#budget vs burando would be a good youtube series

[20dollarlolita]

We're going to have to have the talk again. It's been a couple of years, so let's bring back one of the big reminders:

There's a lot of different ways that people choose to spend money on lolita, and someone isn't inferior just because of how much they choose to spend. Some people don't have the means to afford an expensive wardrobe, and that doesn't impact if they deserve to wear lolita.

And to everyone reading this and going, "Yeah! Those AP clones wearing nothing but Brand aren't any better than me!!" you are correct. However, that's not the complete viewpoint here.

You, the budget lolita, are also not any better than the AP clones. They are not your enemy, and their existence is not inherently oppressing you.

I've spent many years trying to create a part of the budget lolita community that is based on accepting others limitations and helping them find resources to allow them to experience lolita despite those limitations. It's about sharing information that is making lolita more accessible to everyone by learning how to work necessary but unconventional elements into coordinates. We gather together because we've learned that we want a community where our outfits are loved despite being different, and where we know that questions aren't going to be answered with, "Well, you'll just never get this right, because you don't have enough money for x."

There is no part of that that is reliant on disliking people from being different from us. I did start this partly out of frustration that there weren't resources that I needed to do lolita in an inexpensive way, and out of frustration that when I looked for these resources, I was told that there was no demand for them. I got frustrated with individual people and specific groups of people who were not willing to understand my problem.

But something very important that I learned is that most people in the non-budget lolita community are not accepting of budget lolita out of ignorance, and not out of malice. They're not objecting to your viewpoint, just that they've never considered or had success with attempting to do the thing you're trying to do.

Sometimes, it feels like the lolita world is stacked against you. When done conventionally, it can be a very expensive hobby. When done unconventionally, you have to ignore a lot of advice that can't apply to you, and then you still have to meet the same standards as the people who have a completely different way of making an acceptable coordinate. Being frustrated with this is completely normal! I got so frustrated that I started this entire blog. And now we have a community of people, which is so great. It's a community where we encourage and educate other people who need help trying to reach that same standard without any of the normal tools. We look after each other and we encourage each other and I love that so much.

But you've to learn that other people coming at the same problem from a different angle are not your enemy, any more than you are to them. When you communicate with the mainstream lolita community, you're going to make friends who wear all AP every day and wash their faces with Enchantlic Enchantily wash cloths before they go to bed. You're going to make friends with people who have spent $600 on a dress. And this is good, because you're not any better than they are. You're actually going to find that a lot of AP clones and Brand Whōres are going to be impressed with your $19 JSK, not repulsed by it. To someone who only buys clothes, the fact that you can just make something similar using just your own skills is very impressive, and is not a competition.

So don't treat the world like it's Budget vs Burando. The lolita community is too small for you to reject someone just based on what they wear. You're going to find petty and bitter people across every lolita price point, so don't go judging by coordinate when you can judge by what kind of person they are. Don't accidentally exclude someone who might be great just because they've had the chance to decide to spend $40 on a pair of socks.