What do you *want* to get out of this server? - Topic of the day 3/26/24
As a follow up to yesterday's topic, https://discord.com/channels/1116793467654381685/1221851089138356334, what is working well in the server and what isn't? Are there things you think are missing?
Discord
Discord - A New Way to Chat with Friends & Communities
Discord is the easiest way to communicate over voice, video, and text. Chat, hang out, and stay close with your friends and communities.
187 Replies
Copying what I wrote yesterday, I want to take a more active role in improving my style, and to glean perspectives from more experienced folks. One thing Id like to see more of is critical analysis. I'm curious why you think a good fit works. I feel many members are good at providing well balanced criticism when appropriate, but Im also interested in what you feel would take a good fit and make it even better
I think it's hard to add more to the server tbh. One aspect of other communities I'm in is some beginner focused events. It might be interesting to run a Newbie Fit Battle?
I've mentioned plenty of times before that I'm kind of sad that discord just doesn't do well with longer-form content discussions but I think the benefits and differences are worthwhile and I'm okay with that being something that's just more difficult on discord and there's nothing to really be done about it.
Newbie fit battle could be fun, like I think challenging myself for an event is a good exercise but I'm also confident I'll not make it far :xd:
I think some discussion has been lost from the sub. Was that discussion good is a whole other question but probably just a touch more discussion about fashion would be nice.
In general #fashion-discussion just feels underused
I need to post more fits so I can get more feedback :xd:
Without getting too into the gender weeds, I think generally a positive space to express thoughts and ideas in a creative sense is a good thing for men. I like that this is a place to chat, learn, shit post, and help other people on their journey in this weird space of getting dressed
free stuff
But mostly I wanna get free stuff
Give it a shot, you might surprise yourself. I definitely branched out after the last battle
maybe next time my friend, for now I'm taking notes from the sidelines
š«”
separately idk if it's viable to post or pin the most newbie-friendly stuff? #questions-and-advice being searchable is great but i don't think people are utilizing it to it's full potential hence the numerous times someone links PTO's eBay filter
I feel like that's bc totds is taking the stuff people would had posted in there otherwise
I think if we set some threads manually in #fashion-discussion ppl would naturally fill it up
Yeah I think the challenge is the folks like me who used r/MFA as more of a reference book than an active group. I'm leaning into the active nature of this server more but candidly I love guides and such. I know the substack is there so maybe it's just a mental thing but the "all in one place" goal I guess would be my top want
Like there's LITERALLY the guides channel maybe I'm just too stodgy
I think that part of the difficulty is much of what makes a fit good is a vibes based thing. Trying to quantify it can be difficult
vibe based breakdowns would be cool too
i can see it though, there's really not a great place to do it unless prompted in #waywt or something and usually the answer is a giant discord comment from experience
i mentioned yesterday i was feeling more intentional about what i wear and i want to continue exploring that path and get closer to wherever it is I am going, as I am still not sure what that looks like tbh.
there are a lot of people here that are great at articulating their thoughts and insights and that's been incredibly helpful so far, so I definitely want to see more of that.
Ok i have a big idea to throw out there. I think we should have a weekly discussion where the theme is a single style, and everyone who cares to posts inspo pictures for that style. Someone with some level of discernment could take those images and turn them in to an inspo album. Slowly weād be able to build a compendium of solid and updated to this year and native to this server inspo albums that we could have a channel for on the server and be able to easily lead people to in the q&a or styling suggestions channels
I think it'd be nice to make it more seamless to ask for fit feedback. (Idk if a fit feedback tag would be possible to code.) Also, might be cool to encourage helpful critiques by posting those critiques with the most reacts for posts that have that tag to highlights. Maybe I'm just decribing styling suggestions.
we can do a weekly/monthly totd breakdown
ditto totd
i think we did some style ones already but we didn't particularly ask for pics so i guess we'd redo them
Yeah we have done discussions based on a specific style but they never are terribly insightful imho
the feedback tag on waywt sounds like a great idea
I feel like this would be a different type of thread but mostly useful long-term as a reference
style threads have been brought up before but i think ppl shot it down
I always liked the idea of the āwhy did you wear thatā threads on the reddit, the problem was nobody ever used them lmao
i think in that context we'd use the totd just to collect pics and the discussion comes later on w/ inspo album for visual reference
that was a bit of a salad
Yeah i think weāre on the same page here
Like one thread is purely inspo collecting and there is another for discussing the final album?
rly good pics in here
i meant just like when the inevitable question comes up we could have the discussion then
i think we talk a lot abt having totds as a reference but ppl don't prob do that much so
it's hard to discuss those things in a vaccum
makes sense there wouldn't be much said within the previous totds
Right i mean we could have like a list of user made inspo albums as its own channel that wiuld be easy to link to
Instead of having to search through totd
I just think totd could be a convenient place to compile those albums
i think we can do a lot w/ that tbh
like one totd could just be silhouette
so let's just say silhouette gets brought up and now there's a single album we can draw a bunch of different silhouettes from
i've always liked the variety of albums in mfa wiki but it was also a clusterfuck to look at
Agreed! A lot of us use styling suggestions for particular questions, but in general I think a way to regularly share fits in WAYWT while also getting constructive feedback sounds really helpful.
would leave it up to the mods, but roles can be assigned to give icons next to names, but you can only have one. a "feedback welcome" role or something might be good
big fan of this idea
i've found trying to get people to post inspo is like pulling teeth ngl
It can be really hard to compile inspo if you're not already down the fashion rabbithole tbh
Like Google images is absolutely terrible for fashion inspo 99% of the time
there's material in #inspiration but it's a lot to scroll through
and older stuff is just kinda gone practically speaking
I think there's definitely less like, inspo albums for a specific style posted here than the sub used to get, which Weeg's idea would be great for
I think it would be cool if comments with a certain number of fire reacts on posts with a feedback tag/role get automatically posted to waywt highlights too, for a bit of extra encouragement. (The hope would be it doesnāt encourage dunking lol.) This is of course dependent on the capabilities/ease of implementation on our dear bots.
digest shows that would be 99% dunking
or just the most milquetoast general advice to a basic question
This sounds great we gotta do it
I personally like having separate spaces to share an outfit and get feedback. Especially in a space that is so advice/beginner focused. A lot of times I don't want any feedback and if I do I like having a separate space for it.
while i agree with it i think that's what #styling-suggestions was maybe intended for, just not to the intended level ig
I think I would prefer a separate channel
The role thing adds a layer of complexity that the average new user isn't even going to bother to utilize and at that point people know to use #styling-suggestions
Anyone who would specify wanting feedback in WAYWT would do so via text or use the channel
Already
i would love a conversation about how everyone feels about the way fashion makes us consume and spend so much more of our time energy and money. itās a hobby to be sure, and spending money on your hobbies is part of being alive. but iāve never felt more compelled to spend money and acquire things, especially with threads/channels like #recent-purchases where it seems to be a literal celebration of purchasing stuff.
and of course, more thoughtful consumption of higher quality garments is less wasteful and impactful, etc etc
I think this would fit well into a #fashion-discussion post, I've kind of wanted to have a conversation with others about this too (especially related to greenwashing)
yeah the environmental stuff deserves its own conversation for sure. But Iām also interested in the way we (myself) buy things to make us feel better. why does buying a new pair of pants feel so good?! isnāt that a bad impulse? arenāt we feeding into it with this hobby? iām not looking for salvation here but iām interested how others feel on it
for example, i recently spent ~$500 on somewhat of an impulse at a sale. the money has pretty much zero impact on my day to day life as my necessities are more than covered. i bought a couple things i really liked, that i know ill wear for years from a brand with a good reputation, and it was like a runners high on the way home.
yet a day later i felt immense guilt at spending such a quantity on clothes. it wasnāt at all that i couldnāt afford it, bc i certainly could. it was low level shame at such frivolous consumption and i wonder if others have similar feelings
I definitely have had such feelings and there have been discussion posts I think related to that too. I think that becomes a much more personal connection with clothing as a hobby and comfort in spending. Hard to distill in a few sentences, especially to generalize
i use to feel some kinda way because i grew up poor, and the amount that i spent on clothes is truthfully staggering as a frame of reference.
the feeling fades away
as does the rush
You should post exactly that into #fashion-discussion
True, but I think #styling-suggestions gets used as āhow do I make this workā or āwhy isnāt this working.ā I post in #waywt when I think my fit is working, but that doesnāt mean it couldnāt be improved with some advice. But agreed that roles would add complexity that would be hard for new folks.
i think a text message would suffice then
this is actually science though? our brains release endorphins and dopamine when we make purchases. then it wears off and we look for the next fix
the concept of retail therapy is a real thing and it does actually make people feel better (at least temporarily). there are tons of studies around people who are less prone to impulse buys and instant gratification, which are kind of related to the shopping high and delayed buyer's remorse
it's how we make of it that invites interesting convos
on the topic of consumerism, i'm reminded of those tiktoks i saw talking about the commodification of aesthetics and the illusion of choice where you think you're individualistic but you're ultimately chasing the same trends as everyone else just bc literally everything is commodified
i think those are things that we all have some degree of awareness but we would individually have different takes on it
choice is definitely an illusion especially with trend chasers. thats why it seems like every teen and twenty-something all have the same outfit and style (basically whatever is trending at any given time) until they ultimately land on something that they feel is good for them
of course there are the few who constantly stay on top of trends for way longer
and even with the non-trendy stuff, choice is still more or less dictated by whats available out in the market
the only way to truly beat the illusion is to be a nudist or make all of your own clothes
anyway, to answer the question of the day: i'm really just here to kill some time and browse/engage in decent conversation since i have a bit of a lull in my days
at least until i get bored enough to move on to the next project
I think itās a pretty wild exaggeration to say that every twenty something has the same style lmao
obviously i didnt mean it to be literal
or maybe it wasnt obvious
i guess the point i was trying to make is choice is always going to be limited at some level
and if a chunk of the population is getting all their stuff from the same handful of retailers, its inevitably going to lead to a good number of those people looking very similar. the outliers will be the ones who choose to style things differently and/or buck the trends, but the whole thing is just a bell curve
This feels like an elaborate way to say "trends are bad actually"
not at all
this is how trends shift
and the beauty of it all is that technology has made it so options, while limited, are still so vast that at some point the outliers become the in-crowd
so things are constantly changing. sometimes for the better, sometimes not
This just feels like a really condescending way to look down on people for being trendy/changing their own style
how so?
Like obviously there's something to criticize for consumerism and it's link to trends
But the whole "you think your unique but actually your not" just feels like /r/im14andthisisdeep
Besides I feel like it's incredibly reductive
There's broad trends and micro trends, and quite honestly a ton of variety in fashion
100% agree
but theres nothing inherently good or bad about being trendy or not
its just a constant flow
what someone sees as good and bad is really just how that one person feels about something
being trendy gets me more š„ reacts in #waywt so that means its good
and if enough people agree, things start to move in that direction
if you think every teen and twenty-something all have the same outfit and style i recommend touching grass and maybe getting your vision checked
Iām trendy and I get compliments, which apparently people donāt get
pretty privilege smh
apparently im not communicating this very well
True im hot and sexy because i follow trends
could also be that your idea is wrong and you're communicating it fine
Thereās rarely a day where Iām not complimented
lol yeah or that
I think the issue is when you use absolutes you set yourself up to get owned
Rub it in why dontcha
i could not think of a more disparately dressed age group then older teens and young twentysomethings
Arenāt you hot and sexy too?
Darth Maul was pretty fitted though
like the evidence you are giving for your reasoning is just wrong
I also don't think it's that relevant to the original point, which is basically feeling weird about spending money on fashion
No iām devilish and debonaire
thats been made very clear and i shouldnt have assumed what i said wouldnt be interpreted as obvious hyperbole
Which I think is normal for any hobby
The jedi order fell bc they all dressed the same
this is also not true and doesnt track at all
Trendy mfs
The sith chased trends and therefore prevailed
actually it was the white guys in noragis
even just on a styling level you can produce a hundred super distinct looks out of any given big retailer
in theory yes
In practice also
and on top of that the internet is taking us out of the 'a few big box retailers' model anyway
but is that actually what happens, or do people follow what they see on the mannequins and posters and ads
it's been a minute since i've watched the movies... did they?
it is actually what happens yes
ok then
i recall some moons sploding
Instructions unclear: I bought more stuff from Wythe and now all my outfits are Christian Girl Autumn
i stand corrected
great looks stefaneigh
Actually itās Ashleigh
ashleigh kimberleigh
sorry for doxxing ur full name
obviously you all know more than me and i can only speak to my personal experience and what i see around me
i think that you have a dim view of human capacity for imagination and creativity
respectfully
or at least as it applies to fashion
thats not entirely false
this is not the kind of convo i intended when i said what i said š
Obviously
we are not ants in a colony we are vibrant distinct individuals and fashion is a super individual process where literally no two people experience it the same way
give your fellow human a little credit
you and me both, but here we are
i will say the result of this conversation is not what I'm looking to get out of this server
can we kumbaya together
Besides most people do a worse version of the brands styling /s
friends of fashion
Anyway I feel like you just haven't actually looked beyond like mall brand lookbooks to say this
i see how your conclusions were reached from your initial arguments but i think reconsider some of your initial arguments and then from there see if the conclusions you reach are different
If you can put together a runway look that's props honestly
and also go talk to people about fashion
Just go on insta/tik tok not a brand look book
Simple as
its the fastest way to see how different the ways people experience fashion are
that may be true as well. ive never spent a ton of time focused on fashion - again everything i say is just personal experience
Justlooking to give you the slightest benefit of the doubt, if most of the fashion you see is through social media you maybe just in an algorithm that is feeding you similar content and preventing you from seeing the full breadth of what type of fashion is being presented in reality
If you are interested in fashion as a hobby id encourage trying to seek out content in more varied ways and places
i am currently one hundred percent of this server's usages of the term 'full look wanker' but i would like to reiterate the sentiment that i dont like it when people do this
although if youre doing it as an archival showcase thats lit
i havent really been big into social media probably in the last 10-15 years or so, and i honestly wouldnt be able to speak much to that either
Itās bc full look wanker isnāt a thing
its really just what i see around me
Itās full kit wanker
im making it a thing
its riffing off that idea
full look wankers are people that bought a full runway look
Bro check out my urban outfitters kit I style it better than the store
i point them out at awards shows and make fun of em
@Billiam's PC adaptation thinks you dress like shit
HEY
Full kit wanker
@smiles Adaptation thinks you dress like shit
i will say a lot of the outfits and things i see posted in this discord are not like most of the things i see when im out an about, at least in my own city
Hedi fan opinion discarded
Ya most people aren't into fashion
i actually like the way a lot of yall dress its fun
Obv I'm teasing I love the variety of the server
checking my last 5 outfits reacts to see if adaptation thinks i dress like shit
Gotta know your haters
step 1: identify the opps
step 2: eradicate eliminate
i'd say making sweeping statements about the way the masses experience fashion is the exact opposite of personal experience
not to keep ragging on you but
if you go and see how the masses actually experience fashion i think it would shift your perception a lot
smiles im trying to be sincere stop putting this in the middle of my lecture
Lmao
1984
I want to get out of this server
Anyway, I think you basically just fell into the trap of "everyone wears clothes so they are into fashion"
That's not the case
Most people are not into fashion
ive never met anyone who actually has no opinion about clothes though
like none whatsoever
Ya you aren't in stem we know
full stem family actually
wow what a rebel you are
not me though I'm a conformist
I'm a conformist (trendy)
i needed to namedrop the engineering part art shut up
even still if those stem people actually had no opinions about clothes you could convince them to wear anything and it wouldnt matter to them
which isnt the case
QED
if you had been in a stem class you'd know that's not true lol
mfs in class on monday unshowered wearing the same anime shirt they wore on friday
if i tell any of my stem friends to wear a full wedding dress to class they wouldnt do it
they arent putting effort into looking good
or being hygenic
there's an intention and ideology behind this even
what yurt said
what youre describing is several deliberate choices
The cogent thesis ignoring the leaps and generalizations that justlooking made was just that trends do in fact exist. Which isnāt a particularly interesting point, which is why everyone is tearing into them for all the leaps and generalizations
i know some of those words
I think not writing the name as uncapitalized common words would help this be readable
but I agree
Also the classic problem of wording your statements in a way that makes you sound like you think too highly of yourself and too low of others
i wanted to put in a good word for humanity at large
each of us contains multitudes or something
i don't even wear runway sets :nooooo:
Though I did seriously disagree with the point
wish i did tho
wow smiles snitch tagged and got it wrong
embarassing
This server is really huge. Obviously I can just not read channels I don't find interesting but sometimes people do talk about fashion in general/chat threads. I sometimes wish it took more effort to post so people are less inclined to have long, off topic discussions in themed threads etc. I like the slower pace of some hobby forums and wish there was more of that here.
I'd also love to see a little more empathy from the stylish, 'experienced' regulars when it comes to discussions about fit for people who are insecure about their body or seeking advice on how to dress if you're fat, short, or shaped significantly differently from your average men's block pattern. I see a ton of 'it doesn't really matter' 'just go by vibes' 'youre overthinking it' [posts picture of thin person in baggy clothes] stuff that I don't think is actually helpful to the advice seeker in the short term. I would love to see body-neutral resources (and advice) built for fat people, very short or tall people, afab/trans ppl etc that help people find good strats, brands, and starting points for dressing in specific styles. I get that that might just not be possible in this space or what this space is for though. And I don't want to encourage weird incel or looksmaxxing shit either. I'm very much coming at this from a GNC/trans perspective.
If there's another (chill) place online that is focused on helping afab ppl do menswear, I'd love to know btw! And if anyone is interested in putting together a masculine tailoring guide for women and trans people I'd love to be a data point. (Not that I think I've mastered it or anything, I'm just ab example of someone who's trying to do it!)
in my ideal server each user is allotted five messages per day
so @smiles gets one cohesive idea per day?
Idea kinda stretching it
No he's gotta post fit too
More like thought
agree with all of this but i think the point about body image askers is really well made- a lot of the time it takes people a lot to ask questions like that and i think we can treat them better (I can't throw stones here because i rarely answer questions period)
maybe I'll put all channels in 6hr slow mode for april fools day
I'm flying that day
It's ok
i'm sure you're right about this and i take responsibility for not being more clear. i didn't mean to make a sweeping statement about the masses, just a statement about what i actually see around me. the world is a big place and while i've seen a lot, at the same time i havent seen much at all and probably havent cared enough to notice the things that i havent noticed. obviously theres much to learn in this space and i'm the newbie here so thank you for the education
You got dogpiled tbf, wasn't the best response from people either
Yeah I went a little harder than I feel like I should have
My apologies for that
eh, its all good. like i said, here to engage in conversation - we're all adults and mature enough to have lively discussion, learn, and move on
Clothing friends
I think this is a great point of feedback, thank you. I think the server has a very real problem of a lack of information in the areas you mentioned (as evidenced by the most thorough q&a post we have maybe ever gotten going largely unanswered) so we should really reassess how we approach the topic. Itās very easy to say that dressing for your body isnāt real but your body is of course a factor and can be a bigger hurdle than we make it seem. Really we just mean that your body doesnāt have to limit what you are interested in pursuing but that message gets lost-and loses a lot of power when we donāt have anything to back it up. All that to say, we should be thinking about this more carefully like you said.
I went to a music festival recently. And <60% of guys seemed to be wearing baggy jeans shorts with a white t-shirt.
wow that's crazy
white t big pant usually what im dressed in
Yeah I think people are coming from a great place! Any body can pursue any style, in theory. But my fat and trans friends especially express a different experience with the reality of pursuing their style goals - like, trying to find a shirt with enough ease in the torso without shoulders that fall down to their bicep, or having feet in a size that shoes they like don't even get made in. Every purchase requires more mental energy and time to just FIND things in a size that works for them.
It often results in people NEEDING to pursue a different style cobbled out of things that fit them, but I hate the idea of actually giving that as advice... I don't have a solution to this as far as advice giving goes and I don't expect one to appear out of thin air anytime soon. It's just a thought I've been having š
I've been thinking about this a bit and all I've come up with is an adjustment in framing. "Giving advice" inherently creates a power dynamic and in many senses doesn't really empower the person getting the advice as we often think about it. "The shoes are bad here" "wear wider pants" etc. can be very prescriptive and immediately becomes gross and terrible when you take that same format and talk about "advice" for something like how to dress to your body.
Being prescriptive in that area of fashion and clothing is terrible and even with good intentions end up with advice that sounds like "if you're fat/skinny/tall/short/pear/apple/muscular/slim/etc. then do/don't..." which I think we can agree is bad.
Framing it as "providing resources" feels more empowering and is something I've seen as a pattern already. For example, there's a few pages out there that have compiled brands that sell items for people who are tall, but not wide. Since the default is that as you go up in size, all of the measurements/dimensions also increase.
That sort of thing only addresses a fairly surface-level (but v real and frustrating) sticking point of trying to find clothes that fit your body the way that you want and not other topics like how to approach styling and expression.
I agree that MFAD can do a better job of providing and curating resources to help more people in their fashion journeys while creating a culture that acknowledges bodies and fashion with nuance deeper than being super aggro about phrasing.
Long to say thinking about it as teaching folks to fish (giving them the tools) via personal experience and other resources might be a better "advice" culture than thinking about it as advice being handed down from on high.
Didn't realize I typed that much. Discord has a message size limit I discovered
I mainly want to finish by saying I really appreciate your thoughts and comments, they're very insightful.
Love all of this! Especially the last paragraph. It's really got me thinking. I might keep an eye out for any resources that fit this (e.g. a list of brands with specialized size ranges) and share them somewhere on here if I find a good one. I also hope this community grows to a point where we have enough active 'advice giving' members who are fat, short, tall, gnc, trans, etc that the resource IS the community, if that makes sense.