2026: Shop Smarter, not Smaller

There has been a lot of trend of social media to "shop local" or "shop small business" that has transitioned into a lot of "don't shop billionaires" or "don't shop AI" or "don't shop things made overseas". Oof, it's a lot of negative and angry posting, especially by creator run businesses and artists which makes me really sad.

The thing is not all small businesses are ethical or run by nice folks. In the last few years with the availability of smaller batch manufacturing we're seeing a lot of fanart grow into bulk fan merchandise. These are creators run small businesses who make art featuring copyrighted characters that they don't have the rights to and put them onto hundreds of keychains, stickers, and shirts. When someone making fanart has crossed into producing $5000 to $10000 of fan merchandise that they don't have rights to that is, IMHO, crossing a line. It's not about being a fan at that point, it's about making money off things illegally that you didn't really create. And it's not only big copyrights from TV series, plenty of us smaller creators have had as many small artists rip off our work as we have bigger companies like Temu.

This year we've started to see conventions, companies that own the copyrights, and customs officials start to crack down on both AI art and illegal copyrighted properties. Hopefully this will encourage more creators to, well, CREATE. I've seen posts suggesting ways to not get caught selling your fanart and claiming the reason to sell fanart is because it sells better than original work (NOT because the creator is a fan, just because it sells better).

Without original creators there is nothing for fanartists OR AI to rip off.

In addition a lot of platforms like Amazon, Ebay, etc are not just big billionaire businesses. Plenty of creators sell their shirts, books, and other merch on these services.

So I'd like to ask that everyone take a moment when shopping to shop SMART, not small. Look at who made what you are getting no matter what size company they appear to be. Buy original, not fan OR AI merch (fan art prints in small numbers are still cool in my book, just not the bulk merch) and just be aware of where you are spending their money.

Reward positive creators who post focusing on creative process and ideas, rather than negative complaints about AI, Temu, or even their own customers and other vendors (yes, this is a trend now, to complain about your customers).

By shopping smart you can help the creative folks more than focusing on size or if just something is AI :)

Thank you!