HomeGoods, Rae Dunn, and Millennial-GenZ Hostility

 

I'm not sure when or where I first read about Rae Dunn, and the millennial-driven craziness for Rae Dunn products. 

Maybe it was in this article, which gives a run-down on the crazy market for the products, where they're made, who Rae Dunn is (she actually exists, in the Bay area), where her products are now manufactured (China), where they're primarily found (HomeGoods, Marshalls, et cetera), how they're hunted down (Rae Dunn Facebook groups), and re-sold (Etsy, eBay, Facebook--and sometimes for obscene amounts of $$). 

Then I realized that I actually have and own an actual, bottom-stamped Rae Dunn product--a mug a friend and officemate of mine had found in, well, Marshalls, with my nickname on it. "I had to get it for you," she said at the time, mug in hand. "I thought it was so weird that it had your name on it, so I bought it. Here."

It was oversized, wonky and kind of chunky, a bland if glossy ivory, with my three-letter nickname toothpick-etched in skinny, slightly wavy black capitals. 

Not my nickname (at least I hope), but you get the idea.

I stuck a handful of fresh pencils in it, and put it on my desk, where my GenZ students dropped by for pre-COVID office hours. 

Now, after reading about (and watching, yikes) GenZers take down millennial Rae Dunners on TikTok, I'm curious (read: slightly horrified) to wonder what my GenZ students actually might have been thinking as I innocuously grabbed a Dixon Ticonderoga from that namesake Rae Dunn mug. 

Rae Dunn Facebook infiltrator.

Did they feel a similar stab of aggression, the kind that's, lately, especially susceptible to TikTok vents? (Again, yikes.)

I also really wonder about this generational gulf, which has taken root and morphed into being on social media platforms--specifically TikTok. And all over material objects, or millennials' love of anything stamped and painted with text, what some call the "HomeGoods quote aesthetic."

This article in Newsweek (of all places--maybe what millennials and GenZ would both agree to be a "boomer" kind of place), used the word "infiltrate" to describe how the aforementioned TikToker found her way into a Facebook group to taunt Rae Dunners, Borat-style. 

It was all pretty mean. The obsession--the conversation, on both sides--maybe it's all a bit much.

Who would have thought a piece of pottery would be such a lightning rod, and set ablaze such a generational culture war?

I haven't been back to my desk since COVID. 

I kind of wonder what I'll do with my Rae Dunn mug, with this new Rae Dunn knowledge. A gift is a gift, Rae Dunn or not. Maybe I'll enjoy it--and repurpose it--and fill it just pencils, but a little something extra. GenX had irony, right? Maybe a bit of their GenZ kids' skepticism and irreverence.


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