July 5, 2024 • 54 mins
Amazon responds to Shein and Temu threat with new low-price storefront: https://www.techspot.com/news/103565-amazon-responds-shein-temu-threat-new-low-price.html
Fast fashion retailer Shein’s brand trip didn’t quite go as they planned. They sent a group of influencers to China to tour their facility after a bunch of bad press, but now those influencers are facing backlash themselves, and renouncing their partnership with Shein. The whole thing raises questions about the ethics and harm of fast fashion, as well as the influencers who shill for it.
Aja Barber wrote the book on consumption. She explains why it’s about more than just Shein.
Aja is the most stylish person I know! Follow her on Patreon for sustainable style insights: https://www.patreon.com/AjaBarber
Check out Aja’s book Consumed: https://www.ajabarber.com/book
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Amazon is the largest online retailer in the entire world,
so Amazon's business decisions really matter because they can set
the tone for the entire retail space. And this week
Amazon announced they were building out their own super cheap
fast fashion retail site where items will ship directly from
China to the United States to compete with the suspiciously
(00:21):
low cost Chinese online retail giant Chian. Now Sheien is
a huge and not to mention not super ethical player
in the retail space. After a disastrous Chian influencer brand trip,
I spoke to Aja Barber, author of Consumed Colonialism, climate Change,
and Consumerism, about the cycle of fast fashion Chian and
(00:44):
how it's doing real harm to all of us.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
All of a sudden, everyone's an expert because a brand
has like flown you first class to like tour their facilities,
like come on.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge
Todd and this is there are no girls.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
On the Internet.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Lately, folks have been having conversations about our consumption habits
and the Internet, like should we really be fawning over
the Kardashians over consumption on social media, and for a
hub second, deinfluencing was a thing where, rather than telling
you to buy more stuff, influencers actually told you what
stuff not to buy. Until that is, the whole thing
(01:36):
was kind of co opted by brands who were basically like, yeah, girl,
de influence, don't buy this stuff, buy our stuff instead.
And of course those fashion halls where people on TikTok
show off bags and bags of stuff they bought from
fast fashion retailers. Now it is impossible to talk about
fast fashion without talking about Shian pronounced she In as
(02:00):
in she in trouble for those TikTok videos. As Madison
Malone Kirsher put it at The New York Times, she
and clothes are cheap, suspiciously cheap, cheap enough that it
makes you think, how could this dress really only cost
six dollars? Well, if a slew of recent reports or
any indication, the answer is forced labor, human rights violations,
(02:22):
stealing designs, gamifying our online shopping habits, wreaking havoc on
our environment, and selling us clothes full of chemicals that
make us sick. Last year, Wired did a great investigative
deep dive about the toll that all of this takes
on both the people who make she ins clothing and
the people like us who buy it. And there's another
thread to this web too, influencers, the people who go
(02:45):
on social media and chill for brands online for profit.
So given all this, all of this harm can influencers,
many of whom talk a big game about causes like
supporting women or championing the environment, can they ethically hype
up back fashion retailers? Last week, after a disastrous she
and brantrip, the Internet answered with a resounding and loud no.
(03:10):
And Aja Barber, author of Consumed, The Need for collective change, Colonialism,
climate change, and Consumerism, says that the Internet's reaction might
be a sign that maybe what we're really craving isn't
a five dollars crop top at all, but a new
and better system, one that isn't built on exploitation.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I've written this book called Consumed. If you are interested
in what we talk about today, please get it. You
will really really be shocked by some of the stuff
you learned.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I kind of think of you as like the og
person talking about sustainability, Like.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Maybe there were people doing it before you, but you were.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Definitely the first voice I heard doing it, So I
kind of have to start there, like did you just
kind of start having these conversations and help the rest
of the world caught up with like like you're like,
I'll be here when y'all are ready.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, so that's there was no like turning point. But
I'll be honest, I just kind of was like, I
think this system might be kind of crappy. I always
had a niggling feeling with fast Fashion that there was
something really crappy going on. I couldn't just shut up
and shop. I was kind of a bit like, but
(04:22):
how do they get these prices so low? Like just
constantly asking myself that, even though like there were times
where I couldn't afford anything different, but I still had
to ask the question, especially as a curious person and
as someone who likes to do crafts and knit and sew.
But the other part of it was I found that
(04:45):
people really did not like having this conversation consumerism. It
has its claws in us, and I noticed in some
spaces that you and I were in together, Like people
could be as lefty and right on and righteous about
every topic under the sun. But if I were like, hey, guys,
(05:08):
I think maybe we shouldn't be shopping it forever twenty
one because I think they're exploiting people. It would be like, you,
you know, fart it in the pool. Everyone would start
like throwing like tomatoes at you and get really mad
and be super defensive, and I was like, oh, okay,
consumerism has us in like a death grip. And so
(05:32):
I started to just notice that there was a lot
of inconsistency within people's behavior in this conversation, like yeah,
support on women, super feminists, right on women, but also
like let's not buy sweatshop clothing boo. And so I
kind of just was always in spaces where I would
(05:53):
sort of like test the waters for the conversation. And
I kind of feel like I've been talking about this
for life, like ten years now. I've been thinking about
it for ten years now, and it's kind of like
jumping into a jump rope, like a double dutch jump rope,
Like you're going like this, You're waiting for the moments
you test the water and you're like, nope, they're not ready.
(06:13):
And then there just became a moment where it was like, Okay,
I think people are ready to have this conversation now.
And I don't know if it's a mixture of us
realizing that, like climate change is coming for us all
and like these systems are aiding in it and no
one's gonna be safe, or whether it was people actually
starting to realize that, like, these systems aren't good for us.
(06:36):
All they're doing is creating billionaires and oppression. But it
finally feels like folks have come around.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
From following you and other folks who create content about sustainability.
People do have these very strong, sometimes pretty weird, defensive
reactions when you talk about what you talk about. Like
I've seen people say like, oh, this is really a
classes because some people can only afford to shop fast fashion,
(07:05):
or this is really fat phobic because this maybe this
brand is the only size this person can find to
fit them. Why do you think that is? And how
do you have these conversations in a way where folks
can actually hear and like take in what you're saying
without jumping to that defensive point.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I just feel like I have been repeating the same
thing for one hundred years now. I'm just kidding. It
is just really saying like the same thing. And one
of the first things that I realized that people were
deeply hypocritical about is we're having a conversation about poverty,
but like folks do not want to include the garment
(07:47):
workers and the people that make the clothing in that conversation.
That is deeply hypocritical, and that is tied to a
weird colonialist idea that we think that if somebody lives
over there should be okay with being poor. That's that's
because you also hear it when people say things like, well,
that's a good job in that country, and I always
(08:09):
sort of push back a little and go, okay, well
do you want to do that job? And they're like no,
And then I'm like okay, why not And they're like well,
well well, and then they start getting backed into a
corner and super defensive. But what I want people to
do is like recognize that, like they're playing a part
in these colonialist ideas as we're all talking about like
(08:32):
decolonizes and that.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
You know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
There was a time period where everybody was sort of
talking about colonialism and how it shows up today. But
the mere idea that you think someone in the global
South wouldn't want to make the same nice wages we
do for the same sort of work that we used
to do in our country. That's a colonialist idea. The
idea that you think that someone should be grateful for
(08:57):
a crappy job in an unsafe factor with bad wages,
that's a colonialist idea. And then at the end of
this system, because it is a linear system production, usage,
end of life, we also have a colonialist idea that
somebody in the Global South wants our scraps because a
(09:18):
lot of the clothing that we buy today isn't the
same quality that it was twenty years ago. Because that's
how you push billions of garments on your consumers by
like really making sure that the quality is not great.
So people are constantly buying, but also people are buying
for a lot more reasons than that. But you know,
(09:39):
we buy twenty times more clothing than we bought in
nineteen ninety and that means that there's a lot more
waste and a lot more stuff being donated. And because
we're buying such large quantities of clothes, a lot of
what is being donated ends up in the Global South,
(10:00):
usually in parts of Africa, being someone else's problem. So,
for instance, within the book consumed. I write about Cantamanto
Market and Akra, Ghana and they receive fifteen million items
of clothing every week from the global North. Now, obviously
this market is not going to be able to resell
(10:22):
fifteen million items, which means sixty percent of what arrives
in Ghana is waste. And when it becomes waste, it
ends up everywhere it's not supposed to be. So the
municipal dump has filled up ten years ahead of schedule.
The dump catches on fire because of all the clothing waste,
(10:43):
which also like a lot of that stuff we're putting
on our body, and you should see how it's not decomposing.
You know, it ends up on the beach. The beach
there is incredibly polluted from the clothing waste. It ends
up in neighborhoods. And so what we've created is a
system of waste colonialism. But we have tricked ourselves into
(11:05):
saying that, like, oh, somebody in Africa is really going
to be really happy with this T shirt with a twist.
It seem that I don't want to wear anymore because
I know it's not good, but they're poor, so they
can have.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So like from start to finish. This system completely craps
on non white people. Your clothing is either is made
by a non white person in the Global South, usually
in someone who's impoverished, and then at the end of
its life we just dump it right back in the
Global South on someone else. And that is why it
(11:41):
is a racist system. And that is why when people
say like, oh, it's it's classes that you should criticize this,
I think they're just sort of dodging an actual conversation
where we should talk about what our place is and
this now there won't There will always be people who
can't make different decisions, right, Like the Shian trousers are
(12:04):
the ones that they need for work, and those are
the trousers they need for work. Fine, that's not the
vast majority of us. And when you look at the
profit margins that fast fashion is pulling in, if all
the poor people on the planet put all of their
money together, they couldn't create these profit margins. These massive,
(12:27):
inflated billion dollar profit margins that the fast fashion industry
is pulling in annually is created with money from customers
who are over consuming and buying often. And the people
that can do that are middle and upper class people.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So we let's talk about that, because I mean, by
now you probably are sick of thinking about it, talking
about it, being asked about it.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I will never get sick of asking about it, talking
about it until we stick it to these corporations I
want to. I just want to get them so like, no,
I'm not tired of it. I will talk about it
until the cows come home, because I want these billionaires
to pay for what they've done.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Don't worry, Aja and I talk all about that disastrous
she and brandtrip. After a quick break at her back
to launder the company's unsavory reputation stemming from worker mistreatment
(13:32):
and environmental and health harms, Shean called in the influencers.
She and flew a handful of influencers to Guangzhou, China,
to tour one of Shean's factories and to visit its
innovation center. It's well lit, clean, and it actually looks
like a pretty okay place to work. The influencers speak
to workers about rumors of their mistreatment, and the workers say,
(13:52):
oh no, we are being well paid and enjoy easy commutes.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It all seems pretty rosy.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Much like that suspiciously cheap crop cut up maybe a
little too rosy, and that's because they were probably not
actually talking to employees representative of the typical employee experience
at Sheen, nor were they in a typical representative factory.
Garment experts spotted pretty quickly that the facility the influencers
were touring couldn't possibly be where Sheen makes the clothes
(14:19):
they sell, but that didn't keep these influencers from making
glowing positive content about what they saw and Shean's practices.
One influencer, Danny DMC. Their videos were particularly rage baby,
and I'm not even totally sure why. Maybe it's the
way Danny refers to themselves as quote an investigative journalist
(14:39):
and an independent thinker who gets all the facts and
doesn't fall for negative Western propaganda about Sheen like the
rest of us sheep. Okay, Danny didn't really say that,
but the gist was pretty clear though. In subsequent videos
where Danny walks back their partnership with Sheen, they say
they were paid very well by Sheen, and at other
times they say no one is paying them to say
(15:01):
these positive things about the company. There was just something
about Danny's video that was just kind of smug, easy
to hate, and oh boy did people.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Online hate and trust me, I get it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But Aja says, Sheen and the influencers who got flack
for shilling for them are low hanging fruit because Sheen
is such a big company. But they are not the
only ones contributing to the harm here, not by a
long shot. They're just the one that's the easiest to
get mad about. I do think that we have these
ways of making ourselves feel better about something that deep
(15:36):
down we know is harmful, and I think that the
Shean influencership is a really good example of that on
a completely different scale where you know, yeah, it would
be nice to think that those influencers were walking around
this like clean, safe looking garment factory and that that
is actually where Sheen produces their clothing. It would be
(15:59):
nice to think that their workers are treated well. But
come on, like, we know the truth.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Can I also say, do any of these influencers talk
about this thing on their grid talk about this particular
topic ever? Like why are you all suddenly experts when
you never discuss things like fair wages, fair treatment, ethical fashion,
that sort of thing. All of a sudden, everyone's an
expert because a brand has like flown you first class
(16:27):
to like tour their facilities, Like come on.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
What were your thoughts when you first saw this video
blowing up? What were your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Just generally, I thought, well, this company has found themselves
a useful crop of fools, Like yay, they've been looking
for him and they just walked right in.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
They were like, we're here.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Oh oh, Like I I there's a okay. So I
go back and forth right because I obviously there's a
part of me that feels like these influencers, while they
are full of hubris about like their own importance and knowledge,
they're indicative of a larger problem. And I do feel
(17:11):
like the Internet loves a bit of low hanging fruit,
like and this is some low hanging fruit right here,
because it's indicative of a larger problem with a system
where the vast majority of people that you follow on
social media, if they are selling clothing, are actually selling
sweatshop clothes. It's just easier to go after the group
(17:35):
that decided to go with Goliath, and Chan is a
goliath in this system. But H and M still can't
say that they can guarantee that every person in their
supply chain is paid a living wage. How many influencers
work with H and M.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
You know how.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Many people that everyone follows sells clothing. I don't sell
clothing on my grid. I work with one designer who
is extremely ethical, and we do not sell a lot
of pieces because people are still not grasping that it
is worth it to actually like buy ethical clothing. It
doesn't sell at the same rate, So I'm not going
(18:11):
to be a millionaire from that. I do it because
when I started my collaboration, there wasn't a lot of
ethical fashion that could be made in any size because
it was still sort of an up and up thing.
Now there's a lot more options, But that was why
I wanted to do it. I knew I wasn't going
to like be really rich off of it, but I
don't really aspire to that anyways. But at the root
(18:36):
of it on social media is somebody is completely monetizing
their life through social media and they're selling clothing. A
lot of that is going to be unethical clothing because
it's very hard to make an entire living off of
selling clothing without working with one of the bigger companies
(19:02):
that frankly is exploiting people it's so endemic and we're
so used to it, and we're so used to looking
the other way. But the truth is, I think that
people need to maybe spread it around a bit, like, yeah,
obviously you call yourself an investigative journalist, Like that's gonna
(19:22):
come for you. That was wild, The internet is going
to come for you. But like, at the end of
the day, I think a lot of people follow people
online that have platforms that are selling you exploitative goods,
and we're not questioning that enough, but maybe we should,
you know, maybe everyone's sponsors should be questioned in that way,
(19:44):
because the truth is, influencers. This system of fast fashion
wouldn't exist without influencers, and if it did, it would
be a lot smaller and people would not beginning as
rich as they're getting. But like, part of the reason
brands can afford to influencers around the world on lavish
trips is because they're not paying garment workers. If everyone
(20:08):
we're paid fairly a lot of these influencer trips, just
the budgets for the marketing would not be the same.
So I think we need to really get straight with
the fact that people in our society, some who are
at the top of the charts when it comes to privilege,
(20:28):
are trading on other people's lives in these systems, Like
you know, I see a lot of people who have platforms,
and some of them, deep down inside you kind of
know this person is like independently wealthy and they don't
even have to sell sweatshop goods, and then they still do,
and it's like, why why are we supporting this? When
(20:49):
a celebrity wears like fast fashion, everyone's like, you're like
one with the people, and it's like, no, it's real.
They're happy to exploit people. Yeah, you're so real with
your sweatshop guard, Like, why are we celebrating this? So
I think we haven't been entirely honest with ourselves for
a long time in this conversation. But you know, no
(21:10):
time like the present.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Once upon a time, I was an influencer, or at
least kind of trying to be one. I know, right,
hard to believe, but this was back during the time
where it seems like if you wanted to have any
platform at all, you had to also be an influencer.
And I stopped because it just didn't make me feel
(21:33):
very good. I quickly started feeling like if I wanted
to make any real money doing it, I had to
say yes to working with any brand that would have me,
whether I wanted to or not, Because influencing is kind
of like the new wanting to be a rock star
or a professional baseball player. I looked it up, and
study after study suggests that more and more kids say
(21:53):
they want to be influencers when they grow up. So
if it's a crowded space that supposedly everybody wants to
be in, maybe that's why I felt like I just
had to take whatever came to me. But something that
she and Brand Trip really shows is the consequences with
influencers are not choosy and intentional about what brands they
lend their platforms to, And maybe that's in part because
(22:14):
there are just too many influencers now. Don't get me wrong,
Influencing is very real work, and I want folks to
be paid for their labor. But the crowded space can
create these conditions where influencers are not necessarily thinking critically
about the corporations they're shilling for. Instead, they're just worried
about booking that brand deal and getting that check. And
(22:36):
in a world where all of our oppression is connected.
That just doesn't sit right with me. You know, you
really hit on something that I think is complicated. So
I want to choose my words carefully.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
This is also part in part a conversation about influencers
and the influencer economy. Right, I very briefly tried my
hand at being an influencer, and part of why that
didn't work out was that you just end up feeling
crappy because you end up feeling like you can't say no.
You have to say yes, especially when you're just starting out,
or when you're like a black woman or woman of
color or like marginalized in some way.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Right, And so I know.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
That influencing it's it's an easy thing to like make
fun of, but it is work. And I want influencers
to be paid. But an influencer, yeah, you know it
more than anybody. But an influencer being paid does not
negate the harm that the company paying them is doing.
Like the influencer who made that she and video was like, well,
(23:33):
we were paid very well and they flew us.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
It was really a good experience.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And I was like, I don't think people are responding
because they were worried that she and wasn't paying their
influencer as well.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
It's about the human rights abuses.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It's about it's about the ethical responsibilities that this company
is skirting. And so I wonder, how do we make
sense of like wanting influencers to be paid for their
for their labor, but also wanting them to do so
in a way that is not contributing to harm because
(24:04):
I felt like there was no way to square that circle.
And I was like, influencing is not for me, because
to make any real money, you basically have to chill
for things that are not values a lot, which is
like didn't make any sense, and so I don't even
really know what I'm asking, But how can we square that?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Well? I think, Yeah, I get a little bit worried
that too many people want to be influencers, because people
want to be famous regardless of what they do, and
that's the issue. And then it sort of became like, oh,
you can only have a platform if you like speak
(24:44):
on you know, certain topics or you have like what's
your niche issue that you care about? And then I thought,
oh God, let's get ready for some real like empty dialogue,
you know what I mean, Like everybody's got like a
everyone's got a cause, you know, but it's just like
like a lot of people, I'm like, you can just
admit you just want to be famous. You don't have
(25:04):
to be like oh yeah, and I'm like, you know,
I'm a mental health person.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Mental health like one, Like it's so annoying.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
You're like, you know, just be It's okay to want
just want to be famous and have a platform. You
don't need to you don't need to opine publicly.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Every everybody wants to have like a cause so that
they can be like I'm deep, and it's like, maybe
we don't all need to have this because we're having
a lot of shallow conversations now. But at the end
of the day, I don't think the world needs as
many influencers as we have. I don't think that it's
really an occupation that like I've read some survey and
(25:44):
I don't remember where, but it was like one out
of seven school children who's like asked about what they
want to be when they grow up, says they want
to be an influencer. And I'm like, no, no, yeah,
you know, I think this idea of wanting to be
famous just for being famous is it's quite weird, to
(26:06):
be honest. For me, I've always seen platforms as a
way to open doors to things that I've always wanted
to do. So, like I have always wanted to write,
but like you know, I told my parents, Oh, I
want to write, and they were like, yeah, good luck
with that. There's so many black women writers out there
that are being celebrated in our society. It's just like,
you know, twenty years ago, so I wasn't encouraged to
(26:28):
go into this path, and so I kind of saw
having a platform as a way of achieving the things
that I wanted to do career wise. And I think
we really have to question, like who are we following
and why, you know, Like I guess we shouldn't be
that surprised that people want platforms just to be famous
(26:49):
in a world where like no one can stop talking
about the Kardashians, you know, I think it's really indicative
of our society. But at the end of the day,
I just think maybe we just need fewer people wanting
to like go after this sort of work, because at
(27:12):
the end of the day, we're propping up something that
I don't necessarily think is great, like there could be
a lot of great things achieved from online spaces. But
if people, if everybody wants to have a cause, and
everybody claims to care about the same stuff, like oh,
I don't want to oppress women, then what are we
(27:32):
doing in this conversation? You know? How did we get
to this place? And I think we also need to
understand that, like influencing is a fairly young occupation. It's
been what around for like twenty years or so, so
like my generation had the ability to shape this occupation
and to something that could be great, and we've just
(27:55):
found ourselves in the same capitalist healthscape where the corporations
have everyone under their thumb. And so I really think
that influencers need to think about, like what is it
that we're trying to achieve, And like maybe if we
get with the winning team and all start to maybe
organize a little bit, not only can we fight for
(28:17):
better for ourselves, but we can transform industries fast fashion
when it sell without people willing to sell it. But
we need to really get with the winning team about
like what that looks like and what those sorts of
sacrifice look like. If we want everyone to be paid,
Like at one point in time, people are sort of
kicking around this idea of an influencer union in the UK,
(28:40):
and when asked about it, I was just like no,
because I'm the daughter of a union president ex union president.
But your union has to recognize other unions. You have
to have a code of ethics. And it's the majority
of the If the majority of the sponsors of the
(29:05):
people within this union are brands that bust unions, then
what are we doing. You can't unionize will not recognizing
other people's unions. That's not how that works. And so
like we're at a crossroads where people really need to
like figure out what sits right with their morals. And
(29:26):
I'm never going to say that like influencing is easy,
because it isn't. I think that content creators can be
incredibly skilled, but it is still an occupation that is like,
you know, you're not clean and gutters, you know what
I mean, Like you're not you're you're not like you know,
(29:48):
like there's a lot of other occupations you could do.
It doesn't have to be the one where like you
know that the highs are high and the lows are low,
you know, And so people people need to get right
with their ethics here, and what that's really going to
look like is folks sitting stuff out, Like we're all
looking at the Writer's Guild strike and I'm like right on,
(30:10):
like union strong, you know, just like power to the workers,
you know, like we're all watching this go down. But
like people don't realize what solidarity should look like across
the board. You know. So if you are like an
influencer and you don't want to like oppress people and
sell things that oppress people, then you need to actually
(30:33):
figure out what that's going to look like for you.
If the only thing you can think of is, oh,
I got to take money from like these horrible brands,
then like maybe this isn't the thing that you should
be going for. The reality is I knew that I
couldn't do that, and so I diversified and I you know,
started doing Patreon long before the lockdown, which served me well.
(30:57):
I wanted to write books, I wanted to do a
lot of different things, but I did not ever want
to take money to say on my grid that like
some big box brand was not oppressing people when I
know the majority of them are.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You have pledged that you will never take a dime
from Fast Fashion?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
How did that? How did that pledge come to be?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So I pledged that I would never sponsor my grid
with Fast Fashion to be honest, like, I would love
to get in a room with some of these CEOs
and then have them pay me to just yell at them,
like find them style like better, Oh my god, oh
my hit him, Oh my goodness. That would be like
(32:02):
the dream to like take their money to like not
just yell at them, but also like hold them to
account and get paid to do it. I would love
to do that. So, you know, in the beginning, I
was like, I'll never take a dollar from Fast Fashion,
but I will never ever sit on my platform and say, well,
actually they're not too bad to try and everyone they
(32:25):
used like organic cutt and one T shirt last year.
Because that's basically what's happening now. If I were to
be in a position where I'm paid to like hold
these brands to account or drag them publicly, like I
was thinking about what that would look like recently, I
was like, how do I get to a point where
like I'm using this platform to really really like get
(32:47):
in CEO's heads, but yeah, I basically when I started
talking about sustainability, I had just moved to the UK
and me and my partner had gotten married and had
to do visa process and my god, we were broke.
And so I had this platform, and my partner was like, hey,
you need to start making some money because now you
(33:10):
have your working papers, and I was like, I know,
but I can't, and he was just like, well do something,
and so like we went back and forth because like
at some point in time I was gonna have to
like start working. And I basically loved writing every day
about sustainability, and I found that there wasn't a There
(33:34):
was a real lack of actual honest information about sustainability
on Instagram at the time, and people really wanted that.
People were seeking that. They wanted someone who would say,
like this brand sucks and here's why. And I couldn't
do that and then also be like, by the way,
today's add is spalter Zara.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
So I sort of like talked to my community that
was slowly building, and I said, look, I love sharing
information with you all, but like I got to get
paid somehow, but I don't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That way.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So I'm going to start a Patreon and if a
certain amount of you sign up, I will continue Monday
through Friday to post here. I will keep the ads
to a minimum. If I ever work with a sponsor,
you better believe that they're going to be ethical and bcore.
To this day, the only sponsors that I've had on
my grid have been like, you know, resell sites like eBay,
(34:30):
festi Air Collective, which is very very like that. That
is like the perfect partnership for me because that's how
I buy the majority of my clothing, and I love
helping people to like realize that, like, actually you don't
have to buy anything new because this entire system runs
off of overproduction, which means that if there's something you want,
(34:51):
it'll pop up on resale eventually. There have been like
very few things that I have never seen that I've
that has caught my eye on a store that hasn't
popped up on eBay or best Stair Collective. Very few,
and so I basically told my readership, I really really
really want to keep this space ad free because we
know what advertising looks like in this space. And people
(35:15):
were actually really jazzed about that, and it was great
because it was twenty eighteen and by twenty twenty, starting
a newsletter, which is something I do, or starting a
Patreon or starting a substack was like it was like
the Great Migration of like, you know, if you joined
at that point, you were like a trout swimming upstream
(35:37):
with everyone else. But I felt like I had already
sort of cemented myself there because I was like, I
can't do this. I don't want to sell you stuff,
and you know, I don't want to. I don't ever
want to have to worry about paying a light bill
and then saying something that isn't true and I know
probably isn't that or not even like you know, having
(36:01):
to look the other way in order to like really
take the money. And sometimes it is hard, like recently
I did a panel and I found out the day
before that one of the brands on the panel had
been like caught up and like something where they hadn't
been using a good factory basically, and that was very awkward.
(36:21):
Sometimes things like that are really unavoidable, But I try
my darness to not be in those situations because I
don't know, I want to like like who I am
when I look in the mirror, and I know that
if I had financed my life through taking money from
people that were oppressing women of color, I wouldn't like that,
(36:45):
And I think it's time for everyone to sort of
view a lot of these companies is that way. And
if we can actually start to get to a point
where we're actually towing a party line as content creators, together,
we can actually transform these industries because a lot of
these brands need us. But the problem is people are
so thirsty that they're just like, I'll take a dollar
(37:07):
from anyone. I'll do it for one hundred dollars, And
it's like, no, if we actually like organize for ourselves,
not only could we get these brands paying better fair
rates for like the advertisement because they get so much
from influencers they really do, but we could also tow
the party line and be like, guess what if you're
(37:29):
not paying your garment workers, you don't get to work
with any influencers. That would be the power of organizing
in the space, But unfortunately it's not going to happen
until people realize that our liberation is intrinsically tied to
the person in the global South who is bearing the
brunt of the system, and that's the problem. We think
(37:51):
that like we're we think we're disconnected from it, but like, no,
a company that exploits that person over there is more
than happy to exploit you.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
All of that sounds pretty bleak, but it doesn't have
to be. Creating a better relationship with consuming and what
and how we buy can actually be transformative. It can
change our relationship to our space, our bodies, the way
we feel about ourselves.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
It can be an opportunity, not a punishment.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
This all sounds very doom and gloomy, but I will
say the experience of reading your book was there there's
a bright side to it, I guess is what I'm saying,
Like everything that you just said is correct and scary
and seems really big, But the reality is is that
we can make small changes, like we don't have to
wait for corporations.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
To be better.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
We don't have to like we can make small changes
like in the pandemic. I've talked about this on the show.
I got a little bit like addicted to buying cheap crap.
I didn't need just for like a boost because I
was feeling yeah, and I had to take a step
back and be like what am I doing here? Like
the amount of boxes outside of my apartment was it's
like embarrassing to me. And when I started really thinking
(39:03):
about my consumption habits and how social media was part
of it, and really undoing and unpacking some of that,
it really changed my relationship to my home because I
didn't have my closets were not filled with the brim
with crap. I didn't need my physical presentation because so
much of those clothes were garbage. Like I found this
(39:24):
tiede fucking two piece sweatsuit that I bought on Amazon,
and I was like, why did I buy this? This
looks ridiculous and it looks ridiculous on me. When you
when you stop consuming and then you actually focus on
acquiring things that you like, that feel good, that are
that are designed, that are like made well. I not
(39:45):
the company made well, but.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Made space well. Uh made clear about that.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Like my dad gave me this leather jacket that it
used to wear in the seventies that I've now been
like oiling and taking very good care of. And it's
like I have a news sense of pride and love
for the things that I that I really value.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
And then when I put them on my body. I
feel better.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It's really this sounds hippy toppy and all of that,
and it sounds like it sounds, but it really has
been transformative.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
You're completely right about that. The truth in the matter is,
I think we view like slowing down our consumption cycles
is like, Oh, it's gonna be so boring and I'm
gonna hate it and it's gonna be terrible. And I
can say my wardrobe is four hundred percent better than
it was when I was buying fast fashion because I
(40:34):
really think about the things I bring into my closet.
Not only do I think about it, but getting away
from fast fashion forces you to actually figure out your style,
your personal style, because we all think that we're being
freed by fast fashion, but if anything, you're just getting
a ton of trends pushed at you. You think you
(40:56):
have free will in this, but in actuality, the things
that are being sold to you you have been picked
out for you by experts months in advance. So you're like, ooh,
look at me with this, like my styles really developed,
But really you look like a lot of other people
in the global North who shopped at the same store.
And so you know, when you start to really not
(41:19):
want to engage with this stuff anymore. You find that
you really start to actually find what your style is.
You start investing in things, you know, because you're not
shopping every month anymore. So, like I used to say,
I was that person in my twenties that would be like, well,
I do like that brand's great if you can afford it,
(41:39):
And like, there were time periods where I was not
making a lot of money and I was moving in
and out of my parents' basement, and I would argue
that was probably buying a lot of fast fashion to
like soothe those feelings of an adequacy that I had. Right,
so I'm looking at like an ethical brand and sizing
it up and talk talking about how I can't really
(42:01):
afford that thing. But I'm literally handing two hundred dollars
a month to like fast fashion companies and not even
realizing I'm doing it literally, you know, and just not
even quantifying what I'm doing. And then it turns out
that like, actually, maybe I could have afforded that very
(42:23):
nice dress. I just didn't need to buy five dresses
from H and M last summer. Funny that, you know.
And so when you really stop to like you know,
be present, but also just like get off of this
trend cycle. You find yourself really leaning into like the
core and the essence of what it is that you love,
(42:46):
and then you know your your style doesn't change with
you know, you'll obviously there'll be sometimes where you'll experiment
with this and that, but like the core of what
your style is, in the essence of what your style
is isn't going to change as fast as the system
of micro trends. So like for me, if I find
a dress that I love on eBay, I'm still gonna
(43:09):
love it three years from now because I love it,
which is why it's great because now I shop that way,
you know, and I always, I always have used eBay
for buying clothes. I just didn't share it with my
peers because it wasn't very cool until recently. But now
I find that, like there are brands I love to
(43:30):
go back and buy things that I didn't have money
for like years ago, but like maybe like a luxury
item that like I really really love but could never afford,
and then I go and find it on eBay and
it's like, you know, seventy percent off of like the
retail price. You know what I mean. So once you
(43:50):
start to really like dive into your style and get
away from trends, it cannot only be super fulfilling, but
you're gonna find that, like you have a wardrobe that
brings you so much joy, and when you have that,
you're not chasing the trends anyways. But additionally, I always
say that fast fashion is kind of a bit like sugar.
(44:13):
So in the US, we put sugar in everything, like everything,
and I live in the UK now and they do
not put sugar in everything, and it is very noticeable
when you first get here. I crave sugar, like I'm
a sugar fiend, and it's the last thing for me
that I need to like tap down on, like I
barely drink. I have a mostly vegetarian diet, but sugar
(44:36):
is my vice. So when I get to the UK,
I'm always like craving the sugar, like, oh, give it
to me. And then after like a few weeks sort
of like tampers off. And then when I go back
to the State, I might go out to like a
restaurant that I really rate and get like a dessert
that I used to love, and when I'm eating it,
I'm like this so sweet, like you can really tell
(45:02):
when you've been away from it, and fast fashion is
the same, except I find myself saying, was this always
so crap?
Speaker 3 (45:10):
You know?
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Like when I first took time and basically said, like
moving to the UK really helped me because I had
no money and I had also had to like really
lighten my possession, so I wasn't in a massive rush
to like go and acquire new things, and so I
really took some time from all the stores, I unsubscribed,
(45:31):
from all the email lists, no apps, YadA, YadA, YadA,
and I would say the next time I went into
an H and M, after taking like six months to
just really clear my head and start to get away
from fast fashion, all I could think about was how
everything was plastic, and the stores they smell weird. They
(45:53):
smell they smell weird, and that's because there are a
bunch of things that they spray the clothing in transit
to keep it from wrinkling. So you start to notice
things like that when you take time away with slow fashion,
the quality, I just it's incomparable. I do some like
(46:15):
personal shopping and personal styling virtually through my Patreon, and
one of the things that I always I never get
sick of is the person who gets their first like
slow fashion purchase and they're just like the quality they
just can't keep. They just they're like, this is unbelievable
because we really haven't noticed, like while being in the
(46:40):
fast fashion cycle that things have gotten pretty bad. But
then when you compare it to something that's a lot
better quality, you're like, oh, we just think that like
it's gonna be terrible because consumerism has trained us to
believe that, Like, this is how we participate in societiety.
(47:00):
This is how you show the world your personal style.
This is how you this is the hobby you do
in your downtime. This is how you reward yourself when
you're feeling bad. This is what you do when you
need a new outfit for a job interview, which you
absolutely don't need a new outfit for a job interview.
That person's never met you before, they will not know
if it's an old outfit, you know. So, like we
(47:22):
trick ourselves into thinking that consumerism is like our best friend,
but in actuality, it's killing the planet and thus killing us,
and we need to think about it differently.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Basically, when you think about what's on the horizon. It
does seem like people are kind of catching up, you know.
Secondhand clothing is kind of having a moment. Thrifting is
having a moment. People are having conversations about consumption. Are
you Are you hopeful that we will sort of get
(47:54):
ourselves out of this?
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Do you see that happening?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
M Well, I am hopeful, but you know, not to
get depressing. But like all this is going to come
to a screeching hole because Mother Nature is about to
like clamp down on us really hard. So what you
need to understand with these systems is we're all over
consuming the consumer. The brands are obviously overproducing, pushing us
(48:20):
to over consume. If we don't change this ship around,
we won't have the raw materials for a lot of
these brands to keep going. But we can't keep going
like this forever. All of these systems right are playing
such a crucial part on the natural resources that our
(48:41):
lovely planet provides for us for free, and these brands
are taking way more than their fair share. I'm kind
of hopeful though, that people start to see these systems
for what it is before it comes to that, because,
like I said, this is sort of like the last Hurrah.
It seems like the fashion industry just said it's just
going to ride the car until the wheels fall off.
(49:03):
But if the wheels fall off, things are going to
look really, really bad. So people think that like, ethical
fashion is expensive now you just wait until coon cost
one hundred dollars a yard, you know what I mean.
But if we keep depending on this system of overproduction
and over consumption somewhat pushed by influencers, like by all means,
(49:25):
the companies are totally at fault. The billionaires are at fault.
But the person who has a platform, who thinks none
of this has anything to do with them and I'm
just trying to get a paycheck, you're at fault too,
because if you have like the same following count as
me on Instagram and you're selling people something daily, you
are selling thousands of product a year, hundreds and thousands
(49:47):
of products a year, and probably getting a really nice
affiliate linking check, so you're also like richer than everyone else,
but then also going, oh, well, I can't afford to change,
this is how I make a living. No, maybe it
is you that needs to change, because this system won't
go on forever, and then like then, what we now
have a system where like people truly can't afford clothing.
(50:10):
I don't want to live like that. So I really
hope that people wake up and realize that, like, these
corporations are harming our planet and these systems of consumption
are hurting and harming us. And I don't think that
this is an impossible thing for us to do. I
think we really need to be honest with ourselves and
(50:34):
look at where we are in this system, and look
at who we are in this system. You know, if
you're the person who really really just needs that pair
of work trousers from Primmark, I am never going to
show up and like slap your wallet out of your hand,
because I'm not a bad person. But that's not how
Primark turns loads and loads of profit. They turn loads
(50:57):
and loads of profit by people going on holes there.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
So like realizing who you are in this system and
what you can like afford to do honestly, it's going
to be a crucial part. And like asking yourself, do
I even want to participate this way? Because I remember
when I was buying fast fashion feeling really like I
don't know a bit sort of like push to do
(51:24):
it in a way where I wasn't comfortable, like taking
out my summer clothing from the year before and then
being like, Oh, all these stresses are really nice, They're
still good. I don't know why I feel compelled to
buy new dresses. So ask yourself, do you even like
being in the system? And if you don't, like, what
are you going to do differently? But rest assure when
(51:46):
people say that like, oh, it's not on the individual,
it's on the corporation. The corporation does require you. It
requires a lot of us buying into it, It requires
people over consuming. And if you don't think in corporations
don't feel threatened by like sustainability, in many ways they do.
There's a reason why, like every trash bag company is
(52:09):
now sort of starting to do like secondhand resale because
they see that us as citizens are actually caring about
this stuff and they want a piece of the pie.
So we get to say that, oh, we care about sustainability,
and also like we can profit twice from like the
same crap, except some of that stuff doesn't hold up
(52:30):
long enough for it to have two owners. But that's
another story. I do think that corporations realize that, like
the writing is on the wall, and the more we
become informed citizens and the more we start to really
take action and change how we into how we interact
with this system, the more we can actually change the
(52:50):
system for the better.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Okay, so what did you think of that she and
brantrip and what are your thoughts on fast fashion retailers
like Shian? You can let me know email at Hello
at tangodi dot com, on my Instagram at bridget ran DC,
on Twitter at bridget money, or you can always subscribe
to our Patreon at patreon dot com slash tangody because
I kind of can't stop talking about it and I
would love to hear your thoughts. Got a story about
(53:18):
an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi?
You can read us at Hello at tangody dot com.
You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengodi
dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
created by Me bridget tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio,
an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry
Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is
our contributing producer, I'm your host.
Speaker 4 (53:39):
Bridget Todd.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
If you want to help us grow, rate and review.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (53:47):
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yeah, yeah,
Amazon is the largest online retailer in the entire world,
so Amazon's business decisions really matter because they can set
the tone for the entire retail space. And this week
Amazon announced they were building out their own super cheap
fast fashion retail site where items will ship directly from
China to the United States to compete with the suspiciously
(00:21):
low cost Chinese online retail giant Chian. Now Sheien is
a huge and not to mention not super ethical player
in the retail space. After a disastrous Chian influencer brand trip,
I spoke to Aja Barber, author of Consumed Colonialism, climate Change,
and Consumerism, about the cycle of fast fashion Chian and
(00:44):
how it's doing real harm to all of us.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
All of a sudden, everyone's an expert because a brand
has like flown you first class to like tour their facilities,
like come on.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridge
Todd and this is there are no girls.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
On the Internet.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
Lately, folks have been having conversations about our consumption habits
and the Internet, like should we really be fawning over
the Kardashians over consumption on social media, and for a
hub second, deinfluencing was a thing where, rather than telling
you to buy more stuff, influencers actually told you what
stuff not to buy. Until that is, the whole thing
(01:36):
was kind of co opted by brands who were basically like, yeah, girl,
de influence, don't buy this stuff, buy our stuff instead.
And of course those fashion halls where people on TikTok
show off bags and bags of stuff they bought from
fast fashion retailers. Now it is impossible to talk about
fast fashion without talking about Shian pronounced she In as
(02:00):
in she in trouble for those TikTok videos. As Madison
Malone Kirsher put it at The New York Times, she
and clothes are cheap, suspiciously cheap, cheap enough that it
makes you think, how could this dress really only cost
six dollars? Well, if a slew of recent reports or
any indication, the answer is forced labor, human rights violations,
(02:22):
stealing designs, gamifying our online shopping habits, wreaking havoc on
our environment, and selling us clothes full of chemicals that
make us sick. Last year, Wired did a great investigative
deep dive about the toll that all of this takes
on both the people who make she ins clothing and
the people like us who buy it. And there's another
thread to this web too, influencers, the people who go
(02:45):
on social media and chill for brands online for profit.
So given all this, all of this harm can influencers,
many of whom talk a big game about causes like
supporting women or championing the environment, can they ethically hype
up back fashion retailers? Last week, after a disastrous she
and brantrip, the Internet answered with a resounding and loud no.
(03:10):
And Aja Barber, author of Consumed, The Need for collective change, Colonialism,
climate change, and Consumerism, says that the Internet's reaction might
be a sign that maybe what we're really craving isn't
a five dollars crop top at all, but a new
and better system, one that isn't built on exploitation.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
I've written this book called Consumed. If you are interested
in what we talk about today, please get it. You
will really really be shocked by some of the stuff
you learned.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
I kind of think of you as like the og
person talking about sustainability, Like.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Maybe there were people doing it before you, but you were.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Definitely the first voice I heard doing it, So I
kind of have to start there, like did you just
kind of start having these conversations and help the rest
of the world caught up with like like you're like,
I'll be here when y'all are ready.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, so that's there was no like turning point. But
I'll be honest, I just kind of was like, I
think this system might be kind of crappy. I always
had a niggling feeling with fast Fashion that there was
something really crappy going on. I couldn't just shut up
and shop. I was kind of a bit like, but
(04:22):
how do they get these prices so low? Like just
constantly asking myself that, even though like there were times
where I couldn't afford anything different, but I still had
to ask the question, especially as a curious person and
as someone who likes to do crafts and knit and sew.
But the other part of it was I found that
(04:45):
people really did not like having this conversation consumerism. It
has its claws in us, and I noticed in some
spaces that you and I were in together, Like people
could be as lefty and right on and righteous about
every topic under the sun. But if I were like, hey, guys,
(05:08):
I think maybe we shouldn't be shopping it forever twenty
one because I think they're exploiting people. It would be like, you,
you know, fart it in the pool. Everyone would start
like throwing like tomatoes at you and get really mad
and be super defensive, and I was like, oh, okay,
consumerism has us in like a death grip. And so
(05:32):
I started to just notice that there was a lot
of inconsistency within people's behavior in this conversation, like yeah,
support on women, super feminists, right on women, but also
like let's not buy sweatshop clothing boo. And so I
kind of just was always in spaces where I would
(05:53):
sort of like test the waters for the conversation. And
I kind of feel like I've been talking about this
for life, like ten years now. I've been thinking about
it for ten years now, and it's kind of like
jumping into a jump rope, like a double dutch jump rope,
Like you're going like this, You're waiting for the moments
you test the water and you're like, nope, they're not ready.
(06:13):
And then there just became a moment where it was like, Okay,
I think people are ready to have this conversation now.
And I don't know if it's a mixture of us
realizing that, like climate change is coming for us all
and like these systems are aiding in it and no
one's gonna be safe, or whether it was people actually
starting to realize that, like, these systems aren't good for us.
(06:36):
All they're doing is creating billionaires and oppression. But it
finally feels like folks have come around.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
From following you and other folks who create content about sustainability.
People do have these very strong, sometimes pretty weird, defensive
reactions when you talk about what you talk about. Like
I've seen people say like, oh, this is really a
classes because some people can only afford to shop fast fashion,
(07:05):
or this is really fat phobic because this maybe this
brand is the only size this person can find to
fit them. Why do you think that is? And how
do you have these conversations in a way where folks
can actually hear and like take in what you're saying
without jumping to that defensive point.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
I just feel like I have been repeating the same
thing for one hundred years now. I'm just kidding. It
is just really saying like the same thing. And one
of the first things that I realized that people were
deeply hypocritical about is we're having a conversation about poverty,
but like folks do not want to include the garment
(07:47):
workers and the people that make the clothing in that conversation.
That is deeply hypocritical, and that is tied to a
weird colonialist idea that we think that if somebody lives
over there should be okay with being poor. That's that's
because you also hear it when people say things like, well,
that's a good job in that country, and I always
(08:09):
sort of push back a little and go, okay, well
do you want to do that job? And they're like no,
And then I'm like okay, why not And they're like well,
well well, and then they start getting backed into a
corner and super defensive. But what I want people to
do is like recognize that, like they're playing a part
in these colonialist ideas as we're all talking about like
(08:32):
decolonizes and that.
Speaker 3 (08:33):
You know what I mean, Like.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
There was a time period where everybody was sort of
talking about colonialism and how it shows up today. But
the mere idea that you think someone in the global
South wouldn't want to make the same nice wages we
do for the same sort of work that we used
to do in our country. That's a colonialist idea. The
idea that you think that someone should be grateful for
(08:57):
a crappy job in an unsafe factor with bad wages,
that's a colonialist idea. And then at the end of
this system, because it is a linear system production, usage,
end of life, we also have a colonialist idea that
somebody in the Global South wants our scraps because a
(09:18):
lot of the clothing that we buy today isn't the
same quality that it was twenty years ago. Because that's
how you push billions of garments on your consumers by
like really making sure that the quality is not great.
So people are constantly buying, but also people are buying
for a lot more reasons than that. But you know,
(09:39):
we buy twenty times more clothing than we bought in
nineteen ninety and that means that there's a lot more
waste and a lot more stuff being donated. And because
we're buying such large quantities of clothes, a lot of
what is being donated ends up in the Global South,
(10:00):
usually in parts of Africa, being someone else's problem. So,
for instance, within the book consumed. I write about Cantamanto
Market and Akra, Ghana and they receive fifteen million items
of clothing every week from the global North. Now, obviously
this market is not going to be able to resell
(10:22):
fifteen million items, which means sixty percent of what arrives
in Ghana is waste. And when it becomes waste, it
ends up everywhere it's not supposed to be. So the
municipal dump has filled up ten years ahead of schedule.
The dump catches on fire because of all the clothing waste,
(10:43):
which also like a lot of that stuff we're putting
on our body, and you should see how it's not decomposing.
You know, it ends up on the beach. The beach
there is incredibly polluted from the clothing waste. It ends
up in neighborhoods. And so what we've created is a
system of waste colonialism. But we have tricked ourselves into
(11:05):
saying that, like, oh, somebody in Africa is really going
to be really happy with this T shirt with a twist.
It seem that I don't want to wear anymore because
I know it's not good, but they're poor, so they
can have.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2 (11:19):
So like from start to finish. This system completely craps
on non white people. Your clothing is either is made
by a non white person in the Global South, usually
in someone who's impoverished, and then at the end of
its life we just dump it right back in the
Global South on someone else. And that is why it
(11:41):
is a racist system. And that is why when people
say like, oh, it's it's classes that you should criticize this,
I think they're just sort of dodging an actual conversation
where we should talk about what our place is and
this now there won't There will always be people who
can't make different decisions, right, Like the Shian trousers are
(12:04):
the ones that they need for work, and those are
the trousers they need for work. Fine, that's not the
vast majority of us. And when you look at the
profit margins that fast fashion is pulling in, if all
the poor people on the planet put all of their
money together, they couldn't create these profit margins. These massive,
(12:27):
inflated billion dollar profit margins that the fast fashion industry
is pulling in annually is created with money from customers
who are over consuming and buying often. And the people
that can do that are middle and upper class people.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
So we let's talk about that, because I mean, by
now you probably are sick of thinking about it, talking
about it, being asked about it.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
I will never get sick of asking about it, talking
about it until we stick it to these corporations I
want to. I just want to get them so like, no,
I'm not tired of it. I will talk about it
until the cows come home, because I want these billionaires
to pay for what they've done.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
Don't worry, Aja and I talk all about that disastrous
she and brandtrip. After a quick break at her back
to launder the company's unsavory reputation stemming from worker mistreatment
(13:32):
and environmental and health harms, Shean called in the influencers.
She and flew a handful of influencers to Guangzhou, China,
to tour one of Shean's factories and to visit its
innovation center. It's well lit, clean, and it actually looks
like a pretty okay place to work. The influencers speak
to workers about rumors of their mistreatment, and the workers say,
(13:52):
oh no, we are being well paid and enjoy easy commutes.
Speaker 3 (13:55):
It all seems pretty rosy.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Much like that suspiciously cheap crop cut up maybe a
little too rosy, and that's because they were probably not
actually talking to employees representative of the typical employee experience
at Sheen, nor were they in a typical representative factory.
Garment experts spotted pretty quickly that the facility the influencers
were touring couldn't possibly be where Sheen makes the clothes
(14:19):
they sell, but that didn't keep these influencers from making
glowing positive content about what they saw and Shean's practices.
One influencer, Danny DMC. Their videos were particularly rage baby,
and I'm not even totally sure why. Maybe it's the
way Danny refers to themselves as quote an investigative journalist
(14:39):
and an independent thinker who gets all the facts and
doesn't fall for negative Western propaganda about Sheen like the
rest of us sheep. Okay, Danny didn't really say that,
but the gist was pretty clear though. In subsequent videos
where Danny walks back their partnership with Sheen, they say
they were paid very well by Sheen, and at other
times they say no one is paying them to say
(15:01):
these positive things about the company. There was just something
about Danny's video that was just kind of smug, easy
to hate, and oh boy did people.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Online hate and trust me, I get it.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
But Aja says, Sheen and the influencers who got flack
for shilling for them are low hanging fruit because Sheen
is such a big company. But they are not the
only ones contributing to the harm here, not by a
long shot. They're just the one that's the easiest to
get mad about. I do think that we have these
ways of making ourselves feel better about something that deep
(15:36):
down we know is harmful, and I think that the
Shean influencership is a really good example of that on
a completely different scale where you know, yeah, it would
be nice to think that those influencers were walking around
this like clean, safe looking garment factory and that that
is actually where Sheen produces their clothing. It would be
(15:59):
nice to think that their workers are treated well. But
come on, like, we know the truth.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
Can I also say, do any of these influencers talk
about this thing on their grid talk about this particular
topic ever? Like why are you all suddenly experts when
you never discuss things like fair wages, fair treatment, ethical fashion,
that sort of thing. All of a sudden, everyone's an
expert because a brand has like flown you first class
(16:27):
to like tour their facilities, Like come on.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
What were your thoughts when you first saw this video
blowing up? What were your thoughts?
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Just generally, I thought, well, this company has found themselves
a useful crop of fools, Like yay, they've been looking
for him and they just walked right in.
Speaker 3 (16:47):
They were like, we're here.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Oh oh, Like I I there's a okay. So I
go back and forth right because I obviously there's a
part of me that feels like these influencers, while they
are full of hubris about like their own importance and knowledge,
they're indicative of a larger problem. And I do feel
(17:11):
like the Internet loves a bit of low hanging fruit,
like and this is some low hanging fruit right here,
because it's indicative of a larger problem with a system
where the vast majority of people that you follow on
social media, if they are selling clothing, are actually selling
sweatshop clothes. It's just easier to go after the group
(17:35):
that decided to go with Goliath, and Chan is a
goliath in this system. But H and M still can't
say that they can guarantee that every person in their
supply chain is paid a living wage. How many influencers
work with H and M.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
You know how.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
Many people that everyone follows sells clothing. I don't sell
clothing on my grid. I work with one designer who
is extremely ethical, and we do not sell a lot
of pieces because people are still not grasping that it
is worth it to actually like buy ethical clothing. It
doesn't sell at the same rate, So I'm not going
(18:11):
to be a millionaire from that. I do it because
when I started my collaboration, there wasn't a lot of
ethical fashion that could be made in any size because
it was still sort of an up and up thing.
Now there's a lot more options, But that was why
I wanted to do it. I knew I wasn't going
to like be really rich off of it, but I
don't really aspire to that anyways. But at the root
(18:36):
of it on social media is somebody is completely monetizing
their life through social media and they're selling clothing. A
lot of that is going to be unethical clothing because
it's very hard to make an entire living off of
selling clothing without working with one of the bigger companies
(19:02):
that frankly is exploiting people it's so endemic and we're
so used to it, and we're so used to looking
the other way. But the truth is, I think that
people need to maybe spread it around a bit, like, yeah,
obviously you call yourself an investigative journalist, Like that's gonna
(19:22):
come for you. That was wild, The internet is going
to come for you. But like, at the end of
the day, I think a lot of people follow people
online that have platforms that are selling you exploitative goods,
and we're not questioning that enough, but maybe we should,
you know, maybe everyone's sponsors should be questioned in that way,
(19:44):
because the truth is, influencers. This system of fast fashion
wouldn't exist without influencers, and if it did, it would
be a lot smaller and people would not beginning as
rich as they're getting. But like, part of the reason
brands can afford to influencers around the world on lavish
trips is because they're not paying garment workers. If everyone
(20:08):
we're paid fairly a lot of these influencer trips, just
the budgets for the marketing would not be the same.
So I think we need to really get straight with
the fact that people in our society, some who are
at the top of the charts when it comes to privilege,
(20:28):
are trading on other people's lives in these systems, Like
you know, I see a lot of people who have platforms,
and some of them, deep down inside you kind of
know this person is like independently wealthy and they don't
even have to sell sweatshop goods, and then they still do,
and it's like, why why are we supporting this? When
(20:49):
a celebrity wears like fast fashion, everyone's like, you're like
one with the people, and it's like, no, it's real.
They're happy to exploit people. Yeah, you're so real with
your sweatshop guard, Like, why are we celebrating this? So
I think we haven't been entirely honest with ourselves for
a long time in this conversation. But you know, no
(21:10):
time like the present.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
Once upon a time, I was an influencer, or at
least kind of trying to be one. I know, right,
hard to believe, but this was back during the time
where it seems like if you wanted to have any
platform at all, you had to also be an influencer.
And I stopped because it just didn't make me feel
(21:33):
very good. I quickly started feeling like if I wanted
to make any real money doing it, I had to
say yes to working with any brand that would have me,
whether I wanted to or not, Because influencing is kind
of like the new wanting to be a rock star
or a professional baseball player. I looked it up, and
study after study suggests that more and more kids say
(21:53):
they want to be influencers when they grow up. So
if it's a crowded space that supposedly everybody wants to
be in, maybe that's why I felt like I just
had to take whatever came to me. But something that
she and Brand Trip really shows is the consequences with
influencers are not choosy and intentional about what brands they
lend their platforms to, And maybe that's in part because
(22:14):
there are just too many influencers now. Don't get me wrong,
Influencing is very real work, and I want folks to
be paid for their labor. But the crowded space can
create these conditions where influencers are not necessarily thinking critically
about the corporations they're shilling for. Instead, they're just worried
about booking that brand deal and getting that check. And
(22:36):
in a world where all of our oppression is connected.
That just doesn't sit right with me. You know, you
really hit on something that I think is complicated. So
I want to choose my words carefully.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
You know.
Speaker 1 (22:48):
This is also part in part a conversation about influencers
and the influencer economy. Right, I very briefly tried my
hand at being an influencer, and part of why that
didn't work out was that you just end up feeling
crappy because you end up feeling like you can't say no.
You have to say yes, especially when you're just starting out,
or when you're like a black woman or woman of
color or like marginalized in some way.
Speaker 3 (23:10):
Right, And so I know.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
That influencing it's it's an easy thing to like make
fun of, but it is work. And I want influencers
to be paid. But an influencer, yeah, you know it
more than anybody. But an influencer being paid does not
negate the harm that the company paying them is doing.
Like the influencer who made that she and video was like, well,
(23:33):
we were paid very well and they flew us.
Speaker 3 (23:35):
It was really a good experience.
Speaker 1 (23:37):
And I was like, I don't think people are responding
because they were worried that she and wasn't paying their
influencer as well.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
It's about the human rights abuses.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
It's about it's about the ethical responsibilities that this company
is skirting. And so I wonder, how do we make
sense of like wanting influencers to be paid for their
for their labor, but also wanting them to do so
in a way that is not contributing to harm because
(24:04):
I felt like there was no way to square that circle.
And I was like, influencing is not for me, because
to make any real money, you basically have to chill
for things that are not values a lot, which is
like didn't make any sense, and so I don't even
really know what I'm asking, But how can we square that?
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Well? I think, Yeah, I get a little bit worried
that too many people want to be influencers, because people
want to be famous regardless of what they do, and
that's the issue. And then it sort of became like, oh,
you can only have a platform if you like speak
(24:44):
on you know, certain topics or you have like what's
your niche issue that you care about? And then I thought,
oh God, let's get ready for some real like empty dialogue,
you know what I mean, Like everybody's got like a
everyone's got a cause, you know, but it's just like
like a lot of people, I'm like, you can just
admit you just want to be famous. You don't have
(25:04):
to be like oh yeah, and I'm like, you know,
I'm a mental health person.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Mental health like one, Like it's so annoying.
Speaker 1 (25:12):
You're like, you know, just be It's okay to want
just want to be famous and have a platform. You
don't need to you don't need to opine publicly.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Every everybody wants to have like a cause so that
they can be like I'm deep, and it's like, maybe
we don't all need to have this because we're having
a lot of shallow conversations now. But at the end
of the day, I don't think the world needs as
many influencers as we have. I don't think that it's
really an occupation that like I've read some survey and
(25:44):
I don't remember where, but it was like one out
of seven school children who's like asked about what they
want to be when they grow up, says they want
to be an influencer. And I'm like, no, no, yeah,
you know, I think this idea of wanting to be
famous just for being famous is it's quite weird, to
(26:06):
be honest. For me, I've always seen platforms as a
way to open doors to things that I've always wanted
to do. So, like I have always wanted to write,
but like you know, I told my parents, Oh, I
want to write, and they were like, yeah, good luck
with that. There's so many black women writers out there
that are being celebrated in our society. It's just like,
you know, twenty years ago, so I wasn't encouraged to
(26:28):
go into this path, and so I kind of saw
having a platform as a way of achieving the things
that I wanted to do career wise. And I think
we really have to question, like who are we following
and why, you know, Like I guess we shouldn't be
that surprised that people want platforms just to be famous
(26:49):
in a world where like no one can stop talking
about the Kardashians, you know, I think it's really indicative
of our society. But at the end of the day,
I just think maybe we just need fewer people wanting
to like go after this sort of work, because at
(27:12):
the end of the day, we're propping up something that
I don't necessarily think is great, like there could be
a lot of great things achieved from online spaces. But
if people, if everybody wants to have a cause, and
everybody claims to care about the same stuff, like oh,
I don't want to oppress women, then what are we
(27:32):
doing in this conversation? You know? How did we get
to this place? And I think we also need to
understand that, like influencing is a fairly young occupation. It's
been what around for like twenty years or so, so
like my generation had the ability to shape this occupation
and to something that could be great, and we've just
(27:55):
found ourselves in the same capitalist healthscape where the corporations
have everyone under their thumb. And so I really think
that influencers need to think about, like what is it
that we're trying to achieve, And like maybe if we
get with the winning team and all start to maybe
organize a little bit, not only can we fight for
(28:17):
better for ourselves, but we can transform industries fast fashion
when it sell without people willing to sell it. But
we need to really get with the winning team about
like what that looks like and what those sorts of
sacrifice look like. If we want everyone to be paid,
Like at one point in time, people are sort of
kicking around this idea of an influencer union in the UK,
(28:40):
and when asked about it, I was just like no,
because I'm the daughter of a union president ex union president.
But your union has to recognize other unions. You have
to have a code of ethics. And it's the majority
of the If the majority of the sponsors of the
(29:05):
people within this union are brands that bust unions, then
what are we doing. You can't unionize will not recognizing
other people's unions. That's not how that works. And so
like we're at a crossroads where people really need to
like figure out what sits right with their morals. And
(29:26):
I'm never going to say that like influencing is easy,
because it isn't. I think that content creators can be
incredibly skilled, but it is still an occupation that is like,
you know, you're not clean and gutters, you know what
I mean, Like you're not you're you're not like you know,
(29:48):
like there's a lot of other occupations you could do.
It doesn't have to be the one where like you
know that the highs are high and the lows are low,
you know, And so people people need to get right
with their ethics here, and what that's really going to
look like is folks sitting stuff out, Like we're all
looking at the Writer's Guild strike and I'm like right on,
(30:10):
like union strong, you know, just like power to the workers,
you know, like we're all watching this go down. But
like people don't realize what solidarity should look like across
the board. You know. So if you are like an
influencer and you don't want to like oppress people and
sell things that oppress people, then you need to actually
(30:33):
figure out what that's going to look like for you.
If the only thing you can think of is, oh,
I got to take money from like these horrible brands,
then like maybe this isn't the thing that you should
be going for. The reality is I knew that I
couldn't do that, and so I diversified and I you know,
started doing Patreon long before the lockdown, which served me well.
(30:57):
I wanted to write books, I wanted to do a
lot of different things, but I did not ever want
to take money to say on my grid that like
some big box brand was not oppressing people when I
know the majority of them are.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
You have pledged that you will never take a dime
from Fast Fashion?
Speaker 3 (31:33):
How did that? How did that pledge come to be?
Speaker 2 (31:37):
So I pledged that I would never sponsor my grid
with Fast Fashion to be honest, like, I would love
to get in a room with some of these CEOs
and then have them pay me to just yell at them,
like find them style like better, Oh my god, oh
my hit him, Oh my goodness. That would be like
(32:02):
the dream to like take their money to like not
just yell at them, but also like hold them to
account and get paid to do it. I would love
to do that. So, you know, in the beginning, I
was like, I'll never take a dollar from Fast Fashion,
but I will never ever sit on my platform and say, well,
actually they're not too bad to try and everyone they
(32:25):
used like organic cutt and one T shirt last year.
Because that's basically what's happening now. If I were to
be in a position where I'm paid to like hold
these brands to account or drag them publicly, like I
was thinking about what that would look like recently, I
was like, how do I get to a point where
like I'm using this platform to really really like get
(32:47):
in CEO's heads, but yeah, I basically when I started
talking about sustainability, I had just moved to the UK
and me and my partner had gotten married and had
to do visa process and my god, we were broke.
And so I had this platform, and my partner was like, hey,
you need to start making some money because now you
(33:10):
have your working papers, and I was like, I know,
but I can't, and he was just like, well do something,
and so like we went back and forth because like
at some point in time I was gonna have to
like start working. And I basically loved writing every day
about sustainability, and I found that there wasn't a There
(33:34):
was a real lack of actual honest information about sustainability
on Instagram at the time, and people really wanted that.
People were seeking that. They wanted someone who would say,
like this brand sucks and here's why. And I couldn't
do that and then also be like, by the way,
today's add is spalter Zara.
Speaker 3 (33:55):
You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
So I sort of like talked to my community that
was slowly building, and I said, look, I love sharing
information with you all, but like I got to get
paid somehow, but I don't want to do it.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
That way.
Speaker 2 (34:08):
So I'm going to start a Patreon and if a
certain amount of you sign up, I will continue Monday
through Friday to post here. I will keep the ads
to a minimum. If I ever work with a sponsor,
you better believe that they're going to be ethical and bcore.
To this day, the only sponsors that I've had on
my grid have been like, you know, resell sites like eBay,
(34:30):
festi Air Collective, which is very very like that. That
is like the perfect partnership for me because that's how
I buy the majority of my clothing, and I love
helping people to like realize that, like, actually you don't
have to buy anything new because this entire system runs
off of overproduction, which means that if there's something you want,
(34:51):
it'll pop up on resale eventually. There have been like
very few things that I have never seen that I've
that has caught my eye on a store that hasn't
popped up on eBay or best Stair Collective. Very few,
and so I basically told my readership, I really really
really want to keep this space ad free because we
know what advertising looks like in this space. And people
(35:15):
were actually really jazzed about that, and it was great
because it was twenty eighteen and by twenty twenty, starting
a newsletter, which is something I do, or starting a
Patreon or starting a substack was like it was like
the Great Migration of like, you know, if you joined
at that point, you were like a trout swimming upstream
(35:37):
with everyone else. But I felt like I had already
sort of cemented myself there because I was like, I
can't do this. I don't want to sell you stuff,
and you know, I don't want to. I don't ever
want to have to worry about paying a light bill
and then saying something that isn't true and I know
probably isn't that or not even like you know, having
(36:01):
to look the other way in order to like really
take the money. And sometimes it is hard, like recently
I did a panel and I found out the day
before that one of the brands on the panel had
been like caught up and like something where they hadn't
been using a good factory basically, and that was very awkward.
(36:21):
Sometimes things like that are really unavoidable, But I try
my darness to not be in those situations because I
don't know, I want to like like who I am
when I look in the mirror, and I know that
if I had financed my life through taking money from
people that were oppressing women of color, I wouldn't like that,
(36:45):
And I think it's time for everyone to sort of
view a lot of these companies is that way. And
if we can actually start to get to a point
where we're actually towing a party line as content creators, together,
we can actually transform these industries because a lot of
these brands need us. But the problem is people are
so thirsty that they're just like, I'll take a dollar
(37:07):
from anyone. I'll do it for one hundred dollars, And
it's like, no, if we actually like organize for ourselves,
not only could we get these brands paying better fair
rates for like the advertisement because they get so much
from influencers they really do, but we could also tow
the party line and be like, guess what if you're
(37:29):
not paying your garment workers, you don't get to work
with any influencers. That would be the power of organizing
in the space, But unfortunately it's not going to happen
until people realize that our liberation is intrinsically tied to
the person in the global South who is bearing the
brunt of the system, and that's the problem. We think
(37:51):
that like we're we think we're disconnected from it, but like, no,
a company that exploits that person over there is more
than happy to exploit you.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
All of that sounds pretty bleak, but it doesn't have
to be. Creating a better relationship with consuming and what
and how we buy can actually be transformative. It can
change our relationship to our space, our bodies, the way
we feel about ourselves.
Speaker 3 (38:16):
It can be an opportunity, not a punishment.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
This all sounds very doom and gloomy, but I will
say the experience of reading your book was there there's
a bright side to it, I guess is what I'm saying,
Like everything that you just said is correct and scary
and seems really big, But the reality is is that
we can make small changes, like we don't have to
wait for corporations.
Speaker 3 (38:39):
To be better.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
We don't have to like we can make small changes
like in the pandemic. I've talked about this on the show.
I got a little bit like addicted to buying cheap crap.
I didn't need just for like a boost because I
was feeling yeah, and I had to take a step
back and be like what am I doing here? Like
the amount of boxes outside of my apartment was it's
like embarrassing to me. And when I started really thinking
(39:03):
about my consumption habits and how social media was part
of it, and really undoing and unpacking some of that,
it really changed my relationship to my home because I
didn't have my closets were not filled with the brim
with crap. I didn't need my physical presentation because so
much of those clothes were garbage. Like I found this
(39:24):
tiede fucking two piece sweatsuit that I bought on Amazon,
and I was like, why did I buy this? This
looks ridiculous and it looks ridiculous on me. When you
when you stop consuming and then you actually focus on
acquiring things that you like, that feel good, that are
that are designed, that are like made well. I not
(39:45):
the company made well, but.
Speaker 3 (39:46):
Made space well. Uh made clear about that.
Speaker 1 (39:50):
Like my dad gave me this leather jacket that it
used to wear in the seventies that I've now been
like oiling and taking very good care of. And it's
like I have a news sense of pride and love
for the things that I that I really value.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
And then when I put them on my body. I
feel better.
Speaker 1 (40:07):
It's really this sounds hippy toppy and all of that,
and it sounds like it sounds, but it really has
been transformative.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
You're completely right about that. The truth in the matter is,
I think we view like slowing down our consumption cycles
is like, Oh, it's gonna be so boring and I'm
gonna hate it and it's gonna be terrible. And I
can say my wardrobe is four hundred percent better than
it was when I was buying fast fashion because I
(40:34):
really think about the things I bring into my closet.
Not only do I think about it, but getting away
from fast fashion forces you to actually figure out your style,
your personal style, because we all think that we're being
freed by fast fashion, but if anything, you're just getting
a ton of trends pushed at you. You think you
(40:56):
have free will in this, but in actuality, the things
that are being sold to you you have been picked
out for you by experts months in advance. So you're like, ooh,
look at me with this, like my styles really developed,
But really you look like a lot of other people
in the global North who shopped at the same store.
And so you know, when you start to really not
(41:19):
want to engage with this stuff anymore. You find that
you really start to actually find what your style is.
You start investing in things, you know, because you're not
shopping every month anymore. So, like I used to say,
I was that person in my twenties that would be like, well,
I do like that brand's great if you can afford it,
(41:39):
And like, there were time periods where I was not
making a lot of money and I was moving in
and out of my parents' basement, and I would argue
that was probably buying a lot of fast fashion to
like soothe those feelings of an adequacy that I had. Right,
so I'm looking at like an ethical brand and sizing
it up and talk talking about how I can't really
(42:01):
afford that thing. But I'm literally handing two hundred dollars
a month to like fast fashion companies and not even
realizing I'm doing it literally, you know, and just not
even quantifying what I'm doing. And then it turns out
that like, actually, maybe I could have afforded that very
(42:23):
nice dress. I just didn't need to buy five dresses
from H and M last summer. Funny that, you know.
And so when you really stop to like you know,
be present, but also just like get off of this
trend cycle. You find yourself really leaning into like the
core and the essence of what it is that you love,
(42:46):
and then you know your your style doesn't change with
you know, you'll obviously there'll be sometimes where you'll experiment
with this and that, but like the core of what
your style is, in the essence of what your style
is isn't going to change as fast as the system
of micro trends. So like for me, if I find
a dress that I love on eBay, I'm still gonna
(43:09):
love it three years from now because I love it,
which is why it's great because now I shop that way,
you know, and I always, I always have used eBay
for buying clothes. I just didn't share it with my
peers because it wasn't very cool until recently. But now
I find that, like there are brands I love to
(43:30):
go back and buy things that I didn't have money
for like years ago, but like maybe like a luxury
item that like I really really love but could never afford,
and then I go and find it on eBay and
it's like, you know, seventy percent off of like the
retail price. You know what I mean. So once you
(43:50):
start to really like dive into your style and get
away from trends, it cannot only be super fulfilling, but
you're gonna find that, like you have a wardrobe that
brings you so much joy, and when you have that,
you're not chasing the trends anyways. But additionally, I always
say that fast fashion is kind of a bit like sugar.
(44:13):
So in the US, we put sugar in everything, like everything,
and I live in the UK now and they do
not put sugar in everything, and it is very noticeable
when you first get here. I crave sugar, like I'm
a sugar fiend, and it's the last thing for me
that I need to like tap down on, like I
barely drink. I have a mostly vegetarian diet, but sugar
(44:36):
is my vice. So when I get to the UK,
I'm always like craving the sugar, like, oh, give it
to me. And then after like a few weeks sort
of like tampers off. And then when I go back
to the State, I might go out to like a
restaurant that I really rate and get like a dessert
that I used to love, and when I'm eating it,
I'm like this so sweet, like you can really tell
(45:02):
when you've been away from it, and fast fashion is
the same, except I find myself saying, was this always
so crap?
Speaker 3 (45:10):
You know?
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Like when I first took time and basically said, like
moving to the UK really helped me because I had
no money and I had also had to like really
lighten my possession, so I wasn't in a massive rush
to like go and acquire new things, and so I
really took some time from all the stores, I unsubscribed,
(45:31):
from all the email lists, no apps, YadA, YadA, YadA,
and I would say the next time I went into
an H and M, after taking like six months to
just really clear my head and start to get away
from fast fashion, all I could think about was how
everything was plastic, and the stores they smell weird. They
(45:53):
smell they smell weird, and that's because there are a
bunch of things that they spray the clothing in transit
to keep it from wrinkling. So you start to notice
things like that when you take time away with slow fashion,
the quality, I just it's incomparable. I do some like
(46:15):
personal shopping and personal styling virtually through my Patreon, and
one of the things that I always I never get
sick of is the person who gets their first like
slow fashion purchase and they're just like the quality they
just can't keep. They just they're like, this is unbelievable
because we really haven't noticed, like while being in the
(46:40):
fast fashion cycle that things have gotten pretty bad. But
then when you compare it to something that's a lot
better quality, you're like, oh, we just think that like
it's gonna be terrible because consumerism has trained us to
believe that, Like, this is how we participate in societiety.
(47:00):
This is how you show the world your personal style.
This is how you this is the hobby you do
in your downtime. This is how you reward yourself when
you're feeling bad. This is what you do when you
need a new outfit for a job interview, which you
absolutely don't need a new outfit for a job interview.
That person's never met you before, they will not know
if it's an old outfit, you know. So, like we
(47:22):
trick ourselves into thinking that consumerism is like our best friend,
but in actuality, it's killing the planet and thus killing us,
and we need to think about it differently.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Basically, when you think about what's on the horizon. It
does seem like people are kind of catching up, you know.
Secondhand clothing is kind of having a moment. Thrifting is
having a moment. People are having conversations about consumption. Are
you Are you hopeful that we will sort of get
(47:54):
ourselves out of this?
Speaker 3 (47:55):
Do you see that happening?
Speaker 2 (47:58):
M Well, I am hopeful, but you know, not to
get depressing. But like all this is going to come
to a screeching hole because Mother Nature is about to
like clamp down on us really hard. So what you
need to understand with these systems is we're all over
consuming the consumer. The brands are obviously overproducing, pushing us
(48:20):
to over consume. If we don't change this ship around,
we won't have the raw materials for a lot of
these brands to keep going. But we can't keep going
like this forever. All of these systems right are playing
such a crucial part on the natural resources that our
(48:41):
lovely planet provides for us for free, and these brands
are taking way more than their fair share. I'm kind
of hopeful though, that people start to see these systems
for what it is before it comes to that, because,
like I said, this is sort of like the last Hurrah.
It seems like the fashion industry just said it's just
going to ride the car until the wheels fall off.
(49:03):
But if the wheels fall off, things are going to
look really, really bad. So people think that like, ethical
fashion is expensive now you just wait until coon cost
one hundred dollars a yard, you know what I mean.
But if we keep depending on this system of overproduction
and over consumption somewhat pushed by influencers, like by all means,
(49:25):
the companies are totally at fault. The billionaires are at fault.
But the person who has a platform, who thinks none
of this has anything to do with them and I'm
just trying to get a paycheck, you're at fault too,
because if you have like the same following count as
me on Instagram and you're selling people something daily, you
are selling thousands of product a year, hundreds and thousands
(49:47):
of products a year, and probably getting a really nice
affiliate linking check, so you're also like richer than everyone else,
but then also going, oh, well, I can't afford to change,
this is how I make a living. No, maybe it
is you that needs to change, because this system won't
go on forever, and then like then, what we now
have a system where like people truly can't afford clothing.
(50:10):
I don't want to live like that. So I really
hope that people wake up and realize that, like, these
corporations are harming our planet and these systems of consumption
are hurting and harming us. And I don't think that
this is an impossible thing for us to do. I
think we really need to be honest with ourselves and
(50:34):
look at where we are in this system, and look
at who we are in this system. You know, if
you're the person who really really just needs that pair
of work trousers from Primmark, I am never going to
show up and like slap your wallet out of your hand,
because I'm not a bad person. But that's not how
Primark turns loads and loads of profit. They turn loads
(50:57):
and loads of profit by people going on holes there.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
You know.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
So like realizing who you are in this system and
what you can like afford to do honestly, it's going
to be a crucial part. And like asking yourself, do
I even want to participate this way? Because I remember
when I was buying fast fashion feeling really like I
don't know a bit sort of like push to do
(51:24):
it in a way where I wasn't comfortable, like taking
out my summer clothing from the year before and then
being like, Oh, all these stresses are really nice, They're
still good. I don't know why I feel compelled to
buy new dresses. So ask yourself, do you even like
being in the system? And if you don't, like, what
are you going to do differently? But rest assure when
(51:46):
people say that like, oh, it's not on the individual,
it's on the corporation. The corporation does require you. It
requires a lot of us buying into it, It requires
people over consuming. And if you don't think in corporations
don't feel threatened by like sustainability, in many ways they do.
There's a reason why, like every trash bag company is
(52:09):
now sort of starting to do like secondhand resale because
they see that us as citizens are actually caring about
this stuff and they want a piece of the pie.
So we get to say that, oh, we care about sustainability,
and also like we can profit twice from like the
same crap, except some of that stuff doesn't hold up
(52:30):
long enough for it to have two owners. But that's
another story. I do think that corporations realize that, like
the writing is on the wall, and the more we
become informed citizens and the more we start to really
take action and change how we into how we interact
with this system, the more we can actually change the
(52:50):
system for the better.
Speaker 1 (52:52):
Okay, so what did you think of that she and
brantrip and what are your thoughts on fast fashion retailers
like Shian? You can let me know email at Hello
at tangodi dot com, on my Instagram at bridget ran DC,
on Twitter at bridget money, or you can always subscribe
to our Patreon at patreon dot com slash tangody because
I kind of can't stop talking about it and I
would love to hear your thoughts. Got a story about
(53:18):
an interesting thing in tech, or just want to say hi?
You can read us at Hello at tangody dot com.
You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tengodi
dot com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was
created by Me bridget tod. It's a production of iHeartRadio,
an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tarry
Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almato is
our contributing producer, I'm your host.
Speaker 4 (53:39):
Bridget Todd.
Speaker 3 (53:40):
If you want to help us grow, rate and review.
Speaker 4 (53:42):
Us on Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 1 (53:44):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 4 (53:47):
Or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 2 (54:00):
Yeah, yeah,
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