “catch” all the different Pokemon, these monster things, that run around.
So about how knitting and Pokemon connect, it was capitalism all along*. about the way both seem to be driven by having all the things, about consumption. In knitting (and also sewing, a community I am newer to and less confident in commenting on) the whole culture seems to revolve around being the one who has all the patterns, who has all the special limited release yarn, the special trendy notions.
I can’t pretend I wasn't into this big time, I spent a time working with a dyer in the early 2010s and they are well known for their limited drops of yarns with names connected to geek culture. I HAD to have certain yarns, they were limited, they had names with inside jokes that made me feel like I was part of special club. It felt good, so I would buy yarns that I didn't really need.
So now how this links back to the comment that got left on Hunter’s instagram post is that with this culture built around the idea that you have to have everything, its really hard when you can’t. Some people can quietly accept they can’t afford everything, and others need to push that feeling onto others. When they can’t do what they think they are supposed to do, which is buy whatever the newest, coolest, trendiest thing, they need to blame someone and it’s really hard to blame capitalism because it is so large and all consuming it is like spitting in the wind. But that person, that person who made something I can’t afford, it must be their fault.
Hunter makes incredible patterns, and even if she didn’t, she has the right to price her work however she sees fit. It’s her labour, it’s her product, it’s her life. She can advertise something new and amazing every day (and she is incredibly prolific so that’s not a total stretch), but that doesn’t entitle everyone to be able to buy that thing that second for the price they want.
I am not suggesting I am in any way above this consumptive model, but the more I spend time stewing in it, the more uncomfortable I am with it. I am coming from a place of privilege, I will never deny or hide that, I can afford that pattern, I can afford all the patterns I could ever want, but I having the “thing” isn’t going to make me feel better. It’s not going to fill a hole in my heart that is being carved out by the loneliness of a pandemic.
I am glad to see Hunter talking about this, and I think there is a big conversation that needs to be had about the fact that so many people aren’t able to afford a knitting pattern, while Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are in a neck and neck race to see who has more money on a order of magnitude that rivals countries.