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