The Desire to Be Cool: How Social Media Fuels the Fires of Fast Fashion

Social media trends have popularized the use of fast fashion, and it will only get worse unless people stop sacrificing human rights for their $6 shirt. 

With the rise of social media in 2005 came a new wave of “it girls,” a phenomenon that began decades earlier with Clara Bow, a popular, iconic Hollywood actress in the age of silent films. A figure crowned as the first “It girl,” Clara influenced the fashion interests of women in the 1920s with her sexually provocative clothes, striking red hair, and prominent cupid's bow. Women wanted to dress like her. Women wanted to be her.

At the same time, fashion shows and runways promoting brands such as Coco Chanel and Christian Dior became a popular fashion inspiration source. They’re main applauders, surprisingly, weren't the rich. It was the middle class. With attempts to mimic what they saw on wealthy people, they bought designer brands with logos plastered all over their products. They wanted people to think they were wealthy. They needed to make sure it was obvious. They needed designer wares. 

Unlike the early 20th century, when women wanting to replicate the style of their icons had to wait much longer and spend much more money, in the 21st century, our access has shifted. This is in part due to the popularity of a new kind of fashion: fast fashion.

The term “fast fashion” was coined for clothing lines that replicate catwalk trends and high-fashion designs at low costs and at increased speeds, filling the racks of popular, cheap stores like TJ Maxx, H&M, and Primark. The popularization of fast fashion started in the 1990s with fashion brands looking for ways to increase their profits. Eventually, supermarkets, known to sell food only, created cheap clothing, which threatened high-end brands and pressured them to create clothes quicker. During the 1990s, the trend of seasonal clothing collections also spread the use of fast fashion.

In current times, people look to social media influencers rather than Hollywood starlets and runway models for their next style inspiration. Influencers like Alix Earle and Addison Rae are more relatable than runway models, often giving off a “you can be like me if you buy these shoes” vibe. Their life is attainable. It’s more realistic.   

The reason why these social media influencers are more effective than A-list celebrities is because they don’t try to appear perfect. They show their messy rooms, unfiltered skin, and their flaws. Their imperfections make them seem like everyday people and not millionaires. They seem like our friends. 

This attainability is also dangerous because impressionable teenage girls believe that if they buy what influencers are promoting, they will be like them. Unfortunately, these ideals are absolutely unattainable for the masses. One dress won’t make us look like Paris Hilton or Madison Beer. The body, unfortunately, and all its excess wealth and popular friends, doesn’t come with the purchase. One water bottle won’t transform our lifestyle into theirs. We don’t have the money to take spontaneous trips to Cabo every weekend. 

The danger of social media influencers is how relatable they appear, but we often forget that their whole job is to sell products and influence people by acting like a friend. We trust our friends’ opinions, of course, but these people are not our friends. They don’t know us. And we certainly don’t know them - we know what they choose to show us on social media, the carefully curated imagery of fabulous nights out and glamorous, expensive products. Do we even know if the items they wear are theirs and not borrowed for a photograph? We can never know for sure the truth behind the imagery because we don’t know them in real life. We make assumptions from what they allow us to see.

How many times have you seen something on social media that you’ve liked, only to find it to be way over budget when you search it up? And how many times have knockoffs, or “dupes,” a term used commonly on social media, shown up on your feeds just a few scrolls later? Brands know the interest. They know the demand. They know their demographic. So, they push out new trendy products. And they do this FAST. And when the trends cycle through even faster? They manufacture products faster still. 

So why is fast fashion bad? For one, it’s awful for the environment. This clothing is not biodegradable, and it increases water usage, microplastics, and energy consumption. According to Ricoh, an information management and digital services company, it takes 766 gallons of water just to produce 1 cotton shirt. Now multiply that by the number of cotton shirts we have in our closets. And that’s not even considering the fact that brands don’t often sell every piece of clothing they produce. 

Although child labor is illegal in most countries, some developing countries utilize this to maximize profits. Because children are paid less, or in some cases, not even paid at all, they save money. According to Project Cece, an organization dedicated to helping users find sustainable clothing, 29.8 million people are kept in modern slavery conditions, where adults sell their children into slave labor to survive. However, many popular fast fashion brands, such as Shein, claim they don’t use illegal workers, but how else are they able to sell a shirt for $4.50? We can give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that they don’t use child labor, but the bottom line is, their clothes are not ethically sourced. 

I’m not criticizing people who shop from fast fashion companies because the majority of my closet is fast fashion. But the issue comes when influencers tell young impressionable teenage girls that they absolutely need this new thing they’re promoting. The way influencers and brands push trends and products into consumer’s faces is the issue. During the peak of Covid-19, Shein rose to popularity because it was trendy and scarily cheap. A $5 shirt should have been a sign. They knew what their customers wanted. I fell victim to their “aesthetic” pieces with low prices, and Shein quickly became the primary brand I purchased. I soon realized why these prices were so low. Sometimes I would get lucky and pieces of clothing would last me more than a couple months, but the quality was often so awful that I couldn’t wear the clothes more than once. I learned that wearing a $5 shirt once is the same “price per wear” as wearing a good quality $50 shirt 10 times. You get what you pay for. 

Have you seen a $300 dress go viral on social media? Don’t worry! You can find it at Shein for only $20. This led to people jumping from trend to trend simply because it was accessible. People were discovering that they could completely reinvent themselves for less than $300. 

Social media has further increased people’s desire to fit in. Principles of beauty have been around long before fast fashion really became a prominent discussion in society, but during quarantine, these aesthetics became more niche. Aesthetics such as “the Bella Swan aesthetic” or “the Rory Gilmore aesthetic” have taken the media by storm as people strive to imitate the styles of their beloved characters. While there is nothing wrong with this in and of itself, new aesthetics and trends popping up every two weeks means people will subsequently want to fit this new aesthetic. So what do they do? They buy a new closet.

Social media influencers speed up the trend cycle, increasing people’s need for new clothes. Fast fashion companies capitalize on this. However, fast fashion itself isn’t all bad. It’s cheap, making it accessible for all. It’s a lot easier than digging through bins at Goodwill for clothing at an inexpensive price. Fast fashion is an amazing option for lower class people who can’t afford to drop $50 on a shirt every time. 

But there is a difference between choosing to shop fast fashion because you have to, and shopping fast fashion because you’ve been made to believe that you need and want to. Hauls, where people spend over $300 at a time and post it on social media, eventually took over the internet. Viewers enjoyed these videos because there was a sense of luxury within these shopping sprees. Since the average person is unable to just drop $500 at any given moment, these haul videos allowed viewers to live vicariously through the influencers who would rather spend $500 on Shein to get 50 pieces of clothing, than shopping elsewhere for fewer pieces. If you can afford to drop $500 dollars on one shopping session, then you can afford to shop sustainably. 

One shirt won’t make you like your favorite influencer. One home device won’t give you the same lifestyle. One makeup product won’t make you look like them. This isn’t how it works. They carefully curated their life online for the sole reason to make people want to be like them to sell them products. 

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. Don’t pay for child labor.