Trying to Create Unity in Our Little Corner: My Thoughts on Facebook

Gosh, I didn’t think I’d be ready to say something about all this yet. You might have seen that some people, many that I admire, are leaving Facebook and Instagram. You might wonder what we're thinking. I was wondering too! 

But then this happened:

I can appreciate someone taking a stand for their values. And at the same time it frankly scared me as we would be in trouble if all you felt like this. I am glad it pushed me to clarify my own thoughts

We opened in a small southern town and regularly donate to the Trevor Project and sell a Y’All Means All curated yarn box. We are not unfamiliar with holding societal tensions.

We are also concerned about social media and people feeling safe. It’s enough to make me pack it all up on social media. But I have a responsibility to think it through, for our Fuzzy Goat family, I have to ask, after I take that stand, who among us will that serve?

• Not the 26,000 Fuzzy Fans(between Instagram and Facebook) that follow us, looking for inclusion in the knitting community.
• Not the hundreds that we communicate with each week via text, DMs, Facebook Lives, etc.
• Not the lovely people who consider themselves lucky to regularly visit with us in person and with each other even though they are on opposite sides of the political spectrum (one of the great joys of my week!)
• Not your favorite small makers that we spend $100,000’s with each year. We do believe that we are not an inconsequential part of these makers’ annual income (many of them marginalized).
• Not the causes that we support and champion on these platforms, all year long: our Harper Elementary with 91% free lunch, the local Boys & Girls Club, NPR, Fair Fight, our local Black History Museum, McRae Women's Facility at the Georgia Department of Corrections, and more.
• Not our team, even though some of them are also concerned about being targeted on social media

It’s a vastly complicated thing to own a business, much less to do it in the most ethical fashion possible. Daily we run the risk of putting a foot wrong while trying to be authentic. We want to be welcoming to both the conservative and liberal thinking among us. We believe that in conversation we create community. We believe that our fans do want everyone in our sphere to feel safe and welcome regardless of platform. As the mom of a gay daughter, I need to believe that people among us wish her well, and am also vigilant.

We are VERY careful about where we invest our resources, from the makers that we partner with and payroll software to our shipping supplies, even down to our packing tape and stickers.We do look for inclusive companies that are doing good for their employees and our world. Even our team’s SEP retirement plans are with carefully researched environmentally sustainable companies. We're not righteous; there are often compromises to keep things running, with companies that may not share the same worldview, it could be the mortgage company, the local printer, or the beloved building contractor.

Yes, to be transparent, we do give A LOT of money to Facebook and Instagram for advertising, and I am definitely not pleased or proud of that support. Yet, we get 4,5,6, sometimes 8 times that money back in revenue that we get to then spend on the small makers and causes we support and give our team a fair wage. Our “ads” are money that put our genuine posts of our videos, tips, inspirations and new arrivals in front of new eyes interested in the same things as we are. We get to send all kinds of whimsical beauty out in the world, to YOU. We are able to take that advertising return and do much more good in the world with it.

Though certainly not a champion of the new social media policies I do recognize that many, many of our Fuzzy Fans would not know us at all if it weren’t for the ads and I am not sure, that during covid we would have survived at all without those ads and the new community it brought us. We are surely exploring other platforms, I set up a Blue Sky account for Fuzzy Goat after many of the makers that I admire set up over there. At this moment, Blue Sky’s not really a way for us to build community, form a group, and share among ourselves. And I ran out of gas and haven't set my plan for regular posting. We’re still looking for additional platforms.

In the meantime, we want to be a corner of joy on our regular channels, to bring the whimsy and unity that are part of our mission. We feel that if everyone that is good-natured leaves these platforms, who will look after the people who use these outlets to find meaningful content? Some of our fans just aren’t going to be able to adjust to a new platform and we don’t want to leave them behind. We do post all our videos over on YouTube and now have Pinterest set-up. We'll be making even more use of our email list too so you could just keep us with us in that way.

I am naturally an optimistic person; but maybe it’s because we had our first down year, or maybe because I was snowed in for the first time in my life, but what to do about our Facebook and Instagram position started to make me angsty. Just this weekend I found myself needing to remind myself “why” I have Fuzzy Goat so that I could focus on what we need to move forward with joy and purpose. The “why” I still happily work 10 hours each day to create this Fuzzy world. I am so glad that I do have our shop and I made my “why” the wallpaper on my phone. I put my phrases on a road, because that’s what we’re doing as Fuzzy Fans. We’re on a journey together and the road goes up and down. We don’t really see where it’s going but we got on this journey to be together and that is where the conversation about how we are more alike than different takes place (of course it had to be really green 💚)

We want to share the joy of knitting and how that brings us together.

While you're here, this is more about what we stand for and our long-standing DEI statement.

We hope we don't loose contact with you, but we do understand and wish you well if you need to take a different stand.