Announcing #MeFiGiftGuide2022, a soft fundraiser for Metafilter.
November 6, 2022 10:44 AM Subscribe
These next two weeks, we are collecting questions on ask.metafilter.com to help find fantastic holiday gifts that show love for friend, family, nature, and our global community. These questions, tagged with #MeFiGiftGuide2022, will be collected into an FPP on Nov 24, the night before Black Friday, to spread our community’s love and wisdom across the universe (or at least to the hearts of our future MeFi members).
Many people we try to shop for have tricky situations, unique interests, or are trying to define a “new normal” for themselves. Maybe they don’t know what they want, or they want something that the capitalist corporate online shopping experience can’t deliver. Thankfully, the MetaFilter hivemind brings together perspectives from across the globe to suggest practical, delightful gifts for every unique situation.
While there are few “rules” (including the common misconception to not link to friends’ content - that’s fine, just mention you know them) to MeFiGiftGuide2022, the metafilter community frequently discusses unethical labor practices around the globe, the climate impact of fast fashion and other “Designed for the Dump” industries, paying artists what they deserve, cultural appropriation, and lots of other concerns that maybe the editors at the New York Time’s best-selling advertorial “The Wirecutter” are forced to ignore, and Amazon.com’s gift guides might intentionally exploit.
Please join in, asking your gift questions and answering others’. Use the #MeFiGiftGuide2022 tag in your post if you’d like your question to be added to a Front Page Post on the evening of November 24. (Nov 25 is Black Friday, which is traditionally the day every store in America first turns a profit that year because of holiday shopping.)
If you’re new to MetaFilter, why don’t you join? It’s $5 for a lifetime membership, and that $5 is mostly to keep the spammers out. If you end up buying something based on what you read, why not donate to MetaFilter as part of our November Fundraiser Drive.
Many people we try to shop for have tricky situations, unique interests, or are trying to define a “new normal” for themselves. Maybe they don’t know what they want, or they want something that the capitalist corporate online shopping experience can’t deliver. Thankfully, the MetaFilter hivemind brings together perspectives from across the globe to suggest practical, delightful gifts for every unique situation.
While there are few “rules” (including the common misconception to not link to friends’ content - that’s fine, just mention you know them) to MeFiGiftGuide2022, the metafilter community frequently discusses unethical labor practices around the globe, the climate impact of fast fashion and other “Designed for the Dump” industries, paying artists what they deserve, cultural appropriation, and lots of other concerns that maybe the editors at the New York Time’s best-selling advertorial “The Wirecutter” are forced to ignore, and Amazon.com’s gift guides might intentionally exploit.
Please join in, asking your gift questions and answering others’. Use the #MeFiGiftGuide2022 tag in your post if you’d like your question to be added to a Front Page Post on the evening of November 24. (Nov 25 is Black Friday, which is traditionally the day every store in America first turns a profit that year because of holiday shopping.)
If you’re new to MetaFilter, why don’t you join? It’s $5 for a lifetime membership, and that $5 is mostly to keep the spammers out. If you end up buying something based on what you read, why not donate to MetaFilter as part of our November Fundraiser Drive.
I’m not sure if this belongs here or in MeTa, but if part of the goal for this is to raise the profile of the site by sharing the post and the list that goes with it, could we move the post date up a bit? Posting it the night before, well, for the US, that’s thanksgiving night, and I’m not sure how many people are online, or at least the kind of aimless surfing that brings you across a random site with a gift guide (seeing as that’s a massively crowded topic around that date).
If we could post it even a day or two earlier, then we can take advantage of how little anyone wants to be in the office the day before thanksgiving, and how much time they’ll be killing, scrolling through social media, randomly clicking on things that catch their eyes.
As far as gifts, the bookstore I worked at in college had “Books make the greatest gifts” printed at the end of every receipt, and I stand by that. The problem is, buying a book should be based on what the other person likes, not what we want them to like, which makes “I recommended this book for all people” kind of dicey. Maybe book recommendations along the lines of “if you like X kind of books, check out…”
posted by Ghidorah at 12:49 PM on November 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
If we could post it even a day or two earlier, then we can take advantage of how little anyone wants to be in the office the day before thanksgiving, and how much time they’ll be killing, scrolling through social media, randomly clicking on things that catch their eyes.
As far as gifts, the bookstore I worked at in college had “Books make the greatest gifts” printed at the end of every receipt, and I stand by that. The problem is, buying a book should be based on what the other person likes, not what we want them to like, which makes “I recommended this book for all people” kind of dicey. Maybe book recommendations along the lines of “if you like X kind of books, check out…”
posted by Ghidorah at 12:49 PM on November 6, 2022 [6 favorites]
How do I suggest something without starting an Ask?
posted by hypnogogue at 5:10 PM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by hypnogogue at 5:10 PM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
Ask away, there isn't a cap on asks anymore. :)
posted by freethefeet at 7:52 PM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by freethefeet at 7:52 PM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]
I spent some time thinking about typical gift categories on shopping sites and what demographic groups are missing from that. So I just asked a question about gifts for people with hot flashes.
Other demographics I thought of but are not as relevant to my pool of giftees: people who ride public transportation, people who like to dress up but don’t go to fancy places, children who really don’t want anything educational with parents who don’t get it, people who used to read books all the time but stopped at some point and would like to start again but just can’t for some reason, people who use assistive devices and need to maintain them…
posted by Mizu at 8:23 PM on November 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Other demographics I thought of but are not as relevant to my pool of giftees: people who ride public transportation, people who like to dress up but don’t go to fancy places, children who really don’t want anything educational with parents who don’t get it, people who used to read books all the time but stopped at some point and would like to start again but just can’t for some reason, people who use assistive devices and need to maintain them…
posted by Mizu at 8:23 PM on November 6, 2022 [2 favorites]
Hyponogogue, feel free to post in the metatalk thread, or memail me!
posted by rebent at 2:09 PM on November 7, 2022
posted by rebent at 2:09 PM on November 7, 2022
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
I've become very disappointed with material purchases over the years and I blame WireCutter. Of course there is an XKCD for everything, but WireCutter and the whole internet ecosystem have evolved to transform the "Hunter" instinct into purchase decisions.
But, there are more local, human, created, engaging, loving, wise things we can give each other - gifts of meaning, not gift receipts. Gifts that help the creator, not the creator's financier. Gifts that help us connect and share, not gifts that simply protect ourselves from being a bad gift giver.
While it's not traditional to start off a discussion thread with a prompt question, I hope you will allow me this one time to ask - In the world of 2022, with everything that implies, what is something you would find really meaningful to receive as a gift?
posted by rebent at 10:52 AM on November 6, 2022 [2 favorites]