#bifl

[pedropascalito]

My ‘Pedro-style’ comfort clothing. I bought this hoodie at Uniqlo in Shanghai over a decade ago and I will wear it until it literally falls off me. (I’ve tried to replace it but the Uniqlo in NYC sells a different fabric in their hoodie, so it’s not the same.) It’s got holes all over. I love that Pedro unabashedly wears his favorite clothing, even if it’s getting a bit raggedy. Comfort lovers unite! 

[punkass-diogenes]

Boots that tread from track to track / worn down to the sole / One road was paved in gold / one road was just a road

After 7 years & hundreds of miles walked over the soil of three continents, they finally need new soles. My trusty comrades and I have many more years and many more miles left to go together.

[lezwatchtv]

Season Two is not a Dream for BIFL

Tired of being disposable, we need to be people who are represented well, forever, and "BIFL" is doing just that. Help make season two of @BIFLSeries a reality.

“Be the change you want to see in the world” isn’t just a catchphrase for Kelsey O’Regan, the creator of BIFL. Kelsey Back in 2016, they had a pretty craptastic year as a queer TV fan. After losing some friends and suffering through the TV devastation that started roughly around when Lexa died on The 100, and then we had the Pulse shooting (and let’s not even touch politics), Kelsey had also…

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[ienvythewind]

BIFL: The Series 🍾 on Twitter

“We're looking for some volunteers to help make our Season 2 a reality! If interested, DM or comment and we'll let you know the deets 🌈 #L

[aspeccharactersoftheday]

Oliver from BIFL is aromantic!

[gleeandshame]

[beneaththethunders]

Mandahla Rose as Sarah (the ace lesbian) in BIFL the series.

— (...) And then, you’re going to help me bring her stuff in so that she feels welcome and stays forever and makes rent low enough so that maybe some day I can afford Janelle Monáe tickets!

[nokillbananashelter]

The notion of Buy-It-For-Life as I see it often bugs me. It's WAY too focused on brand names. It's often a discussion that feels guided by young people looking for Forever Companions™ in objects that have not been time tested so you have people saying things like "yeah I bought this 5 years ago and it's holding up!" That is not a BIFL testimonial. That is someone hyped on an object they're enjoying in mildly longer terms and it sneakily becomes brand advertising. It's VERY MUCH SO focused on "new" and "expensive". Rarely do I see BIFL discussions talk about searching for particular enduring elements in an object besides "TUFF". It makes it this strange discussion where it seems like people want to not think about taking care of the objects they use and to use it HARD, reducing care to the barest minimum of "yeah maybe oil it every so often". There are hundreds of things where this IS the case and getting those kinds of objects, brand new, can be exhilarating. But this does always make me laugh cause a lot of BIFL is shaped around some masculine right of passage dream of "yeeehup, ya granddaddy gave this to me and now it's yours, son!" It seems to be a stand in for a romantic notion of object endurance - you have people buying A NEW OBJECT they can dream about lasting forever but they don't actually know that it will, and they're doing that in place of looking for the already time tested objects around them.

Like, I don't see thrifty/repair/care knowledge making as much headway into this BIFL culture. That astounds me because of the obsession with grandad's old whatevers and it especially astounds me considering how economically oppressed we all are. There are literally objects that are DECADES OLD that show up in thrifts time and time again, and with a little restoration, will utterly trounce the performance of some new objects which claim that "TUFF"-ness. Handheld wood planers come to mind here. Sometimes, objects endure DESPITE their fragility. Ceramic plates are one of the clearest examples of that. They have endured because they were gently used and cared for. Sometimes there's objects that has problematic origins but to buy that new objects is less ethical than buying old, but, that object WILL work well and HAS stood the test of time. Old Goose down jackets in my opinion, fit that- buying new will continue animal cruelty, but also, buying a pre-existing goose down jacket is allowing that jacket to serve out it's purpose without harming new animals, ALSO while not creating more plastic filler demand, either. Old puffers are way better than buying a brand new puffer from Patagonia (which, if you don't know, is sort of part of their brand messaging weirdly enough!)

I know not everyone has the luxury and privilege of taking good care of objects or even the privilege of thrifting, or the privilege of deep diving research into things, but I think there is an inherently wasteful mentality behind how we treat our objects(be they shitty crappy plastic or robust metal) and how little we actually know about what makes them tick and what qualities we should ACTUALLY be looking for in things. I just think instead of "buy it for life" we need to instead focus on what shit is actually made of, how we use it, how we care for it, and making sure we can pass it down to someone else when we no longer need/want it. We're already in a sea of shitty plastic objects, and some of them can actually last a while. It wouldn't hurt to view our objects as companions traveling with us through time and forming more mindful relationships with them. I feel like once people actually know what to look for in objects and what the objects needs are, suddenly you find things that endure all the time. I wish tinkering knowledge, repair knowledge, restoration knowledge, general object aging knowledge, was all more commonplace. I wish thrift stores were more accessible and acceptable. I wish the concept of "new" was less about the objects birthday and more about the start of you and that objects' friendship.

Buuuut the real thing that frustrates me about BIFL, is I wish people weren't exhausted wage slaves who have to trade their precious money for the appearance of quality and security. I hate we have BIFL instead of actually having the space, time, security, libraries of knowledge, and communities to care for things and people. BIFL ain't solar punk enough even with its purer intentions of buying things without planned obsolescence in mind.