How Your Weird Little Hobby Could Save the World
Transcriber: David DeRuwe
I bet you’ve got a weird little hobby.
Maybe it’s cake baking.
Maybe it’s beer brewing.
Maybe it’s foraging for wild mushrooms.
Maybe even naked rugby -
yeah, that’s a thing.
Don’t worry, I won’t make
you say it out loud.
But what if I told you
your hobby could help heal
one of the most insidious things affecting
our society today - polarization?
In my own weird journey, I’ve come
to believe in the power of niche
to overcome the malignant
effects of polarization.
That’s right.
Your weird little hobby,
your curious sport,
your nerdy creative activity
has uniquely positioned you
to help save the world.
And good news, the first step is easy!
Instead of going wider,
spending all your free time
scrolling social media,
and engaging with people
that you barely know,
you just go deeper, spending more time
with people inside your weird little hobby
because deeper is where
the real connections happen.
I’ve seen it over and over again
in my own weird little niche,
which is knitting.
I learned to knit at the age of 16
when on a family road trip.
And when that teacher put those sticks
and string into my hands,
and I watched as my fingers
created a fabric out of nothing,
it was pure magic.
I got so addicted that by the time
we got back from the road trip,
I’d already made a whole cable sweater.
But when I got back home, I couldn’t find
any other cool teenagers to knit with.
Imagine that, right?
But I dreamed of one day
finding other people
who were as obsessed at knitting as I was
and finding a place to do that with them.
Fast forward 20 years,
and I started a second career by opening
a local yarn store called Loops.
Fast forward another 15 years,
and Loops has grown
into a worldwide knitting brand
called Knit Stars
that includes online master class events
that connect tens of thousands
of knitters around the world,
and together, we all geek out
over the latest knitting techniques,
and we get inspired
by knitting celebrities.
Yeah, knitting celebrities.
That’s a thing too.
There is a lot that would really
surprise you about us knitters.
I know all of you think
of us as so all Kumbaya.
We’re just a bunch of crazy old cat ladies
sitting around making itchy sweaters
that no one will ever wear
and watching reruns of “The Golden Girls.”
Right? But knitters can
be serious badasses.
In fact, knitting and craft
have been associated with activism
for hundreds of years.
During the U.S. Revolutionary War,
women knitted garments
instead of importing them,
a defiantly patriotic act.
And have you ever heard of knitting spies?
During World War Two,
women in the Belgian resistance
famously knitted coded messages
into knitted garments.
Knitting is actually perfect for this
because all knitting is made up
of just two stitches: knit and purl,
just like Morse code - dash dot.
In 2006, crafter and researcher
Betsy Greer coined a new term,
“craftivism.”
Betsy believed that craft
and positive activism
could save not only the soul
but also the world.
Craftivism is about raising consciousness,
about creating a better world
stitch by stitch,
and about creating wider conversations
about uncomfortable social issues.
Betsy said that there are actually
different expressions of craftivism.
It can be subversive, as in those
World War Two spy knitters.
It can be confrontational,
as in anti-war statements
or other forms of protest.
Craftivism can also be practiced
in a quieter, creative,
more compassionate way.
Maybe you’ve heard
of a movement called “yarn bombing.”
This is when knit
and crochet installations
suddenly appear
in public places overnight.
As Betsy explained, “Craftivism
is welcoming, not dividing.
It’s a tool to create a small part
of the warmer, friendlier,
more colorful world we all hope
to see in the future.”
From the time I open a yarn store,
you see this magic happen
on the Loops couch.
You see all these people -
old, young, rich, poor,
all races, all religions, all genders -
coming together to create.
Now, the scientific benefits
of knitting are well known.
It’s been shown to lower blood pressure,
reduce depression and anxiety,
slow the onset of dementia,
and even trigger the release of serotonin.
But I’ve come to believe
the greatest benefit of knitting
may be the deep social
connection that it creates.
There’s just something about it
when we’re all sitting together
making things with our hands,
and in that moment, a special kind
of connection and safety is created.
And in that safe space, we can have
the difficult but necessary conversations,
really see and hear and understand
other people’s lived experiences.
This kind of thing
does not happen in a tweet
where everyone is so quick
to judge and attack.
For lots of us, things
have gotten so polarized.
It could even happen
around the Thanksgiving table
with your family
without somebody hurling the stuffing
and barging out the door.
But when you choose
to go deeper, not wider,
and use your personal
craftivism superpower
to open the door to conversation,
this can lead to real understanding,
true healing, and lasting positive change.
One story that’s really stuck with me -
I had a friend who was going through
a really difficult divorce.
Her husband had come out as gay,
and when they sat down together
to tell their teenage daughter
that they were getting divorced,
she just completely shut down.
No matter what they did,
they couldn’t get her to talk.
Finally, one day in desperation,
my friend grabbed
her needles and her yarn,
and she asked her daughter
if she could teach her how to knit.
At first, her daughter just watched,
but after a while,
she couldn’t resist taking that colorful,
soft yarn into our own hands.
And as her fingers began
to form the stitches,
all the words just kept tumbling out.
All that pain and fear and sadness -
being creative together
enabled them to talk about it
and finally talk through it.
In our world today, everyone is vulnerable
to disconnection and polarization.
In fact, recently polarization came up
in the global knitting community
in a very intense way.
What started as a really
important conversation
about racism and inclusivity
in the knitting space,
about the historical stigmas
of knitting and race and gender,
very quickly escalated
into personal attacks.
And all of the major brands
and designers and dyers
and so many thought leaders
became really afraid,
and they pulled inward
and stopped sharing and collaborating.
And it put the knitting world
in a place of deciding,
“Do we want to be separate,
or do we want to close our polls,
to have the difficult conversations,
to reknit the connections
and form new ones?
Could we create a fabric that was stronger
and more beautiful than before?”
And then one day, someone online
demanded that I pick a side,
and I had an “aha” moment.
If I pick a side, and we all pick a side,
and we keep pulling
further and further apart,
what will happen
to our connection, our fabric?
So what did I do?
I decided to commit to do my part
to knit the world together.
I invited a well-known craftivist
named Diane Ivey
to create a workshop for Knit Stars,
and she entitled it
“Moving Forward Together from Social Media
to Building Inclusive Communities.”
When we first announced
to our Knit Stars owners
that we were going to do this workshop,
a lot of people asked
“Why? What does this
have to do with knitting?”
And some of them even demanded refunds.
But you know what?
That workshop had and will continue
to have a lasting impact.
It opened up important,
deep, respectful conversations.
And as Knit Stars owner Lynn put it,
“This is absolutely the message
we all needed to hear.
Thank you, Diane,
for helping us see how much further
we have to go on the path to equity.”
You have this same power.
Inside of your weird, little hobby,
you can spark powerful conversations
and real lasting change.
You and your fellow mushroom foragers
can help save the world.
So go out and brew that beer together,
make more time to quilt
those quilts together,
and go deep.
Be the kind of craftivist
that creates connections.
Thanks.