A Thought About Trends, Fair Trade & Those Hacky Sacks

• Posted on 19 May 2026
• By LynAnne Wilton
• 0

Hi friends! I’m LynAnne, store manager here at HumanKind. Every so often, I wanted to share a few thoughts from behind the counter: what we’re seeing in the shop, what customers are loving, conversations we’re having, and the bigger stories behind fair trade and thoughtful shopping. Thanks for being part of this community with us.

If you’ve stopped by the store or online lately, you may have noticed something unexpected flying off the shelves: hacky sacks.

Thanks to TikTok, they suddenly became one of the hottest trend items around. We had multiple online orders for handfuls of hacky sacks and people came in specifically asking for them..

And honestly? It was really fun to watch one of our classic fair trade items gain such a demand.

But it also sparked an important conversation here at HumanKind about the difference between trend-based shopping and thoughtful purchasing.

One of the beautiful — and sometimes challenging — things about fair trade products is that they aren’t mass produced overnight. The items we carry are handmade by artisans and small maker groups around the world who are paid fairly for their work and create products in smaller, intentional batches.

That means when a trend explodes overnight online, fair trade businesses can’t always respond at the same speed as large-scale manufacturers. And ramping up production to meet a short-term TikTok trend is not a sustainable way for fair trade producers to operate.

Fast trends move fast. Ethical production doesn’t.

And while that can occasionally mean missing the immediate “viral moment,” it also means your purchase supports real people, real craftsmanship, and a more sustainable way of shopping.

We think that matters.

The truth is, fair trade asks all of us to shop a little differently. More thoughtfully. More intentionally. Sometimes a little more patiently. But in return, the products we bring into our homes often carry more meaning, more story, and more impact than something designed simply to keep up with the next algorithm.

So while the hacky sacks already have sold out (planning a restock in June), the conversation they started feels worth sharing.

Thanks for continuing to support thoughtful shopping, fair wages, and the small businesses trying to do things a little differently.

We appreciate you more than you know.

— LynAnne