Be it your boombox from the 1980s that (kind of) works or last night’s dinner that you can’t bear to toss, one local Buy Nothing group with an unusual name encourages you to purge.
Good Sh*t Long Beach has over 21,000 members who give away unwanted items to one another. If the name weren’t clue enough, this is not your average Buy Nothing group. It’s a lot more fun.
The community’s popularity soared during the pandemic since its no-contact pickup model gave people a reason to leave the house while practicing social distancing.
Tanya Cummings, who took over as the group’s admin in January, says not everyone is a fan of the name.
“We would have people joining the group and saying, ‘I love what you're doing, but I can't stand the name. Can you please change the name?’” she says.
The answer is no. The group is lighthearted and quirky. The name is just part of it.
From the start in 2020, members dug into the deepest corners of their garages and attics to offer items collecting dust: ellipticals, clothing, dishes and furniture.
There were also off-beat items that sparked conversations in the comment sections.
“I think the strangest thing I saw was: Somebody posted a giant, maybe something like a six to eight foot, whale penis bone,” Cummings recalls. “The comments were like, ‘I didn't even know whales had penis bones.’ … It went on and on and on and on.”
One woman gave away a sailboat in perfect working order. A filmmaker who bought a brand new coffin for one of her shorts ended up giving it away on the page.
In the early days of the group, random and weird gives were so popular that they got their own day: Weird Sh*t Wednesday.
One Wednesday, someone asked for “oddities,” and group member Stacey Sellers had just the thing. Her rabbit had just some dental work done and the vet gave Stacey a few vials of teeth that she was happy to share.
“I said, ‘I have rabbit teeth, and I have my own teeth. I have three vials. Take your pick.’ So she came by and she got them,” Sellers says.
Soon after, Weird Sh*t Wednesdays gave way to something a little more spicy: a regular night that came to be known as Good Sh*t After Hours. Group members offered items that were a bit more risque.
“We're talking lingerie, we're talking naughty toys. We're talking, ‘Hey, you want to get spicy? You're curious. Let's go,’” says Sellers. “So I mean … I'm sitting around waiting, going, hmm, I have some extra lingerie. I have some extra rings that I bought that are not for your fingers. So you post them and you say, ‘I'm not gonna judge you. I'm gonna place them at the door.’”
The group quickly became a place for socializing and engaging as a community.
There were “traveling candles” during the age of drive-by pandemic birthdays – a shared set of pretend-candles made out of pool noodles that could be placed on the front lawn.
Women from the group planned a meetup to wear fancy dresses and wigs to go shopping together at Target.
Since taking over as group administrator, Cummings has limited community engagement in an effort to recenter the group on rehoming unwanted goods. For her, the environmental impact has been a driving force in keeping it going.
“It's this cyclical thing. Sometimes things have a life that goes beyond just, ‘Oh, I'm going to give it to this person,’” Cummings says. “That person might use it for a year or two, and then give it to somebody else.”
For some, the group has become a place to turn to during financial hardship.
Jeff Rau and his wife originally joined to get rid of unwanted items, but when they both lost their jobs last year, they found themselves on the receiving end of generosity that has allowed them to stay afloat.
Rau says he and his wife were taken aback by group members’ willingness to help: “It’s definitely been a financially trying time, and so Good Sh*t has been a lifeline. A lot of things have had to be cut from the budget, but Good Sh*t has allowed us to still receive so much.”