Shein is hurting all of us and influencers are helping them do it — BEST OF TANGOTI
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If fashion is your thing, eBay is it. eBay is where I find all my favorites, from handbags to iconic streetwear, all authenticated. For real. This time, a little Supreme, some Gucci. I even have that vintage Prada on my watch list. That's why eBay is my go-to for all my go-tos. Yeah, eBay. The place for new, pre-loved, vintage, and rare fashion. eBay. Things people love.

Amazon is the largest online retailer in the entire world. So Amazon's business decisions really matter because they can set the tone for the entire retail space.

And this week, Amazon announced they were building out their own super cheap fast fashion retail site where items will ship directly from China to the United States to compete with the suspiciously low cost Chinese online retail giant, Xi'an. Now, Xi'an is a huge and not to mention not super ethical player in the retail space.

After a disastrous Shein influencer brand trip, I spoke to Aja Barber, author of Consumed, Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism, about the cycle of fast fashion, Shein, and how it's doing real harm to all of us. All of a sudden, everyone's an expert because a brand has flown you first class to tour their facilities? Like, come on. There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative.

I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. Lately, folks have been having conversations about our consumption habits and the internet.

Like, should we really be fawning over the Kardashians' overconsumption on social media? And for a hot second, de-influencing was a thing, where rather than telling you to buy more stuff, influencers actually told you what stuff not to buy. Until, that is, the whole thing was kind of co-opted by brands.

who were basically like, yeah, girl, de-influence. Don't buy this stuff, buy our stuff instead. And of course, those fashion hauls where people on TikTok show off bags and bags of stuff they bought from fast fashion retailers. Now, it is impossible to talk about fast fashion without talking about Shein. Pronounced Shein, as in, she in trouble for those TikTok videos, as Madison Malone Kircher put it at the New York Times. Shein clothes are cheap.

suspiciously cheap.

Cheap enough that it makes you think, how could this dress really only cost $6? Well, if a slew of recent reports are any indication, the answer is forced labor, human rights violations, stealing designs, gamifying our online shopping habits, wreaking havoc on our environment, and selling us clothes full of chemicals that make us sick. Last year, Wired did a great investigative deep dive about the toll that all of this takes on both the people who make Shein's clothing and the people like us who buy it.

And there's another thread to this web too. Influencers. The people who go on social media and shill for brands online for profit. So given all this, all of this harm, can influencers, many of whom talk a big game about causes like supporting women or championing the environment, can they ethically hype up fast fashion retailers? Last week, after a disastrous Shein brand trip, the internet answered with a resounding and loud, no.

And Aja Barber, author of Consumed, The Need for Collective Change, Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism, says that the Internet's reaction might be a sign that maybe what we're really craving isn't a $5 crop top at all, but a new and better system, one that isn't built on exploitation.

I've written this book called Consumed. If you are interested in what we talk about today, please get it. You will really, really be shocked by some of the stuff you learn. I kind of think of you as like the OG person talking about sustainability. Like maybe there were people doing it before you, but you were definitely the first voice I heard doing it. So I kind of have to start there. Like, did you just kind of start having these conversations and hope the rest of the world caught up with like what, like you're like, I'll be here when y'all are ready. Yeah.

Yeah, so that's, there was no like turning point, but I'll be honest, I just kind of was like, I, this system might be kind of crappy. I always had a niggling feeling with fast fashion, that there was something really crappy going on. I couldn't just shut up and shop. I was kind of a bit like,

but how do they get these prices so low? Like just constantly asking myself that, even though like there were times where I couldn't afford anything different, but I still had to ask the question, especially as a curious person and as someone who likes to do crafts and knit and sew. But the other part of it was I found that people really did not like having this conversation.

consumerism. It has its claws in us. And I noticed in some spaces that you and I were in together, like people could be as lefty and right on and righteous about every topic under the sun. But if I were like, Hey guys, I think maybe we shouldn't be shopping at forever 21. Cause I think they're exploiting people. It would be like you, you know,

fart it in the pool. Everyone would start like throwing like tomatoes at you and get really mad and be super defensive. And I was like, oh, okay. Consumerism has us in like a death grip. And so I started to just notice that

there was a lot of inconsistency within people's behavior in this conversation. Like, yeah, support all women, super feminist, right on women, but also like, let's not buy sweatshop clothing, boo. And so I kind of just was always in spaces where I would sort of like test the waters for the conversation. And I kind of feel like I've been talking about this for like,

10 years now. I've been thinking about it for 10 years now. And it's kind of like jumping into a jump rope, like a double Dutch jump rope. Like you're going like this, you're waiting for the moment. So you test the water and you're like, nope, they're not ready. And then there just became a moment where it was like, okay, I think people are ready to have this conversation now. And I don't know if it's a mixture of us realizing that like

climate change is coming for us all and these systems are aiding in it and no one's going to be safe, or whether it was people actually starting to realize that these systems aren't good for us. All they're doing is creating billionaires and oppression. But it finally feels like folks have come around. From following you and other folks who create content about sustainability,

People do have these very strong, sometimes pretty weird defensive reactions when you talk about what you talk about. Like I've seen people say like, oh, this is really classist because some people can only afford to shop fast fashion or this is really fat phobic because maybe this brand is the only size this person can find to fit them.

Why do you think that is? And how do we, how do you have these conversations in a way where folks can actually hear and like take in what you're saying without jumping to that defensive point? I just feel like I have been repeating the same thing for a hundred years. No, I'm just kidding. It is just really saying like the same thing. And one of the first

Things I realized that people were deeply hypocritical about is we're having a conversation about poverty, but like folks do not want to include the garment workers and the people that make the clothing in that conversation. That is deeply hypocritical. And that is tied to a weird colonialist idea that we think that if somebody lives over there, they should be okay with being poor.

That's that's because you also hear it when people say things like, well, that's a good job in that country. And I always sort of push back a little and go, okay, well, do you want to do that job? And they're like, no. And then I'm like, okay, why not? And they're like, well, well, well, and then they start getting backed into a corner and super defensive. But what I want people to do is like recognize that like,

they're playing a part in these colonialist ideas as we're all talking about like decolonize this and that you know what i mean like um there was a time period where everybody was sort of talking about colonialism and how it shows up today but the mere idea that you think someone in the global south wouldn't want to make the same nice wages we do for the same sort of work that we used to do in our country that's a colonialist idea the idea that you think that someone should be

grateful for a crappy job in an unsafe factory with bad wages. That's a colonialist idea. And then at the end of this system, because it is a linear system, production,

End of life. We also have a colonialist idea that somebody in the global South wants our scraps because a lot of the clothing that we buy today isn't the same quality that it was 20 years ago, because that's how you push billions of garments on your consumers by like really, really,

making sure that the quality is not great. So people are constantly buying, but also people are buying for a lot more reasons than that. But, you know, we, we buy 20 times more clothing than we bought in 1990. And that means that there's a lot more waste and a lot more stuff being donated. And because we're buying such large quantities of clothes, we,

A lot of what is being donated ends up in the Global South.

usually in parts of Africa, being someone else's problem. So for instance, within the book Consumed, I write about Kantomonto Market in Accra, Ghana, and they receive 15 million items of clothing every week from the global north. Now, obviously, this market is not going to be able to resell 15 million items, which means 60% of what arrives in Ghana is wasted.

And when it becomes waste, it ends up everywhere it's not supposed to be. So the municipal dump has filled up 10 years ahead of schedule. The dump catches on fire because of all the clothing waste, which also like a lot of that stuff we're putting on our body and you should see how it's not decomposing, you know? Yeah.

It ends up on the beach. The beach there is incredibly polluted from the clothing waste. It ends up in neighborhoods. And so what we've created is a system of waste colonialism, but we have tricked ourselves into saying that like, oh, somebody in Africa is really going to be really happy with this

T-shirt with a twisted seam that I don't want to wear anymore because I know it's not good, but they're poor so they can have it. You know what I mean? Yeah. So like from start to finish, this system completely craps on nonwhite people. Um,

um, your clothing is either is made by a non-white person in the global South, usually in someone who's impoverished. And then at the end of its life, we just dump it right back in the global South on someone else. And that is why it is a racist system. And that is why when people say like, Oh, it's, it's classes that you should criticize this. Um,

I think they're just sort of dodging an actual conversation where we should talk about what our place is in this. Now, there won't, there will always be people who can't make different decisions, right? Like the Sheehan trousers are the ones that they need for work and those are the trousers they need for work.

Fine. That's not the vast majority of us. And when you look at the profit margins that fast fashion is pulling in, if all the poor people on the planet put all of their money together, they couldn't create these profit margins. These massive inflated billion dollar profit margins that the fast fashion industry is pulling in annually are

is created with money from customers who are over-consuming and buying often. And the people that can do that are middle and upper class people.

So let's talk about that because, I mean, by now you probably are sick of thinking about it, talking about it, being asked about it. I will never get sick of asking about it, talking about it until we stick it to these corporations. I want to, I just want to get them. So like, no, I'm not tired of it. I will talk about it until the cows come home because I want these billionaires to pay for what they've done. Don't worry. Aja and I talk all about that disastrous Shein brand trip after a quick break.

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To launder the company's unsavory reputation stemming from worker mistreatment and environmental and health harms, Shein called in the influencers. Shein flew a handful of influencers to Guangzhou, China, to tour one of Shein's factories and to visit its innovation center. It's well-lit, clean, and it actually looks like a pretty okay place to work. The influencers speak to workers about rumors of their mistreatment, and the workers say, oh no, we are being well-paid and enjoy easy commutes.

It all seems pretty rosy, much like that suspiciously cheap crop top, maybe a little too rosy. And that's because they were probably not actually talking to employees representative of the typical employee experience at Shein, nor were they in a typical representative factory.

Garment experts spotted pretty quickly that the facility the influencers were touring couldn't possibly be where Shein makes the clothes they sell. But that didn't keep these influencers from making glowing, positive content about what they saw and Shein's practices. One influencer, Danny DMC, their videos were particularly rage-baiting, and I'm not even totally sure why.

Maybe it's the way Danny refers to themselves as, quote, an investigative journalist and an independent thinker who gets all the facts and doesn't fall for negative Western propaganda about Xi'an like the rest of us sheep. Okay, Danny didn't really say that, but the gist was pretty clear.

Though, in subsequent videos where Danny walks back their partnership with Shein, they say they were paid very well by Shein. And at other times, they say no one is paying them to say these positive things about the company. There was just something about Danny's video that was just kind of smug, easy to hate. And oh boy, did people online hate. And trust me, I get it.

But Aja says Xi'an and the influencers who got flack for shilling for them are low-hanging fruit because Xi'an is such a big company. But they are not the only ones contributing to the harm here, not by a long shot. They're just the one that's the easiest to get mad about.

I do think that we have these ways of making ourselves feel better about something that deep down we know is harmful. And I think that the Shein influencership is a really good example of that on a completely different scale where, you know, it would be nice to think that those influencers were walking around this like,

clean, safe looking garment factory. And that that is actually where Shein produces their clothing. It would be nice to think that like their workers are treated well, but come on, like we know the truth. Can I also say, do any of these influencers talk about this thing on their grid? Talk about this particular topic ever? Like why are you all suddenly experts when you never discuss this?

Things like fair wages, fair treatment, ethical fashion, that sort of thing. All of a sudden, everyone's an expert because a brand has flown you first class to tour their facilities. Come on. What were your thoughts when you first saw this video blowing up? What were your thoughts just generally?

I thought, well, this company has found themselves a useful crop of fools. Like, yay. They've been looking for them and they just walked right in. They were like, we're here. Oh, man.

Oh, like, I there's Okay, so I go back and forth, right? Because I obviously, there's a part of me that feels like these influencers, while they are full of hubris about like their own importance and knowledge.

they're indicative of a larger problem. And I do feel like the internet loves a bit of low hanging fruit. Like, and this is some low hanging fruit right here because it's indicative of a larger problem with a system where the vast majority of people that you follow on social media, if they are selling clothing or actually selling sweatshop clothes, it's just easier to, um,

after the group that decided to go with Goliath. And Sheehan is a Goliath in this system, but H&M still can't say that they can guarantee that every person in their supply chain is paid a living wage. How many influencers work with H&M? You know, how many people that every...

Everyone follows, sells clothing. I don't sell clothing on my grid. I work with one designer who is extremely ethical and we do not sell a lot of pieces because people are still not grasping that it is worth it to actually buy ethical clothing. It doesn't sell at the same rate. So I'm not going to be a millionaire from that. I do it because when I started my collaboration, there

there wasn't a lot of ethical fashion that could be made in any size because it was still sort of an up and up thing. Now there's a lot more options, but that was why I wanted to do it. I knew I wasn't going to like be really rich off of it, but I don't really aspire to that anyways. But at the root of it was,

On social media, if somebody is completely monetizing their life through social media and they're selling clothing, a lot of that is going to be unethical clothing because it's very hard to make an entire living off of selling clothing without working with one of the bigger companies that

frankly is exploiting people it's it's so endemic and we're so used to it and we're so used to looking the other way but the truth is i think that people need to maybe spread it around a bit like yeah obviously you call yourself an investigative journalist like that was the wildest part for you

That was wild. The internet is going to come for you. But like at the end of the day, I think a lot of people follow people online that have platforms that are selling you exploitative goods. And we're not questioning that enough, but maybe we should, you know, maybe everyone's sponsors should be questioned in that way because the truth is influencers are

This system of fast fashion wouldn't exist without influencers. And if it did, it would be a lot smaller and people would not be getting as rich as they're getting. But like part of the reason brands can afford to fly influencers around the world on lavish trips is because they're not paying garment workers.

If everyone were paid fairly, a lot of these influencer trips, just the budgets for the marketing would not be the same. So I think we need to really get straight with the fact that people in our society, some who are at the top of the charts when it comes to privilege, are

Are trading on other people's lives in these systems like, you know, I see a lot of people who have platforms and some of them deep down inside you kind of know this person is like independently wealthy and they don't even have to sell sweatshop goods and then they still do.

And it's like, why? Why are we supporting this when a celebrity wears like fast fashion? Everyone's like, you're like one with the people. And it's like, no, they're happy to exploit people. Yeah, you're so real with your sweatshop garb. It's like, why are we celebrating this? So I think we haven't been entirely honest with ourselves for a long time in this conversation. But, you know, no time like the present. Once upon a time, I was an influencer.

or at least kind of trying to be one. I know, right? Hard to believe. But this was back during the time where it seems like if you wanted to have any platform at all, you had to also be an influencer. And I stopped because it just didn't make me feel very good.

I quickly started feeling like if I wanted to make any real money doing it, I had to say yes to working with any brand that would have me, whether I wanted to or not. Because influencing is kind of like the new wanting to be a rock star or a professional baseball player. I looked it up, and study after study suggests that more and more kids say they want to be influencers when they grow up. So if it's a crowded space that supposedly everybody wants to be in, maybe that's why I felt like I just had to take whatever came to me.

But something the Shein brand trip really shows is the consequences when influencers are not choosy and intentional about what brands they lend their platforms to. And maybe that's in part because there are just too many influencers. Now, don't get me wrong. Influencing is very real work, and I want folks to be paid for their labor. But the crowded space can create these conditions where influencers are not necessarily thinking critically about the corporations they're shilling for.

Instead, they're just worried about booking that brand deal and getting that check. And in a world where all of our oppression is connected, that just doesn't sit right with me. You know, you really hit on something that I think is complicated. So I want to choose my words carefully. You know, this is also part, in part, a conversation about influencers and the influencer economy, right? I very briefly tried my hand at being an influencer. And part of why that didn't work out was that you just...

you end up feeling crappy because you end up feeling like you can't say no. You have to say yes, especially when you're just starting out or when you're like a black woman or a woman of color or like marginalized in some way, right? And so I know that influencing, it's an easy thing to like make fun of, but it is work. And I want influencers to be paid.

An influencer being paid. Content creation is work. Yeah. You know it more than anybody. But an influencer being paid does not negate the harm that the company paying them is doing. Like, the influencer who made that Shein video was like, well, we were paid very well and they flew us. It was really a good experience. And I was like, I don't think people are responding because they were worried that Shein wasn't paying their influencers well. It's about the human rights abuses. It's about the ethical issues.

that this company is skirting. And so I wonder, how do we make sense of wanting influencers to be paid for their labor, but also...

wanting them to do so in a way that is not contributing to harm. Because I felt like there was no way to square that circle. And I was like, influencing is not for me because to make any real money, you basically have to chill for things that are not values a lot. So it just like didn't make any sense. And so I don't even really know what I'm asking, but how can we square that circle? Well, I think...

Yeah, I get a little bit worried that too many people want to be influencers because people want to be famous regardless of what they do. And that's the issue. And then it sort of became like, oh, you can only have a platform if you speak

speak on you know certain topics or you have like what's your your niche issue that you care about and then I thought oh god let's get ready for some real like empty dialogue you know what I mean like everybody's got like a everyone's got a cause you know and it's just like a lot of people I'm like you can just admit you just want to be famous you don't have to be like

oh yeah, and I'm like, you know, I'm a mental health person or whatever. Mental health is a big one. Like, it's so annoying where it's like, you know, just be, it's okay to want, just want to be famous and have a platform. You don't need to, you don't need to opine publicly. Everybody wants to have like a cause so that they can be like, I'm deep. And it's like,

Maybe we don't all need to have this because we're having a lot of shallow conversations now. But at the end of the day, I don't think the world needs as many influencers as we have. I don't think that it's really an occupation that like I read some survey and I don't remember where, but it was like one out of seven school children who's like,

asked about what they want to be when they grow up says they want to be an influencer and I'm like no yeah you know I think this idea of wanting to be famous just for being famous is

It's quite weird, to be honest. For me, I've always seen platforms as a way to open doors to things that I've always wanted to do. So like, I have always wanted to write, but like, you know, I told my parents, oh, I want to write. And they were like, yeah, good luck with that. There's so many Black women writers out there that are being celebrated in our society. This was like, you know, 20 years ago. So I wasn't encouraged to go into this path. And so I kind of saw...

having a platform as a way of achieving the things that I wanted to do career wise. And I think we really have to question like, who are we following and why? You know, like, I guess we shouldn't be that surprised that people want platforms just to be famous in a world where like, no one can stop talking about the Kardashians. Yeah.

You know, I think it's really indicative of our society. But at the end of the day, I just think maybe we just need fewer people wanting to like go after this sort of work because at the end of the day, we're propping up something that I don't necessarily think is great. Like there can be a lot of great things achieved from online spaces, but like

If people, if everybody wants to have a cause and everybody claims to care about the same stuff, like, oh, I don't want to oppress women, then what are we doing in this conversation? You know, how did we get to this place? And I think we also need to understand that, like,

influencing is a fairly young occupation. It's been, what, around for like 20 years or so. So like my generation had the ability to shape this occupation into something that could be great. And we've just found ourselves in the same capitalist hellscape where the corporations have everyone under their thumb. And so I really think that

influencers need to think about like, what is it that we're trying to achieve? And like, maybe if we get with the winning team and all start to maybe organize a little bit, not only can we fight for better for ourselves, but we can transform industries. Fast fashion wouldn't sell without people willing to sell it. But we need to really get with the winning team about like,

what that looks like and what those sorts of sacrifice look like if we want everyone to be paid. Like at one point in time, people were sort of kicking around this idea of an influencer union in the UK. And when asked about it, I was just like, no, because I'm the daughter of a union president, ex-union president, but your union has to recognize other unions. You have to have a code of ethics. And if the majority of the people

If the majority of the sponsors of the people within this union are brands that bust unions, then what are we doing? You can't unionize while not recognizing other people's unions. That's not how that works. And so like, we're at a crossroads where people really need to like,

figure out what sits right with their morals. And I'm never going to say that like influencing is easy because it isn't. I think that content creators can be incredibly skilled. But it is still an occupation that is like,

you know, you're not cleaning gutters. You know what I mean? Like you're not, you're, you're not like, you know, like there's a lot of other occupations you could do. It doesn't have to be the one where like,

you know, that the highs are high and the lows are low, you know? And so people, people need to get right with their ethics here. And what that's really going to look like is folks sitting stuff out. Like we're all looking at the, the writers guild strike and I'm like right on like union strong, you know, just like power to the workers, you know, like we're all,

watching this go down, but like people don't realize what solidarity should look like across the board, you know? So if you are like an influencer and you don't want to like oppress people and sell things that oppress people, then you need to actually figure out what that's going to look like for you. If the only thing you can think of is, oh, I got to take money from like these horrible brands, then like maybe this isn't the,

the thing that you should be going for. The reality is I knew that I couldn't do that. And so I, I diversified and I, you know, started doing Patreon long before the lockdown, which served me well. I wanted to write books. I wanted to do a lot of different things, but I did not ever want to take money to say on my grid that like some big box brand was not oppressing people when I know the majority of them are.

More after a quick break.

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You have pledged that you will never take a dime from Fast Fashion. How did that pledge come to be? So I pledged that I would never sponsor my grid with Fast Fashion. To be honest, like I would love to get in a room with some of these CEOs and then have them pay me to just yell at them, like fandom style, like, whatever.

Be better. Oh my God. Oh my God. Don't exploit your workers and then you hit him. Oh my goodness. That would be like the dream to like take their money to like, not just yell at them, but also like,

hold them to account and get paid to do it. I would love to do that. So I, you know, in the beginning I was like, I'll never take a dollar from fast fashion, but I will never ever sit on my platform and say, well, actually they're not so bad. They're trying everyone. Look, they use like organic cotton and one t-shirt last year. Cause that's basically what's happening.

Now, if I were to be in a position where I'm paid to like hold these brands to account or drag them publicly, like I was thinking about what that would look like recently. I was like, how do I get to a point where like I'm using this platform to really, really like get in CEOs heads? But yeah, I basically when I started talking about sustainability, I

I had just moved to the UK and me and my partner had gotten married and had to do the visa process and my God, we were broke. And so I had this platform and my partner was like, hey, you need to start making some money because now you have your working papers. And I was like, I know, but I can't. And he was just like, well, do something. And so like, we went back and forth because like,

At some point in time, I was going to have to like start working. And I basically loved writing every day about sustainability. And I found that there wasn't a...

there was a real lack of actual honest information about sustainability on Instagram at the time. And people really wanted that. People were seeking that. They wanted someone who would say like, this brand sucks and here's why. And I couldn't do that. And then also be like, by the way, today's ad is sponsored by Zara. You know what I mean? So I sort of like talked to my community that was slowly building. And I said, look,

I love sharing information with you all, but like I got to get paid somehow, but I don't want to do it that way. So I'm going to start a Patreon. And if a certain amount of you sign up, I will continue Monday through Friday to post here. I will keep the ads to a minimum. If I ever work with a sponsor, you better believe that they're going to be ethical and be core to this day. The only sponsors that I've had on my grid have been like

you know, resale sites like eBay, Festgear Collective, which is very, very like that, that is like the perfect partnership for me, because that's how I buy the majority of my clothing. And I love helping people to like, realize that like, actually, you don't have to buy anything new, because this entire system runs off of overproduction, which means that

if there's something you want, it'll pop up on resale eventually. There have been like very few things that I have never seen that has caught my eye in a store that hasn't popped up on eBay or Best Year Collected. Very few. And so I basically told my readership,

I really, really, really want to keep this space ad free because we know what advertising looks like in this space. And people were actually really jazzed about that. And it was great because it was 2018. And by 2020, so...

starting a newsletter, which is something I do, or starting a Patreon or starting a sub stack was like, it was like the great migration of like, you know, if you joined at that point, you were like a trout swimming upstream with everyone else. But I felt like I had already sort of cemented myself there because I was like, I can't do this. I don't want to sell you stuff. And, you know, I don't want to, I don't ever want to have to like worry about

paying a light bill and then saying something that isn't true. And I know probably isn't that, or not even like, you know, having to look the other way in order to like really take the money in. And sometimes it is hard. Like recently I did a panel and I found out the day before that one of the brands on the panel had been like,

caught up in like something where they hadn't been using a good factory basically. And that was very awkward. Sometimes things like that are really unavoidable, but I try my darndest to not be in those situations because I don't know. I want to like, like who I am when I look in the mirror and I know that if I,

had financed my life through taking money from people that were oppressing women of color. I wouldn't like that. And I think that,

It's time for everyone to sort of view a lot of these companies as that way. And if we can actually start to get to a point where we're actually towing a party line as content creators together, we can actually transform these industries because a lot of these brands need us. But the problem is people are so thirsty that they're just like...

I'll take a dollar from anyone. I'll do it for $100. And it's like, no, if we actually like organize for ourselves, not only could we get these brands paying better, fair rates for like the advertisement because they get so much from influencers. They really do. But we could also tow the party line and be like, guess what?

If you're not paying your garment workers, you don't get to work with any influencers. That would be the power of organizing in the space. But unfortunately, it's not going to happen until people realize that our liberation is intrinsically tied to the person in the global South who is

bearing the brunt of the system. And that's the problem. We think that like, we're, we think we're disconnected from it, but like, no, a company that exploits that person over there is more than happy to exploit you. All of that sounds pretty bleak, but it doesn't have to be. Creating a better relationship with consuming and what and how we buy can actually be transformative. It can change our relationship to our space, our bodies, the way we feel about ourselves. It

It can be an opportunity, not a punishment. This all sounds very doom and gloomy, but I will say the experience of reading your book was... There's a bright side to it, I guess is what I'm saying. Like, everything that you just said is correct and scary and seems really big. But the reality is that we can make small changes. Like, we don't have to wait for corporations to...

be better. We don't have like, like we can make small changes. Like in the pandemic, I've talked about this on the show. I got a little bit like addicted to buying cheap crap. I didn't need just for like a boost because I was feeling a lot of people did. Yeah. And I had to take a step back and be like, what am I doing here? Like the amount of boxes outside of my apartment was like embarrassing to me. And when I started really thinking about my consumption habits and how social media was part of it and really undoing and unpacking some of that,

It really changed my relationship to my home because I didn't have – my closets were not filled to the brim with crap I didn't need. My physical presentation because so much of those clothes were garbage. Like, I found this tie-dye fucking two-piece sweatsuit that I bought on Amazon and I was like, what?

why did I buy this? This looks ridiculous and it looks ridiculous on me. When you stop consuming and then you actually focus on acquiring things that you like, that feel good, that are designed, that are like made well, I...

Not the company made well, but made space well. Yes, yes. Make it clear about that. Like my dad gave me this leather jacket that he used to wear in the 70s that I've now been like oiling and taking very good care of. And it's like I have a new sense of pride and love for the things that I really value. And then when I put them on my body, I feel better. It's really – this sounds –

hippy-dippy and all of that, and it sounds like it sounds, but it really has been transformative. You're completely right about that. The truth of the matter is, I think we view slowing down our consumption cycles as like

Oh, it's going to be so boring and I'm going to hate it and it's going to be terrible. And I can say my wardrobe is 400% better than it was when I was buying fast fashion because I really think about the things I bring into my closet.

Not only do I think about it, but getting away from fast fashion forces you to actually figure out your style, your personal style, because we all think that we're being freed by fast fashion. But if anything, you're just getting a ton of trends

pushed at you. You think you have free will in this, but in actuality, the things that are being sold to you have been picked out for you by experts months in advance. So you're like, Ooh, look at me with this. Like my styles really develop, but really you look like a lot of other people in the global North who shopped at the same store. And so, you know, when you start to really not want to engage with this stuff anymore, you're,

you find that you really start to actually find what your style is. You start investing in things, you know, because you're not shopping every month anymore. So like I used to say, I was that person in my twenties that would be like, well, I do like that brand. It's great if you can afford it. And like,

There were time periods where I was not making a lot of money and I was moving in and out of my parents' basement. And I would argue that I was probably buying a lot of fast fashion to like soothe those feelings of inadequacy that I had. Right. So I'm looking at like an ethical brand and sizing it up and talking about how I can't really afford that thing. But I'm literally handing, um,

$200 a month to like fast fashion companies and not even realizing I'm doing it literally, you know, and just not even quantifying what I'm doing. And then it turns out that like, actually maybe I could have afforded that very nice dress. I just didn't need to buy five dresses from H&M last summer. Funny that, you know? And so, um,

When you really stop to like, you know, be present, but also just like get off of this trend cycle, you find yourself really leaning into like the core and the essence of what it is that you love. And then, you know, you're, you're,

Style doesn't change with, you know, you'll obviously there'll be some times where you'll experiment with this and that, but like the core of what your style is and the essence of what your style is isn't going to change as fast as the system of micro trends. So like for me, if I find a dress that I love on eBay, um,

I'm still going to love it three years from now because I love it, which is why it's great. Cause now I shop that way, you know, and I always, I always have used eBay for buying clothes. I just didn't share it with my peers cause it wasn't very cool until recently. But now I find that like,

There are brands. I love to go back and buy things that I didn't have money for like years ago, but like maybe like a luxury item that like I really, really love, but could never afford. And then I go and find it on eBay and it's like,

you know, 70% off of like the retail price. You know what I mean? So once you start to really like dive into your style and get away from trends, it can not only be super fulfilling, but you're going to find that like you have a wardrobe that brings you so much joy. And when you have that, you're not chasing the trends anyways. But additionally,

I always say that fast fashion is kind of a bit like sugar. So in the US, we put sugar in everything, like everything. And I live in the UK now and they do not put sugar in everything. And it is very noticeable when you first get here. I crave sugar, like I'm a sugar fiend. And it's the last thing for me that I need to like,

tap down on. Like I barely drink. I have a mostly vegetarian diet, but sugar is my vice. So when I get to the UK, I'm always like craving the sugar, like, oh, give it to me. And then after like a few weeks, sort of like tampers off. And then when I go back to the States, I might go out to like a restaurant that I really rate and get like a dessert that I used to love. And when I'm eating it, I'm like, okay.

was this always so sweet? You know, like you, you can really tell when you've been away from it and fast fashion is the same, except I, I find myself saying, was this always so crap? You know, like when I first took time to,

And basically said like moving to the UK really helped me because I had no money. And I had also had to like really lighten my possessions. So I wasn't in a massive rush to like go and acquire new things. And so I really took some time from all the stores. I unsubscribed from all the email lists, no apps, yada, yada, yada. And I would say,

The next time I went into an H&M after taking like six months to just really clear my head and start to get away from fast fashion, all I could think about was how everything was plastic. And the stores, they smell weird. They smell weird. They smell weird. And that's because there are a bunch of things that they spray the clothing with in transit to keep it from wrinkling. So...

You start to notice things like that when you take time away. With slow fashion, the quality, I just...

It's incomparable. I do some like personal shopping and personal styling virtually through my Patreon. And one of the things that I always, I never get sick of is the person who gets their first like slow fashion purchase. And they're just like the quality. They just can't keep, they just, they're like, this is unbelievable because we really haven't noticed like while being in the fast fashion world,

that things have gotten pretty bad. But then when you compare it to something that's a lot better quality, you're like, oh, we just think that like,

It's going to be terrible because consumerism has trained us to believe that like, this is how we participate in society. This is how you show the world your personal style. This is how you, um, this is the hobby you do on your downtime. This is how you reward yourself when you're feeling bad. This is what you do when you need a, uh,

a new outfit for a job interview, which you absolutely don't need a new outfit for a job interview. That person's never met you before. They will not know if it's an old outfit, you know? So like we, we trick ourselves into thinking that consumerism is like our best friend, but in actuality it's killing the planet and thus killing us. And we need to think about it differently basically.

When you think about what's on the horizon, it does seem like people are kind of catching up. You know, secondhand clothing is kind of having a moment. Thrifting is having a moment. People are having conversations about consumption. Are you hopeful that we will sort of get ourselves out of this? Do you see that happening? Mm-hmm.

Well, I am hopeful, but, you know, not to get depressing, but like all this is going to come to a screeching halt because Mother Nature is about to like clamp down on us really hard. So what you need to understand with these systems is we're all over consuming the consumer. The brands are obviously overproducing, pushing us to overconsume consumers.

If we don't change this ship around, we won't have the raw materials for a lot of these brands to keep going. But we can't keep going like this forever. All of these systems, right, are playing such a...

crucial part on the natural resources that our lovely planet provides for us for free. And these brands are taking way more than their fair share. I'm kind of hopeful though, that people start to see these systems for what it is before it comes to that. Because like I said, this is sort of like the last hurrah. And it seems like the fashion industry just thinks that it's just going to ride the car until the wheels fall off. But if the wheels fall off,

things are going to look really, really bad. So people think that like ethical fashion is expensive now. You just wait until cotton costs $100 a yard. You know what I mean? But if we keep

depending on this system of overproduction and overconsumption somewhat pushed by influencers, like by all means, the companies are totally at fault. The billionaires are at fault, but the person who has a platform who thinks none of this has anything to do with them. And I'm just trying to get a paycheck. You're at fault too, because if you have like the same following count as me on Instagram and you're selling people something daily, you are selling, you're,

thousands of product a year, hundreds and thousands of products a year, and probably getting a really nice affiliate linking check. So you're also like richer than everyone else, but then also going, oh, I can't afford to change. This is how I make a living. No, maybe it is you that needs to change because the system won't go on forever. And then like, then what? We now have a system where like,

people truly can't afford clothing. I don't want to live like that. So I really hope that people wake up and realize that like these corporations are harming our planet and these systems of consumption are hurting and harming us. And I don't think that this is an impossible thing for us to do. I think we really need to be honest with ourselves and look at

where we are in this system and look at who we are in this system. You know, if you're the person who really, really just needs that pair of work trousers from Primark, I am never going to show up and like slap your wallet out of your hand because I'm not a bad person. But if

That's not how Primark turns loads and loads of profit. They turn loads and loads of profit by people going on holes there, you know? So like realizing who you are in the system and what you can like afford to do, honestly, it's going to be a crucial part. And like asking yourself, do I even want to participate this way? Because I remember when I was buying fast fashion feeling really like, I don't know, a bit...

sort of like pushed to do it in a way where I wasn't comfortable like taking out my summer clothing from the year before and

And then being like, oh, all these dresses are really nice. They're still good. I don't know why I feel compelled to buy new dresses. So ask yourself, do you even like being in the system? And if you don't like, what are you going to do differently? But rest assured when people say that like, oh, it's not on the individual, it's on the corporation. The corporation does require you. It requires a lot of us buying into it. It requires people over consuming. And if you don't think in...

corporations don't feel threatened by like sustainability in many ways they do. There's a reason why like every trash bag company is now sort of starting to do like secondhand resale because they see that us as citizens are actually caring about this stuff. And,

And they want a piece of the pie. So we get to say that, oh, we care about sustainability. And also like we can profit twice from like the same crap, except some of that stuff doesn't hold up long enough for it to have two owners. But that's another story. I do think that corporations realize that like the writing is on the wall and

And the more we become informed citizens and the more we start to really take action and change how we interact with this system, the more we can actually change the system for the better.

Okay, so what did you think of that Shein brand trip? And what are your thoughts on fast fashion retailers like Shein? You can let me know on email at hello at tangodi.com, on my Instagram at Bridget Marie in DC, on Twitter at Bridget Marie, or you can always subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com slash tangodi. Because I kind of can't stop talking about it and I would love to hear your thoughts.

Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at hello at tangodi.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi.com. There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and sound engineer. Michael Amato is our contributing producer. I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.

For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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