Anonymous #1 5w

This for fucking real! You’re just joining in on the bandwagon to virtue signal, not cause you give af about working conditions.

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Anonymous OP 5w

And let’s not even get into how surface level it is. While worker conditions are a massive problem (esp with extreme overtime, child labor, lack of safety, and pay), fast fashion ethical issues go much deeper. Design theft is rampant (especially from small businesses and artists), theft from customers and scam, and the MASSIVE environmental impact. Emissions from factory and transportation, and ofc everything is polyester that will sit in landfills for hundreds of years killing our planet.

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Anonymous #1 5w

I knew about most of what you listed but hadn’t connected it to design theft and scamming. But yeah a lot of times these big (especially cheap) fashion places will scan smaller shops or sites like Etsy and replicate those designs. And there’s TikToks about what people ordered from wish/temu vs what they got and it’s framed as a joke but if a company promises one thing and gives something else it’s literally scamming

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Anonymous #1 5w

And expanding on the environmentalism of it, it’s also super impersonal. People impulse shop cheap clothes to fit a trend vs being intentional about styles they actually give af about and will keep. They’re buying things to throw out, not to get repaired cause they love it. I’m not saying I’m entirely immune but as someone who puts a lot of thought into how I dress that always blows my mind.

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Anonymous OP 5w

and it’s worse when you consider who they target: incredibly vulnerable demographic. Kids/teens, and poor people. They call it affordable in a feign vail of claiming accessibility, when in reality it’ll fall apart, feel horrible, look horrible, and force people to spend more money. Literally stealing from the poor and taking advantage of kids with mommy’s credit card

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Anonymous #1 5w

IT LITERALLY FORCES PEOPLE TO SPEND MORE MONEY AND ENCOURAGES IMPULSIVITY!!! Saving up to buy something a little more expensive if you can is gonna be much better than buying 5 cheaper versions of the thing in the long run.

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Anonymous OP 5w

Exactly. But these companies prey on people by giving them additional feelings of desperation and urgency (fake always on sale act now to save the discount etc etc). Sometimes people need a new jacket to keep warm or new shoes for work NOW. They only have so much, they can’t save, and are desperate to find something that will last at least a year so they can save for something better. False ads lure them in for those necessities that are “affordable” and then break within a few uses. Lost money

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Anonymous OP 5w

Now they can’t afford even a cheap option to last a year. They’re just completely out of luck. But these websites got their money AND gets to sell their data to advertisers and make pure profit off their suffering

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Anonymous #1 5w

Nah that’s definitely true. There’s multiple layers. You have poor people who legit can’t afford more, kids who don’t know better, and then people who can afford it but just don’t want to save cause they care more about quality than quantity or want to follow microtrends. Then folks who pretend to be immune to one while still doing all the others. In large part because businesses learned they can make more that way. No clue how we can change it but wish we could go back to before.

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Anonymous #2 5w

Same and super valid. I don’t really like online shopping in general tbh.

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