Welcome to Bottom Feeders Anonymous (wtf is Bottom Feeders Anonymous)

infrequently asked questions

Jun 24, 2025

Hello and welcome. My name is Karina and I am an addict - I’m addicted to shopping on The RealReal. I am also a model, a new mom, and a self-proclaimed person with good taste. I’m a compulsive deal hunter, and can’t remember the last time I bought an item of clothing unless it was on sale or I could find a steep discount code for it. Additionally, I have a weird tic where my brain registers anything more than $100 as being some unfathomably exorbitant luxury, no matter how reasonably priced it actually is. This is probably due to my mother being an even more extreme version of this, which is understandable after having grown up in a third world country as the youngest of ten siblings. Additionally - and not to sound shady - I’ve grown frustrated with the lack of fashion forward Substack accounts that share actually realistic shopping recommendations. Actually, I meant that as shade! It’s eye-roll inducing to see a $200 t-shirt be thrown in as the “affordable” option, or to have a couple of H&M links among all of the Net-a-Porter links to appease the non-ultra wealthy masses. Nothing against H&M (I’ve been known to shop there plenty, trust) but I want to be able to wear vintage Prada or new-ish DÔEN and not deplete my life savings, too! When “aspirational” becomes depressing, it’s purpose is defeated. This has all led to one of my great passions in life (lol sad): scouring TRR for hidden gems that have fallen through the cracks. So by now, you might be asking yourself:

Why The RealReal?

Lovers of second hand luxury today are blessed with a plethora of shopping options, but none to me has quite the same appeal as TRR - the place we all love to hate and hate to love. They are infamous for being chaotic (some would say chaotic evil), a place where every purchase comes with a slight whiff of dubiousness as to the quality and authenticity. For a true bargain hunter like me, this chaos means opportunities to use hacks and loopholes to almost gamify the shopping experience (by now you’ve surely read Driving Shoe's excellent write up, I didn’t know I still had things left to learn). And the sheer amount of new arrivals every day (seriously, how do they do it?) means that unless you are like me and don’t have a life, you probably don’t have hours every day to comb through the wild west of second hand luxury. At the same time, TRR is *just* organized enough so that my ADHD addled brain can handle searching and scrolling at the same time. They may have photographed that skirt backwards and as a blouse, but at least it’s shot in studio on a well lit mannequin. Basically, shopping there is just difficult enough so that when you do find something special, it is incredibly satisfying.

me attempting to explain why it makes sense for me to commodify my impulsive shopping because my attention span has already been commodified to impulsively shop

So is TRR paying you?

Unfortunately no, it would be a lot cooler if they were. I am in no way associated with The RealReal, I’m just passionate about them with the same sort of fervency as a crypto bro is with the price of bitcoin (although I did model for them once in 2015, see photographic evidence below). Affiliate links will be used, so if you do buy something I’ve linked, I may earn a small commission.

Will you only feature items from TRR?

Mostly yes - maybe the occasional Etsy or eBay find, especially for the categories that TRR lacks in affordable prices (jewelry comes to mind). I will try to only ever feature vintage or second hand finds, and only those with a soft cap of $100 due to aforementioned brain tic (because TRR is constantly marking things down, it makes sense to me to share things that are slightly over that so you can save and wait, bottom feeder style). I try to mostly abstain from shopping fast fashion but I’m only human, so recs from those kinds of places might pop up occasionally. If eventually I develop enough of a readership who would like me to expand these horizons a bit, I’d be willing to listen.

So why should I subscribe?

Have you ever attempted to dig through the weeds of TRR and come out empty handed and annoyed? Are you simply like most people for whom even an unbelievably marked down $300 price tag is way more than you can spend, but you still love designer fashion and want to be able to wear it? I mean really, spending money? In this economy?? Do you aspire to have a more sustainable wardrobe, but don’t want to sacrifice on style? Do you not have the time and energy to scroll endlessly, and wish you had a friend with good taste and thumbs that can scroll for hours to send you cute cheap things? Then I am her and she is me. Even if you’re a normal person who’s not as obsessed with TRR as I am (congrats), if you ARE someone who loves sustainable shopping and curated round ups delivered to your inbox, then this newsletter is for you.

This newsletter is also going to be more than just links to click on. It’s also going to be bits of personal style, badly drawn watercolors, and fashion-centric content. And, as a self proclaimed expert, I’ll be guiding you through to the best tips, tricks, and pearls of wisdom to make shopping TRR a much more fun and fruitful experience while also saving money. We hope!