06/03/2026
Hey all! This post has been simmering in the ol' mental crackpot for awhile, and today felt like the day (beautiful! sunny! full of life and hope!) to write it all down and share with you, our beloved customers and shop community.
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The tl;dr is this: we will not, as a shop, sell, advertise, or promote art that is made with AI.
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The "i am here for Catherine's long and rambling thoughts" is:
AI is--fundamentally--nobody's story. As a shop, we have always been guided by the belief that sharing our stories with one another is what we're all about, and making space for the stories of our community is the gift we give and receive every day we open our doors. AI works by stealing the stories (in writing, music, visual art, the list goes on) of others in order to create a non-story, a pastiche of all of its inputs, that it then steals again (from our environment, via water consumption particularly) in order to produce for its users. Stealing from artists and the earth in order to produce content that is not necessary (guess what? we all lived, created, wrote, thought, made community posters without AI before, and we can do it again!) and reflects the lived experience of no one (because it is made from stealing experiences and their expression from millions of people) is antithetical to what we're about. So...it's a no from us.
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Is this all of my thoughts? Absolutely not! But this is a start, and it felt past time for us to be clear with our community about our policy on this issue. We are a people- and story- first shop. And AI is neither. Come in and chat with me about it anytime if you want to!
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