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