Deviate Magazine Issue No. 1: Manifesto of an Extraterrestrial

I am writing this, feeling more alone than I have all semester. With an entire group of friends, whom I love dearly, and seemingly everything I have ever wanted.

Still, I feel alone.

I am writing this now because it resonates with me in this moment more than any before.

I am alone. Not physically, but alone nonetheless. What I lack is community. I have people who care for me and I for them.

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I am exactly what a younger me would have aspired to be. In theory, I should be the happiest I have ever been. My studies are going well, I have creative outlets and still I can not find a sense of belonging here.

I am writing this, feeling more alone than I have all semester. With an entire group of friends, whom I love dearly, and seemingly everything I have ever wanted.

Still, I feel alone.

I am writing this now because it resonates with me in this moment more than any before.

I am alone. Not physically, but alone nonetheless. What I lack is community. I have people who care for me and I for them.

I am exactly what a younger me would have aspired to be. In theory, I should be the happiest I have ever been. My studies are going well, I have creative outlets and still I can not find a sense of belonging here.

I quite literally have it all.

And if I couldn’t get tragically more cliché, I have no one to share it with.

These are the burdens of being that bitch.

In a space where there really is no one like me.

I’m loud.

Both literally and figuratively. It’s in the way I dress, the music I listen to, the media I consume, the ideas and values I endorse. But my individuality and personality are neither appreciated nor valued but instead, avoided and met with looks that remind me that I don’t belong here.

I find myself drowning in a sea of dirty G-Fazos, lululemon leggings and god awful corset tops.

A social pariah, if you will.

A social pariah in a space where everyone else has found some sense of belonging in some group or another and where the rest are content in being to themselves.

I can only describe it as feeling… stuck.

A longing for more.

A desire to exist amongst people who love me for who I am. Who celebrates me and makes me feel a part of something and supported.

And although it’d be easier, a stubborn unwillingness to conform and return to the person I was before to be accepted persists.

Some might call it xenophobia. Others would say that this school is one where the social capital is deeply rooted in alikeness and blending. Regardless, it’s one that I don’t subscribe to.

I’m a lot of things but, I’ve never been basic. You call it an individuality complex, I say I’m just different. (Drake’s kind of cheese) Long story short, I stick out like a sore thumb.

This is my dilemma. I’m her.

I know it. I feel it.

Somewhere, there’s a community of like minded people who celebrate differences.

But, as long as I am here, these feelings will not subside.

Sure they come and go.

My friends make me feel better temporarily but, even still I am left to wonder how much of my friendships are rooted in us all feeling displaced and disconnected from gen-pop.

This is what Deviate is all about. Creating a home for the homeless.

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Model: Isabel Smith

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EXTR ATERRESTRE My olive-misted skin The only whispers of a heritage I do not know Comfortably Holding every scrap or sign hostage Like a criminal Like a colonizer From drops of my blood to the remnants of rosary beads left in my car I’ve got nothing to show for who i am I go to the corner store with my abuela La isla reads the sign A Dominican spot I am unable to order a simple meal Fried chicken with yellow rice and plantains My grandmother translates for me Like she does in between commercials of Caso Cerrado As I grew older my tan became lighter and lighter I resemble my Italian side, more than my Puerto rican side Even on my best days i do not recognize my grandmother or her grandmother, in me

I vacation in Punta Cana As if three generations ago My Great-Grandmother didn’t flee on a boat From a husband with angry fists Swigs from a bottle crashing into her She never once spoke of this abuse She never spoke about him at all I don’t even know his name.

As a child, I struggled to say “Abuela” So I call her LaLa 23 years later I struggle just the same She smiles patiently And in between telenovelas teaches me a few words I always forget I always forget.

I don’t pronounce them the same way she does It sounds natural, her tongue rolls and the sound fits into space I live with the fact that I could never tell my Abuelita How much she meant to me In her mother tongue

Soy un extraterrestre en carne viviente I am an alien in living flesh

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Who Has the Right to be Themselves?

By Chloe Peterson

The lights on the stage begin to flash and the anticipation of the audience begins to grow. Screams of joy and appreciation emerge from the tables as the performer enters the stage.

Her wig is so high it almost touches the ceiling. Her face was painted in strokes of red lipstick and pink eyeshadow. The shadow of her hourglass figure dances around as she performs every word of her favorite song, spreading love and entertainment throughout the room. She is a drag queen.

Drag queens have been entertaining the world for decades through music, dancing, and styles that tell their specific stories. Their work is said to be dated back as early as the time of William Shakespeare when male actors would perform female roles, and performances later continued during the Harlem Renaissance.

Tracing these roots confirms just how long drag has moved through history, and has grown to the large culture it is today. This, however, is being put in danger as anti-drag bills are now presently being signed in states across America today. With new fears and risks being launched toward the drag community, as a result of these bills being passed, drag queens are working to express how important it is to listen to the community and learn that drag is an art form, not a crime.

On March 2, 2023, the first-ever anti-drag bill was signed by Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee, which prohibits “adult cabaret performances.” Tennessee Bill 03 states that

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Picture of Cherri Sundae

applies to anyone with “adult-oriented performances that are harmful to minors…and that feature topless dancers, go-go dancers, exotic dancers, strippers, male or female impersonators, or similar entertainers…” according to legiscan.com.

The language in the new bill gives the impression that drag performers are harmful to minors and that any performances are equivalent to a felony offense. The signing of this Bill triggered a domino effect as many other states now are trying to pass similar bills including Alabama, Arizona and Florida. With this fast spread of hate, drag queens and other allies are protesting and marching outside of state houses urgently advocating for their right to queer expression. They will do anything they can to not be silenced.

“I would’ve never thought this would happen to us be-

wants to believe their basic human rights are being taken away from them,” said 23-year-old drag queen Cherrisundae from Pennsylvania.

Cherri has not only grown up with drag but recently celebrated the one-year anniversary of her first drag performance this May 2023. As a performer, Cherri feels the pressure of needing to fight back against the hate being spread around the country.

Of these 63, 49 have already been When it comes to drag, Cherri says that signed into law and 14 are pending every queen develops their own specific signatures. These bills are connect- style and message that they want to give out ed to 17 of the 50 states, each cate- to the world. It creates a unique and digorized into different departments verse environment allowing different types including education, healthcare of performances, looks, and personalities. and bathroom. This has now led Cherri, over the past year, has found she to bans in gender-affirming health wants to spread the feelings of nostalgia care (including hormone replacethrough her work. “One quote that my drag ment therapy, gender affirmation aunt said to me is, ‘This first year is your surgeries and mental health serplaying ground. You’re discovering who you vices), promotion of gender fluidity are in entertainment and it is your defining “When it comes to things like this, my and representation of pronouns in moment in deciding what you want to do,’” family says all the time that we have to education settings and drag queens’ explained Cherri. “I draw my inspiration do more than speak up. We need to be performances and expression. from the nostalgia of things we had growadvocates and allies,” explained Chering up. Whether from watching certain ri. “We have to be out there and make sure everyone knows what is happen- “I always a sk my- movies or listening to specific music, I enjoy grabbing from them and making an ing and that it’s more serious than we thought. It has become our job to be self why the world homage to it.” advocates for the community.” think s my drag For a future performance, Cherri is working on a costume representing the 2003 As bills are being signed more and more people are given a space where mother and family film, “The Cat in the Hat.” “I want people to watch my performances and feel like I was they feel brave enough to express anti-drag and LGBTQ+ hate, creating do not deser ve the able to bring them back to their childhood, or an innocent time where everything was dangerous environments for queens ” said Cherri. and trans people trying to express same r ights a s fine, Taking the time to understand the behindthemselves. Fortunately, queens are the-scenes of drag queens can create a able to form together and create their anyone else? better perception of how much of an impact own safe support systems called “drag drag queens truly make on the world, espefamilies.”

“It’s especially heartbreaking because cially those part of the LGBTQ+ communiboth my drag mom and aunt are ty. Sammy Muscente, 22-year-old Rutgers “I’m so glad I have my drag aunt and trans women,” said Cherri. “I always student, grew up loving drag and knew mother,” said Cherri. “They put into ask myself why the world thinks right away that seeing the representation of our family’s heads very quickly that my drag mother and family do not himself would help define him in the long we need to change the world and deserve the same rights as anyone run. spread more kindness. This family else?” that I’ve created is something I’ve “I knew drag would forever be a big part of loved since day one and gives me so Drag queens now, more than ever, my life when season eight of Rupaul’s Drag many life lessons that are shaping feel the need to balance thei political Race came out and it was no longer conme to be a strong, confident man or advocacy and socialentertainment, nected to my cable,” expressed Muscente. woman.” spreading the message to outside “I watched the season prior with my volWith the anti-drag bills being imviewers of the art form that Drag ume almost all the way down and my door plemented, it has led Legislators to performance truly is, and not a closed so no one could hear. It was a part of make this connection to trans-gender demonstration of harmful exploitame that I had to keep secret to myself, so I people as well. According to the Trans tion. “I think drag is absolutely an art knew I couldn’t possibly ask my parents for Legislation Tracker, in 2023 alone, form because there are so many difit back and was heartbroken.”

63 state and federal bills have been ferent types of drag artists,”explained passed.

Cherri.

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The TV show “Rupaul’s Drag Race” started in 2009 and has run for 15 seasons. The most recent season aired during the time when anti-drag bills were being drafted. The season reached an average of 609,000 viewers, according to tvdeets.com.

TV host RuPaul responded to the Tennessee bill by encouraging donations to the ACLU’s Drag Defense Fund. The fund continues to this day to push back against these anti-trans and anti-drag legislative attacks and hold political parties accountable for their hateful and dangerous agendas.

This show alone is a large example of how much representation drag queens bring to the queer and trans community. “Watching Drag Race was honestly the first time I was able to feel a connection to queerness and feel that I was finally being represented,” explained Muscente. “I quickly realized how impactful it was being able to see people share similar stories and experiences to what I had at the time. I can now recognize that was a big shift for me, finding my one outlet to have comfort from the rest of the world, who was constantly telling me how I acted and who I was born to be was wrong.”

Protests continue to grow every single day from both the LGBTQ+ community and the allies that show their support for those being affected. “I think drag brings attention to the queer community in a way that nothing else really does. Seeing how lawmakers are scapegoating to drag right now is very symbolic of the time that we were living in, especially since the argument of drag queens being predators was being used against queer people not too long ago,” explained Muscente. “It shows truly how much drag is a form of activism and so important to have for the queer community as a whole.”

As a fight between love and hate continues to battle every day, it is clear that this dispute is far from over. The fight for drag queens and the LGBTQ+ community’s right to love and art continues to rage on and they’ll continue to fight to be heard until they are free to simply be themselves. The question is, who will choose to listen?

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Picture of Cherri Sundae

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Model: Brianna Bentley

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Do I taste better in the morning?

Before my optimism cools down Alongside your morning coffee.

Am I better at breakfast?

Do you find me softer?

Do I spread better for you when the sun lingers And falls open beside me?

Would you tell me?

I would tell you.

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You taste better in the evening.

Alongside your nightcap, After the tension marinates And the intimacy of your day Rolls off your tongue.

Do I taste better in the morning?

With your daily grapefruit, Sweet and sticky with sugar, You look the same devouring me.

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Models Include (Top to Bottom): Bailei Burgess-Simmons, Miles Jean-Louis, Larissa Boughton, Seb Lamboy

Model: Larissa Boughton

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Dear Lover, I can’t draw you the way jack drew rose You once asked why I don’t sketch or paint you. It’s because I can’t seem to capture the wild honey in your eyes framed by feathers that tickle my neck when you hug me. The way your nose sits after being broken once standing up for your sister and again standing up for yourself. It’s one of my favorite things about you but it doesn’t compare to your ever changing hair. One week short, another week long and I make sure to thank God for wigs because they make you look and feel beautiful. I’ve tried to get the broad curve of your lips and the lopsided shape of your breasts just right. I’ve kissed and loved them so much it shouldn’t be a problem but it is. You blush a different shade of rose for every mood you’re in and the way it blends into your ochre skin . . . I don’t have the talent to recreate that. No matter how many times you say otherwise. You once asked why I always carry a camera. I told you that I wanted to be romantic and capture the sun at its peak as birds fly above crowds of people with their own stories, own talents. But I carry the camera for you. For the scrunch of your nose when you giggle at flower petals in the breeze. Your pouty frown and crease in your brow when you’re upset. The slow melt of the honey in your eyes when I whisper “I love you” and baby, I try my best to show it. I’m grateful for my skill behind the lens so I can capture the essence of you. You deserve to be immortalized for us and only us.

Nothing lasts forever, my love, but this photograph will.

Yours Truly, Serria Hoye

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Model : Serina Montero

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t some point in our lives, we all had a hero. We were all inspired by some great person or another. The earliest influences of fashion designer Qaysean Williams were none other than the leading women of Marvel and D.C. Comics.

A hero in his own making, with a revised purpose after his time spent on Netflix’s hit reality TV show “Next in Fashion,” it became even more obvious, the people he wanted to represent and serve through his work.

They would call him the “One Hand Sewing Man.” It seems that Williams was always looking for a hero. Proudly born and raised in Trenton, N.J., Williams suffered an injury to his left arm at birth and was later diagnosed with what’s called Erb’s Palsy– a paralysis of the arm caused by injury to the brachial plexus nerves supplying it.

Growing up, he had never seen anyone like himself in life or in the media. He believed that he had been the only one. “I felt like I couldn’t do a lot of things, due to a lack of representation.

From the beginning, I felt limited. I felt limited even before trying,” Williams explained.

Williams turned to fantasy to cope. He escaped the harsh reality of being a child in school with a disability and lived vicariously through the heroes he adored, like Superwoman and Catwoman. He had no idea the influence that these heroes would have on his creative journey.

The One Hand Sewing

By Bailei Burgess - Simmons

Pictures of Qaysean Williams

That initial isolation birthed a creator with potential beyond our imagination. Similar to the heroes he admired, he used clothing to establish an identity and shield himself from the ridicule of his peers.

As he grew older and began junior high, he became more conscious of the ways in which he was different from his peers, so he overcompensated with fashion and as a result, began to dress the part. His only motivation at the time being: “if I could look the part, then it would kind of mask my arm.”

As early as middle school, Williams started to cultivate his own personal style, mainly to conceal his arm. He described a love for jackets to initially conceal his arm but also because of the power a good jacket had on an otherwise average outfit.

“I look back at myself now, like in old pictures, and I’m like, ‘I’m so proud of you’ because it was hard. But you didn’t give up.” However silly it seemed in hindsight, like most teens, he wanted the approval and acceptance of his peers.

And so, Williams developed a unique and self-expressive style. In school and work, he became known for his passion for fashion, frequenting fashion shows around the city and his high school, until he was able to put one on himself.

Through his job as a counselor at The Boys and Girls Club of Mercer County, an afterschool program for elementary aged students , Williams was able to orchestrate a fashion show for the students.

It was now more apparent than ever what his calling was.

“That was the first time that I felt like I could do something that didn’t require me worrying about using two hands.

And that brought me to life. Fashion found me.”

Williams graduated from Montclair State University in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in fashion studies but even that experience revolved around his dreams of working in the fashion industry. During college, Williams established The Manikin Brand, a high fashion womenswear brand specializing in custom dressmaking, sold straight to his clients through his website and social media. He also worked in several major U.S. cities, styling clients and participating in shows.

Through school he was able to learn the ins and outs of fashion design and the skills that he couldn’t obtain while freelancing. His major taught him of the business and marketing surrounding fashion, ways for designers to establish a brand and challenged him to create pieces outside of his realm of experience. However, he was set apart from his classmates because he was actively working as a designer.

“There were days when I was in class and then after class, I was in a show,” Williams explained.

With time, Williams evolved from just a stylist and coordinator, to a designer. He didn’t just want to be “Fly boy Qay,” – a nickname coined by his peers. He wanted to have the technical skills to make cool clothing as well. With the help of a friend’s grandmother and his own sheer will, Qay learned to sew.

Williams started with designing sunglasses, and evolved into creating shoes and then eventually clothing and costumes for fun, with the hopes of one day designing costumes for Marvel and D.C. live action films and shows.

Even then, he saw no limits in design. In fact, his first ever custom designed piece was a Freddie Krueger Claw that was bedazzled in black and silver studs– inspired by Nicki Minaj, whom Williams regarded as “Motha!”

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Although he did not win, Williams valued the opportunity like nothing else before. “That was the great thing about the show. I went in knowing who I was. It wasn’t like I needed validation to be like ‘I’m good enough to be a designer’. It was to grow. That was my intention from the very beginning. I wanted to be able to grow and learn from that experience.”

His brief time on the show allowed him to connect with an audience beyond his belief. “It was bittersweet. The joy of being there and then having to leave but still wanting to do my best.”

And grow he did. Through the establishment of new connections and friendships made through the show, all the way to casually meeting the Anna Wintour, Williams has surpassed expectations while still barely scratching the surface of his potential.

What Williams could not have anticipated, however, was the amount of people his story would make it to.

Without even realizing it, Williams had become the representation he needed when he was younger. By sharing his story and following his dreams, he would inspire young boys and girls of all walks of life to do the same. People reached out to him about his disability and to share all of the ways in which they felt inspired by him. As a successful queer, black man with a disability defying gender roles, Williams represented so many marginalized groups and inspired even more.

His work was extravagant and costumey, but still functional and practical as streetwear. Inspired by the trendsetting and otherworldliness of the mid-90s Terry Mügler “Still today, I’ve been getting hundreds and hundreds collections, Jean Paul Gautier and Alexander Mcqueen, of dms from all across the world. Parents with kids are Williams’ was inspired to make clothing that made people like, ‘My five year old,’ or, ‘six year old is crying on the feel powerful. tv screen when you come on. You’re their hero’.”In his increased interactions with people with disabilities, “I think fashion is an illusion in a sense. When we put on Williams became aware of the fashion subcategory clothing we’re all being a character. When I design for oth- called adaptive fashion. er people, I want them to feel that power that I feel when I get dressed–when I feel beautiful and at my ultimate,” While the term was new to him, the concept was familsaid Williams. iar. Adaptive fashion describes clothing that has been designed for people who have difficulties dressing His power spoke for itself and became a fashion force. themselves due to age, disability or general lack of moThis paved the way for Williams to be selected from an un- bility. And in all of his years making clothing for himimaginably large and talented applicant pool as a contes- self, Williams had unknowingly been making adaptive tant for the hit Netflix Reality TV show, “Next in Fashion,” fashion. which aired on March 3, 2023.

“I had to make my things adaptable to me. But I never On the show, Williams, along with the 11 other contesput myself in a category because I’m a person with a tants, were put through rounds of timed design challeng- disability. I just like fly shit. It just so happened that I es. His pieces were judged by the likes of Italian designer have a disability and there is a community of people like Donatella Versace, supermodel Gigi Hadid and Parisian me who want to feel how I feel in clothes.” designer Isabel Marant.

This revelation birthed the vision for his newest line.

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This revelation birthed the vision for his newest line.

Rather than consider adaptive and mainstream fashion as two separate entities, Williams is combining the two. Simply put, adaptive fashion can be mainstream fashion — in Qay’s world, it is.

While still in the works, and unnamed as of right now, Williams explained that his new collection will marry mainstream and adaptive fashion. It would also return him to his roots as a designer. “I started designing sunglasses… I’m actually bringing some of those things back. All of those nostalgic pieces that started my career back in an elevated way.”

“It’s really important to me that the younger generations of people with disabilities who have my injury or anything that makes them different, know that it is possible for them to live an extraordinary life.”

And with his new line, Williams plans to introduce an inclusivity in modern, high fashion that has yet to be seen. Rather than single out adaptive fashion, he would just create pieces that are more inclusive for everyone. “You don’t even have to have a disability to wear it. It’s going to be on fire. So, just put it on.”

While this hero’s journey has only really just begun, and is far from over, Qaysean Williams has established himself not just as the future of fashion but as the voice of people from all different walks of life.

Through his story and his work, it is his hope that from him, people learn the value of self love and self acceptance, as this is his true power.

To Be Continued…

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Models: Delilah Rivera, Sonny Lopez

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The Truth of Thrifting and Reselling

By Bailei Burgess-Simmons

At 11:19 a.m. on a Saturday morning, against the better judgment of every experienced thrifter, I walk into Red White and Blue– a popular local thrift store in Hamilton, N.J. All around are shoppers, cramming the tiny aisles, parting crowds with their carts.

Organized by color rather than by size, Red White and Blue is known for its personality pieces. Containing everything from clothing to chairs to string instruments, it’s no surprise that most of the carts are brimming with discounted second hand treasures.

In 2020, when retail shops, schools and the world shut down, teens and twenty somethings became immersed in the world of Tik Tok. There, people of all walks shared their experiences finding cheap and chic clothing at thrift stores. As a result, thrifting and second hand clothing is trendier than ever. Once a place where those in need shopped for discount clothing, they are now places where Gen Z go to find unique pieces to match their personal style and vintage designer apparel and accessories.

“It’s definitely more popular now,” the ‘it’ in question being thrifting. “Whether that be because it’s trendier or just what people can afford these days,” explained an older woman I made small talk with while browsing the jewelry section.

Videos of vintage treasures being pulled from the Goodwill bins and carts of discounted graphic tees was all it took for TikTokers to run to their nearest thrift store. “I enjoy the uniqueness in almost every piece you can find,” said college student Kennedy Ferruggia who is an avid thrifter and upseller. “You will be the only person with the article of clothing. I find that really special.”

In the case of student, long time thrifter and professional upcycler Serina Montero, thrifting started as an exploration of her individuality when she was much younger. “I wanted to dress differently and be more experimental with my style,” said Montero.

Before 2020, most thrift stores were frequented by people looking for something more affordable and for people with niche personal tastes. However, by 2021, everyone — and I mean everyone — was thrifting!

Naturally, with the increased interest in thrifted gems and vintage pieces, a market was born. With the rise in thrifters came a rise in resellers, too.

Resellers search stores looking for valuable vintage pieces of every variety to be upsold online, at flea markets and interpersonally through their social media.

At The College of New Jersey, Ferrugia is a part of a community service organization, The Thrift Project. They collect clothes that have been donated to The Rescue Mission in Trenton, N.J. to resell to college students. Typically anything donated to the Rescue Mission would be sold at their store for just two dollars a pound.

To help support the organization, The Thrift Project finds special pieces of clothing that college students would enjoy and upsells them at TCNJ during their bi-annual pop-up sales. They then donate 100% of the proceeds back to the Rescue Mission, which operates a homeless shelter and thrift store.

“I enjoy reselling clothes because of the excitement people get when they find something they love. A shirt that I had for a while that I no longer wear could become someone’s favorite shirt. I resell or donate my clothes for this reason and to lessen the textile waste of clothes ending up in landfills,” said Ferrugia.

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A noble work indeed, but not at According to The American Asall what all resellers do. While Fer- sociation of Textile Chemists rugia’s reselling is done for charity, and Colorists, “textile waste can be divided into pre-consumer many resellers sell for their own monetary gain. They spend their and post-consumer waste. The days perusing vintage shops, es- pre-consumer waste is generated at tate sales and consignment stores factory floors during cutting, and during the manufacturing process collecting the best of the cheap of apparel making, and includes vintage apparel, then reselling fabric selvedges and leftover fabric them for outrageous prices. scraps. Post-consumer waste is genDonated clothing can go from three to five bucks to 40 or 50 dollars per item. This obviously doesn’t account for big name, vintage designer items that are collected. Because of the work of resellers, clothing that was acquired by thrift stores for free via donation can be resold to nearly match the retail prices of items that are decades old.

Many shoppers don’t agree with this trend. “I think if you’re gonna thrift, make it for yourself or instead leave it for those who actually need the cheaper clothes,” says Caley, a high school student and frequent thrifter. “I don’t think you should be taking something that, let’s say, is two dollars at a thrift store, finding it and then selling it for $30.”

And because these landfills aren’t in our face, we wonder, what’s the big deal? But, consider those 2.5 million school buses in erated by articles like used apparel, a landfill, or even worse, being towels, bedsheets, carpets, rugs, up- dumped into the ocean. Most textile waste doesn’t break down, so holstery, and other textile items.” what happens to the thousands of chemicals and dyes leaching into the water and disturbing ecosystems? And how does this affect the organisms that may or may not end up on our table?

You can see now that textile waste is a big deal after all.

Thrifting presents a solution. It allows used clothing to be recycled and repurposed, ultimately providing a way to keep textiles out of landfills.

Essentially, it is the waste at the

Montero agrees that the work of end of the textile use produced by a resellers makes affordable, susconsumer. tainable clothing inaccessible. “It’s like you’re buying up all the cool Sounds harmless, right? What’s a few cloth scraps? Well, according to stuff and selling it for mark up the article, “The Aftermath of Fast prices. I understood that argument and how it takes away from Fashion,” published by Boston University’s School of Public Health, resources for people who need “every year, people in the United thrifting. On the flip side, years States throw out more than 34 later in doing more research on billion pounds of used textiles. Dithe environmental impacts of fast vided across the population, that’s fashion, I learned just how bad the more than 100 pounds of textile problem of textile waste is.” waste per person each year.”

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To better put this into perspective, consider this: 34 billion pounds equates to nearly 2.5 million empty yellow school buses, each weighing in at 14,600 pounds.

But not all thrifting is sustainable. For example, people can thrift religiously and just as quickly replace their thrifted clothing with new thrifted clothing. We all know someone that never repeats an outfit or gets a new wardrobe every season.

The idea is for people to get affordable, good quality clothing and repurpose old clothing. The rise in trendiness of thrifting encouraged people to buy loads of clothes because of the cheap prices and fun looks. However, in very little time, videos of influencers going thrifting everyday oversaturated social media and it became clear that our consumerist habits were bleeding into a once economically and environmentally sustainable practice.

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Montero says lowering your consumption and consuming things that are within your means and that you are going to cherish for a long time is the most sustainable way to live.

The rise in popularity of thrifting as a pastime is a double-edged sword. “It’s grown in tandem with a desire for people to see themselves and see their personality represented in their clothes and have something really individual,” said Montero.

On one side of the sword, prices are going up and cheap thrift shops are becoming increasingly scarce. Those who need it might be getting priced out. On the other side, thrifting is amongst the more sustainable practices and resellers are just inevitably a part of that.

For many reasons, thrifting is very popular now, and more importantly, it presents a possible solution to textile waste. Rather than demonize resellers, it’s best we all reflect on our shopping habits and the impacts that these habits have on the environment.

The next time you go to donate that old shirt, or those dingy jeans, try and repurpose or upcycle them first. Rather than buying a new cheap shirt every season, invest a little more money into a good quality, sustainably made shirt that will last a lifetime.

The truth of it is, if both resellers and thrifters practice both shopping and selling more ethically, then we can all live more fashionably and more sustainably. We’d cut down on textile waste and look good while we do it.

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Model: Christel Burrell

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Bailei Burgess-Simmons Writer / Editor Beck Nieves Illustrator

Seb Lamboy Writer

Isabel Smith Illustrator/ Editor

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W E C OM E TO YO

U R EP OR TT HA T

A L I E N LIFE HA S B EE N C ON FI

R M ED ON PL AN -

ET AR I K OK ...

THEY SAY THEY COME IN PEACE AND HAVE COOPERATED THUS FAR IN OUR INVESTIGATIONS

WE GATHERED INFORMATION ABOUT THEM AND THEIR HOME PLANET AND HAVE MADE THE FOLLOWING CONCLUSIONS...

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No son of ours is going to interact with those things!

Who knows what kind of diseases they bring?!

Lets see what people are saying!

THEY ARE TAKING OUR JOBS!!

Its just not natural

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THEY COVER THEIR ENTIRE BODIES IN VARYING FABRICS. WE HAVE YET TO DETERMINE IF THIS IS A CULTURAL OR BIOLOGICAL NECESSITY ITS STANDING PRACTICE FOR WOMEN TO WORK FULLTIME AND STILL COME HOME AND BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL DOMESTIC & PARENTAL DUTIES

THEY ARE OBSESSED WITH THSE COLR CODED RITUALS THAT DESIGNATED A SOCIAL CONCEPT, KNOWN AS ‘GENDERS’

AS OPPOSED TO PROJECT AND ACTIVITY BASED ENRICHMENT, PARENTS BUY THEIR CHILDREN SMALL SCREENED BARINWASH BOXES. CHILDREN SPEND ALMOST ALL OF THEIR TIME ON THEM

THEIR PREFERRED MODE OF TRANSPORTATION IS AMETAL DEATH BOX, CONFINED TO ROLLING ON THE GROUND THAT POINONED THEIR HOME PLANET TO THE POINT OF DYSTOPIA

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FOOTAGE FROM INTERSTELLAR NEWS...

THIS SPECIES OF HOMOSAPIENS HAS BEEN KNOWN FOR COONIZING GENTRIFYING AND GENOCIDE ON THEIR HOME PLANET. OFFICIALS HAVE DECIDED THAT FOR THE SAFETY OF US & OUR COMMUNITY, WE SHOULD KEEP THEM SEPERATE FROM OUR POPULATION

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LAST CONTACT

By Seb The

lights will always go out.

Just as there will always be a first contact — a first meeting, a first response, a first conversation and lights turning on — there will always be a last contact - a goodbye, a message bouncing back unread, a final unanswered question, and a light switch turned down low.

At the end of it all, there will always be someone left behind.

Here, it is the Silent People.

What did they do to be left this way?

What happens to leave a culture alone in the remnants of everything that has ever lived?

Was it entropy alone? Bad luck of the draw? The simple truth that someone has to leave first, and someone has to leave last?

Or did they drive everyone else away?

How do you become the last point of light?

Did they make the decision to stop sending out

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signals? Did they stop responding?

As silence descended over their corner of space, did the noiselessness infect anyone else who would dare to broadcast themselves?

Did these Silent People make the decision that only their voices were worth hearing?

As their home became an echo chamber, did it minimize the importance of any other sounds?

Did they put up walls? Did they seclude themselves? Did they force everyone else away?

The fact that they are here means something happened to make it so.

What were they trying to accomplish, these people who made last contact with everyone else in the universe? What was the goal of making everyone like themselves and driving away those who did not resign themselves to silence?

Perhaps it is simply that they have the dubious glory, the horrible honor, of being the Last.

They were the last to speak to everyone, as each people left the universe.

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Sometimes they were the ones to escort the others out. Those they determined to be too loud, too bright, too not like them. All those were encouraged to leave. Then forced. Then all those who were different disappeared.

To perpetuate themselves, these Silent People, they ensured they would be the Only. But the operations of Time and Physics and Fate work so that to be the Only is to be the Last.

All other legacies were destroyed to ensure their own, but what worth is legacy when Everyone is gone?

What use is Legacy when there is no one left to follow?

What was the point of shutting off - of smashing light bulbs - of turning off everyone else’s lights?

It did not keep their lights on longer. Death does not serve as a credit to an imagined landlord who they believe oversees their glorious gory legacy.

Everyone leaves when it is their time, no matter how they struggle against it.

All that was accomplished by eradicating other lights was ensuring that the universe around them was dark as they went, robbed even of memory.

They cut all the phone lines and mourned that no one called.

They suffocated the whole of space and mourned that no one sang.

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They shut off every light and mourned the brightness.

The last contact, when they could have been an infinite number of firsts.

And it was their own fault.

The last light in the universe is a bonfire, destroying the memory of anyone other than a silent culture who couldn’t bear to have noise, light, or memory.

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