hello my beautiful doves so i'm a little sick
today, which is why if i sound a little bit nasally, it's because my nose is congested. it's
nothing serious, it's a cold. i just have a sh*tty immune system so i get sick at random times of the
year and i guess july is the time of the year that i'm getting sick for 2021. so for today's video
we're going to be talking about tiktok once again. i was personally late to the tiktok trend, i
didn't make a tiktok until this year. but as i've been spending a lot more time on this hell
app of eternal doom scroll, i've realized tiktok has a problem. well there's many problems but
specifically in the fashion sphere of tiktok, there is a huge problem. it's arguably the same
problem that's plagued youtube and instagram at one point, it's just relocated. tiktok is the
new landlord. so what is the problem you may ask? capitalism. more specifically, one of those popular trends
on tiktok is doing a haul. so if you've been on youtube for long enough you probably understand
what a haul is. but for those of you who do not, a haul is basically when you go and buy a bulk
of stuff all in one go and then you share the things that you bought with your audience.
now i don't hate the idea of buying clothes because that would make me one big hypocrite.
that's not a cute look. but let's be honest, tiktok hauls promote overconsumption. even
those styling challenges... and yes i've participated a few times... require you
to make multiple outfits for one video. and while these challenges in theory are
harmless and meant to foster creativity, when people feel the need to jump in on
every single challenge going around–that can lead to overconsumption. and this is because.
to do well on the tiktok algorithm, you have to post essentially every day. much like instagram,
except with instagram, it's just one photo so one outfit. but with tiktok, most of these people
are doing multiple outfits in one video. the sad reality is that a lot of people think that
to make it as a tiktok fashion influencer, you have to have a lot of clothes. there's
still a stigma associated with outfit repeating even though it's something we all do offline.
and because of the pressure to post every day, people are pressured to buy more clothes to make
new content. this leads to two serious problems: 1) the cheapest way to buy a lot of new clothes
is through buying fast fashion and 2) trend cycles or micro-trends are increasingly getting
shorter and lasting only about three months now. so in 2020, shein, the most popular fast fashion
brand on social media, made about $10 billion in sales up from $4.5 billion in 2019. and according
to a report by hypeauditor, shein was also the most talked about brand on tiktok last year.
so i feel like there's a lot of articles and videos on the internet talking about the crimes of
fast fashion. yes it's environmentally damaging, yes it's very unethical because workers are
working in victorian era factory conditions, and a lot of the time, these companies steal ideas
and designs. but i also want to add a disclaimer that i am not going to take a dump–i'm not taking
a dump on people who shop fast fashion. unless! unless you're rich and doing it. i'm going to get
back to this point in a second but i just want to say that lower income people are not keeping this
industry afloat. they're just not and a lot of people are using that as an excuse to support
fast fashion, but that's just simply not true. "you need to cut the bullsh*t, you really do."
"okay." "just cut the bullsh*t."
"okay." now i've personally managed to stop buying fast
fashion for most things with the exception of underwear and socks, but i understand that that
is a privileged position to be in. and i am so thankful every day that you all have been able
to give me that financial security. but yes, i understand that it's a privilege and that there's
a lot of gatekeeping around sustainable fashion. a lot of sustainable brands don't have inclusive
size ranges and there's obviously, like i said, a price barrier. but speaking of price barrier, i
think one of the biggest issues with fast fashion is that it leads to the societal devaluation
of labor that goes into making clothes. of course if you're used to seeing $15 price tags
and consistent 50% off sales, you're going to be blown away when you see a sustainable dress
that costs $300. you're going to be like, "that's outrageous!" "that's overpriced!" but this is where i'm going to stop you
because "overpriced" implies that the garment is not priced fairly, right? well it
is priced fairly. lingerie expert cora harrington wrote this twitter thread back in
december 2020 that has really stuck with me. in this thread she's talking about a $1000, yes
$1000, lingerie set that she photographed and is responding to how some people might insist
that the set is overpriced. she writes: "in truth, the set is constructed of french
chantilly lace made by sophie hallette in the calais region of france with leavers lace machines
that are over a century old and take at least two people two months to thread by hand. loading the
loom with a new pattern takes at least a day. all lace patterns are drawn by hand down to
every thread. someone walks up and down the machine to monitor it as the lace is made to help
prevent major defects. once the lace is made, any faults or defects are corrected by hand
and any loose threads are trimmed by hand. any embroidery or embellishment on
the lace, as there is on this set, is also done by hand. the people who work with
laces of this quality are top level specialists. the lace is then marked up appropriately, because
none of these employees are working for free, to be sold to most typically fashion houses and
designers. as you can see there's already been a ton of labor involved and we haven't even
gotten to the lingerie making portion yet." so in this production process for this piece of
lingerie, we have the lace makers who make the lace, then there's the lingerie designer who
designs the garments, creates sewing patterns for it, and purchases not only the lace, but other
fabrics, elastics, casings, fastenings, and metal components. the set that cora was talking about
specifically uses 24 karat gold metal components and real fresh water pearls, so they're expensive
materials. it then takes several days to sew the actual set and then is marked up appropriately to
cover the costs of everything, but also because the designer wasn't working for free. and then
the set is sold to a boutique and the boutique pays for shipping, insurance, and whatever
customs, duties, taxes apply. at the boutique, they usually hire photographers, models, makeup
artists, hairstylists to take ecommerce photos to promote this garment. they also have rent if it's
a physical store, overhead costs, employees to pay because they're paid fairly, and any other
kind of costs that go with running a store. and this is what the final markup price covers. of
course not every garment goes to a boutique. some designers have their own stores where they sell
directly to customers, but as you can see, even in the manufacturing process itself it's a lot
of time and it's a lot of money. it takes weeks, sometimes months, to bring a product from
production to our doorstep. compare this with fast fashion. the lightning speed at which these
companies operate at to get the $5 dollar version of a mugler bodysuit into our hands is crazy.
according to this one article i read, shein gets a product from drawing board to production
to live-online in as little as three days. how convenient is that. wow.
how convenient is fucking that. why is this a bad thing? well other than stealing
a designer's hard work, the turnover rate for fast fashion leads to overconsumption,
and overconsumption leads to a negative environmental impact. to put it into perspective,
the average american throws away about 81 pounds of clothes every year and the majority of
fast fashion garments are not constructed to last. they're usually made of cheap synthetic fibers
like polyester, which is essentially plastic. polyester can take up to 200 years to decompose,
which is especially bad because the industry produces over 100 billion new garments every
year. we're essentially living on one big pile of plastic. and you know what? it really
sucks, because i really believe fashion is a great creative medium for everyone. that's kind
of why i encourage thrifting or buying secondhand rather than buying something completely new.
full transparency, the majority of my closet is secondhand and i'm not trying to offer secondhand
shopping as this like "poor person consolation prize." i think, for everyone, thrifting or
secondhand is the most sustainable option because the reality is–even though i'm sure there
are some sustainable brands that are sourcing fabrics that are organic and that can biodegrade
and are paying their employees well–but something needs to be said about the fact that there
are tons and tons and tons of clothes that are just sitting in piles. the more of those clothes
that we can actually put to use rather than just throwing away into the landfill, the better it is
for the environment. but with that said, there are also a lot of amazing designers that deserve to
eat as well, so i'm not saying like "don't support them," but you know... just be conscious of the
situation... which brings me to my next point! so for much of the 20th and early 21st centuries,
a trend cycle would last about 20 to 30 years. but nowadays, with the invention of social media
and the internet, the trend cycle has gotten a lot shorter. this is when we start seeing
the rise of things like micro-trends. how are micro-trends created? i'm going to read
this little excerpt from wrapcompliance.org: "before the rise of tiktok and
instagram influencer culture, we looked to models, movies, celebrities,
and fashion magazines to set the trends. this group of people was small and our
access to them was neatly curated." this ultimately limited our exposure to
potential new trends and kept fashion cycles slower. however, with the rise of social
media, celebrities now have a stronger hold on our culture because we have more access
to them. and brands absolutely know this, which is why they hustle to get big celebrities
like kylie jenner to wear their products, because they know that immediately after she posts
the clothing item, it's probably going to become a trend. and our culture is still the same as
it was. we all race to the store to buy what she's wearing because she's a celebrity and if
we can't afford it, we buy a fake. but nowadays, rather than just showing up to a party wearing
the latest trend, impressing our local community, we post a photo or video online. because in
today's world, anyone can become an influencer, and to be an influencer, you have to be ahead.
but of course, everyone has the same idea and everyone online is now posting the same dress.
it's no longer cool, let's trash it. so obviously, if we're experiencing extremely short trend
cycles, the buying to trashing pipeline increases in frequency and brands absolutely
perpetuate this with their influencer marketing strategies. brands will send out hundreds or
thousands of PR packages to macro and micro influencers all the same time, so that when they
all unbox them at the same time and upload them at the same time, it feels like this trend is
extremely oversaturated. so in a trend cycle, there's typically five stages: the introduction,
the rise, the culmination, the decline, and then obsolescence. but with this influencer
marketing strategy, the introduction, rise, and culmination all get squished into one step,
severely shortening the length of the trend cycle. "excuse me but how am i finding this
'house of sunny' dupe in a charity shop already? i mean it's just showing you
how quick all those trends are flying by." so like i said, the people who are buying
fast fashion because it's all they can afford are not the ones contributing to
the dominance of fast fashion, because generally these people actually cherish
their clothes, and they don't have the disposable income to be buying new clothes every couple
days. but the people who buy $900 shein hauls– "so i did it. i got on that sheen
website, s-h-i-e-n-e-i-n i don't know. and i wanted to be like everybody
else so i ordered a bunch of stuff." –who throw out their clothes every two months, who
take a dump on people for wearing outdated trends– "2020 trends toss or keep. scarf tops
really had their moment this past year. i say keep, but only for like another
year. animal print pants–toss." "fringe trim, they gotta go guys. a little fray
here and there is awesome but that's too much." how do we justify that? and it all becomes a
vortex because people who genuinely love the trendy pieces that they get, because yes, that's
possible, you could still love a trend even after it's long since died–and the trend will come
back anyway so don't worry–but you'll probably be shamed or pressured into throwing it away by other
tiktokers who are cosplaying as the most popular girls in school. for example house of sunny's
hockney dress was getting some controversy on tiktok a bit of time ago. because the dress became
trendy so fast, it also became old news very fast. "i recently bought this house of sunny dress. i've
been saving up and i love her so much, but as we all know, she was more famous last year because
of kendall jenner. now on tiktok, it's popular to roast this dress into shreds because it's not
considered cool anymore, which is so stupid." i think it's a genuine problem where people are
just buying whatever trendy pieces or whatever trendy dupe there is out there without really
thinking about whether they're gonna want to wear this piece months or years down the line.
or sometimes, they'll just buy into the trend to make one tiktok video about it so that
they can get their 15 seconds of fame and then the dress goes straight to the charity
shop after. or they'll return it to the store, and that's honestly not great either because
stores do throw out their excess inventory. like if you could take away one thing
that i say from this entire video, i just really want people to
become more thoughtful consumers. now no one's a saint. like it's kind of a lot to
ask for someone to never buy anything and just to live minimally, i know that's not realistic.
but the act of consciously buying massive hauls or trendy pieces just for some social media
clout, all while knowing that you're going to throw out everything within the next two
months... that sh*t doesn't sit right with me. now let's get positive, because that was a lot.
i don't want to take an enormous dump on tiktok, because i do recognize that there are great
communities on tiktok. on the fashion side, there are a bunch of accounts that do upcycling
tutorials, and upcycling is basically a practice in which you alter your old clothes to make them
newer and trendier. tiktok is also a great way to discover aesthetic communities like cottagecore,
regencycore, dark academia, all of which i know grew a lot because of tiktok. and i love
aesthetics. i think not only do they create little lovely online communities for people who
share the same interests but they're also a great way to sidestep micro-trends and overconsumption.
because if you're really subscribed to one look, you're obviously not going to chase whatever
new trend the kardashians are wearing. and a wonderful thing about aesthetic
communities is that while yes, there is like a spending element to it, as there is with most
things, but at the end of the day, i feel like aesthetics go beyond fashion. for cottagecore,
the aesthetic extends to gardening, cooking, and sewing. for dark academia, the aesthetic
extends to reading books, learning new languages, brewing tea–these are hobbies that don't
necessarily feed into a material desire. okay everyone, thank you so much for watching.
oh my god i just got like super congested as the video moved on. so i really apologize, but i
wanted to keep making videos because usually when i'm sick, i can stay congested for literally up
to a month because my immune system is sh*t. so i just didn't want to keep you guys waiting for
that long. i know fast fashion is always a sore subject on social media because, you know, no
one wants to be reminded of climate anxiety. but it is really important to discuss so i want
to use my channel in this productive way. i also want to reiterate that corporations and the one
percent are the ones who are creating like 99% of the problems and we shouldn't lose sight of that.
but i also feel like you have to follow some kind of personal moral compass, because if you don't,
it just ends up breeding nihilism and if we ever want things to really improve, we need to stay
passionate and we need to stay bold. so on that note, i'm gonna head out. i'm gonna get some cough
syrup and i'll see you all next time, hopefully with less mucus in my f*cking nostrils. i hope
you have a lovely rest of your day and yeah, bye! you
