The social influencer and the fast fashion haul:
Understanding online awareness about climate changeLaura Elisa Briganti MA Thesis
New Media & Digital Culture Bogna Konior
Contents
Abstract 3
1. Introduction 4
2. Theoretical framework 6
2.1 The Rise of the Social Influencer 13 2.2 The Fashion Industry and Climate Change 19
2.3 From Mass Media to Web 2.0 22
3. Case studies 30
4. Conclusion 40
Abstract
This thesis explores the link between social influencer marketing and online awareness about the fast fashion industry and its impact on climate change. While much has been written on both of these topics separately, the link between them has been underexposed. It deserves to be focused on because social influencer marketing is a contemporary business that is growing rapidly and climate change is a pressing issue that is largely impacted by the fast fashion industry. This thesis will do so by shedding light on the haul video, in which social influencers recommend fashion items to their audience and their (lack of) awareness around the influence that these videos have on purchases which in turn affect climate change. Web 2.0 has allowed for new ways of
communication and it is intriguing to zoom in on the moral responsibility some social influencers feel like they have, or do not have when they have grown from “the girl next door” to an online personality with brand deals involving great amounts of money. It is argued that although ethical consumerism on an individual level promoted by social influencers does impact climate change positively, it is essential to see this impact within the larger context of climate change responsibility in which corporations and businesses play a large role too.
1. Introduction
The new media scene has seen an enormous rise in the popularity of the social influencer in the last few years. The bigger social influencers can have large audiences that frequently, but not always, look up to them and are inspired by them when it comes to their behaviour and purchasing decisions. In the fashion industry, the fashion influencer’s content on platforms is now the place where people get their style information from, instead of the more traditional media people used to get their inspiration from before, such as magazines, fashion shows and television. Fashion influencers are popular on platforms that have risen to great popularity in the new media scene. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are the biggest platforms on which social influencers present themselves, but within the fashion industry there are smaller platforms such as United Wardrobe as well, that allow people to exchange fashion pieces, ideas and inspiration tips in ways that were impossible up until very recently. The fact that the entire world of advertising around fashion has changed so much impacts the way people perceive and buy fashion tremendously. With influencers always showcasing the most recent products on their profiles to find online for followers and the simultaneous increase of production of fashion worldwide, it is interesting that there seems to be little attention for the effects of this industry on the world by these same advocates for the products.
Humans play a central role in the climate change that has been occurring for the last decades. This is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels and destruction of ecosystems, causing an imbalance in the way nature has functioned for millions of years. It appears that the fashion industry is a big part of this problem. Next to the transport and cattle industries, it is one of the most polluting industries in the world. This is mostly because of water consumption, the spreading of pesticides and the ever increasing need for higher production numbers. In Stephen A. Doyle’s paper Supplier management in fast moving fashion retailing he shows that the rapidly evolving industry has caused retailers to opt for the lowest price possible to be able to deliver to the market as soon as possible. According to him, this is largely due to “short product life cycles, high levels of impulse buying and high volatility of demand coupled with low predictability of demand” (Doyle, 272). In our modern globalised world, this has resulted in a system in which inequality is abound. The fashion industry is very large and its impact on people and the planet is devastating. Whether it is the soaking of the countryside with pesticides and birth defects in certain regions as a result of this, or garment workers living under harsh conditions having no other choice because the brands are officially not directly linked to these factories. The fast fashion industry has figuratively divided the world into two: one world with glossy magazines, celebrities promoting products and glamorous advertisements, and another world in which unhealthy factories and cheap labour cause immense pain and suffering. The low price of the fashion one finds in stores, causes a high price to be paid on the other side, especially when looking at this through an environmental lens.
However, when it comes to the social influencers, they do not seem to represent much awareness on this topic on their channels. This is particularly interesting, because their lives take
place in the public eye and this causes people to be influenced by their style when choosing to buy or not to buy something. Therefore, they are given, in some ways, more power to change things within the industry than someone who does not have the same large following as them. This thesis first offers a comprehensive overview of the rise of the social influencer and of how they have grown to become so popular on the web. Secondly, the thesis demonstrates how these social influencers navigate within the fashion industry, and what their impact on consumer behaviour is. Third, it explains the rise of Web 2.0 and its impact on the aforementioned perceiving of the industry by its consumers. Lastly, an overview is presented of social influencers on Web 2.0 advocating for the fashion industry, and climate change and the question of who is responsible for it. This thesis tries to bridge a gap between the research that has been done on climate change and the fashion industry on the one hand, and feelings of morality, ethics and responsibility connected to social influencer marketing on the other hand.
The theoretical framework is followed by three case studies that focus on the construction of an online identity and the portrayal of self through fashion and material possession. The most attention is paid to this because the construction of an identity and expression through fashion appears to be an important reason for people to desire more clothes, thereby increasing the demand for fast fashion. The social influencers are particularly interesting in this regard, because they form a separate group situated between the consumers and brands. They have a saying in which products get promoted more, what type of coverage is presented on their channels (positive or negative) and have an audience that – to a certain extent – trusts them. Exploring the role of the social influencer within the fast fashion industry sheds light on their unique position between individual and corporate responsibility. In these case studies, the focus will be on three large Dutch YouTubers who together form a representative group of social influencers within the Dutch fashion social influencer scene. They all show different levels of awareness around the topic of climate change, and in the case studies their construction of identity through fashion, ethical approach and views are analysed to paint a full picture. By analysing the haul video, a type of video in which people show what they have bought, the social influencer behaviour is linked to construction of identity and consumerism. The showing-off of their products on their channels allows social influencers to create a revenue stream of their followers getting inspired by their style. The haul is a type of video that demonstrates well how people show-off and construct identity through buying clothes in one specific video format. The popularity of this type of video is clear, as it is a big category for fashion YouTubers that famous fashion social influencers keep making again and again for different seasons, styles and price ranges. That is why it was chosen as video that represents part of the lack of awareness about the fast fashion industry and consumption on the planet’s climate very well. The theoretical framework and case studies show that ethical
consumerism, social influencers and their moral responsibility need to be viewed within the large, complicated and nuanced picture of climate change on Earth. A picture which not only consumers, but also corporations and businesses all are a part of.
2. Theoretical framework
2.1 The Rise of the Social Influencer
In today’s rapidly changing media landscape, social influencers play an important role on social media platforms. These social influencers are users who have established a certain credibility in a specific industry and their opinions on certain matters within this industry are therefore valued. In combination with this credibility, social influencers have gathered a large following on the platforms they are active on and can consequently persuade the people that follow them. Recently, social influencer marketing has focused more and more on social influencers on social media, specifically on the platforms Instagram and YouTube. The combination of their large audience and the fact that they are a respected name within a certain industry, for example the fashion industry, allows social influencers to motivate people to do certain things like purchase a product or feel a stronger connection with one brand over another. This power to influence is strongly linked to these
influencers’ authenticity, for this determines how reliable and trustworthy they are perceived to be. Despite many brands being interested in working together with social influencers, influencer marketing is an emerging field and both the brands and the influencers are still working out the best methods for collaborations with mutual benefits. It is apparent that working together with influencers is effective for brands as the growing popularity and rise to stardom of social influencers have a positive effect on the sales of the brands they love as well. It is no secret formula: using the already existing audience gathered in one place by someone with credibility and a strong reputation in a certain field seems to work well when it comes to moving people to
purchase things. When a brand uses influencer marketing instead of more traditional forms of marketing, it saves part of their budget that would under normal conditions be spent on identifying their audience, since the follower base of the influencer is, in the best situation, already exactly that. For an influencer uploading unboxing videos of designer bags, one can expect the audience to be at least somewhat interested in the purchasing of these types of bags. Of course, when an influencer has an audience of five million followers, a brand cannot presume all these followers to be interested in their product, but the fact that this audience is sorted already very specifically by the genre of the influencer and the content that the social influencer creates, causes the brand to rightly believe that there is a good chance of a big percentage of this audience being interested in their product. This makes it a financially healthy choice to spend their marketing budget on.
“The use of social media influencer marketing in lifestyle public relations initiatives has broken the wall between the consumer, the brand, and followers through social media content” (Glucksman, 86). Morgan Glucksman states this in his journal Rise of Social Media Influencer Marketing on Lifestyle Branding concluding that the way brands communicate with their audience has changed greatly and positively because of this. However, since the field is evolving so fast and the rules and environment are subject to constant change, both brands and influencers have to pay attention to whether the collaboration is still beneficial for both of them. For example, it was found
by Markerly, an end-to-end influencer marketing company, that “influencers in the 10k-100k follower range offer the best combination of engagement and broad reach, with like and comment rates that exceed influencers with higher followers.” This means that engagement tends to
decrease when a social influencer reaches 100,000 followers and demonstrates that followers have a preference to have interaction with a social influencer who is (or seems) more down to earth and accessible than someone who could not possibly engage with all their followers. Because the social influencer is not able to respond to each comment individually anymore, the motive for people to leave comments for and interact with the social influencers they follow to get replies fades. Because the social influencer is now so big, the interaction between them and their viewers is now impacted by the impossibility to respond to all followers. The probable effect that this will have on the market, is that brands will be able to select these micro-influencers over the macro-influencers when they know their product is targeted at a niche audience that they will have greater chance of reaching when displayed on a smaller influencer’s profile. The lower price that smaller influencers ask for a collaboration thus helps small niche brands with less budget get to the right people. An example like this demonstrates the importance of knowing the boundaries and conditions for a good collaboration that is beneficial to both parties.
An interesting topic that the previous example touches upon is the notion that followers like interaction with social influencers, in particular interaction with social influencers who seem to them approachable, relatable and authentic. In the book Social Media Marketing for Dummies, written by Shiv Singh and Stephanie Diamond, an entire paragraph is even dedicated to being authentic in the chapter that is about practicing social media marketing on the social web. In this chapter, authenticity in this context is explained the following way: “Everybody talks about being authentic when marketing in the social media realm, but what that means is rarely explained. Authenticity is being honest and transparent: it’s as simple as that (Singh & Diamond, 86). Especially in an industry where (fashion) advice is given so often, an audience will appreciate this honesty and transparency if it shows in the authenticity of an influencer. In the article Marketing through
Instagram influencers: the impact number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude by Veirman et al it is stated, when considering the probability that an account is popular when it has many followers, that “It thus seems plausible that an influencer with a high number of followers will be perceived as generally more likeable because he/she is perceived as more popular” (Veirman, 2). So not only the amount of followers influence the interaction between social influencers and their followers, the perceived popularity of an influencer also impacts how an audience behaves towards the social influencer in question.
This is not different from previous forms of advertising and consumer relations per se, as the social status and perceived popularity of public people such as social influencers and television celebrities have, for a longer period than just the existence of Web 2.0, been a part of people’s lives. Whether it is by watching a television channel because one’s favourite presenter is presenting the programme or watching a vlogging series because it includes a popular social
influencer, public people have always attracted viewers. For example, programmes are often presented by well-known celebrities, because they have already proven that they are good at it, or that the audience enjoys their personality, or both. Shows like Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert or The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon thrive because of the names mentioned in their titles. The popularity of their presenter makes sure a loyal base of viewers will want to see the show no matter which guest is on, since the host is going to always be there ensuring a certain level of quality or familiarity. But to mention only late night shows would not paint a full enough picture, as this works for almost all forms of popular media and advertising. Jennifer Lawrence wearing Dior dresses to galas, Julia Roberts recommending perfume in
television commercials and bus stop posters, the famous line “Nespresso, what else?” that makes people who have seen the advertisements think of George Clooney, celebrities and public people apparently have some authority when it comes to recommending products. It seems that people desire relatability but at the same time, anyone can now come into contact with the display of wealth and decadence on platforms like Instagram and YouTube that function very well by showing visuals. Where someone would have been limited to seeing the wealth of their neighbours in the past, it is now made incredibly easy to compare what one has with not only the neighbours, but with anyone willing to show what they have on these platforms. Therefore, the social influencer seems to be a dualistic phenomenon, where the influencer is simultaneously relatable at some moments, but sometimes displaying forms of wealth unobtainable for the majority of their audiences. What has definitely changed in these consumer relations when comparing this to previous forms of advertising is the way in which interactivity is possible. This interactivity was mostly enabled by Web 2.0, which made it possible for people to interact by methods that were unprecedented.
The economy changed profoundly with the rise of web 2.0, people were now able to communicate with each other in ways that were previously impossible. In Influencer Marketing: Who Really Influences Your Customers by Duncan Brown and Nick Hayes, they make an
interesting point about this topic when they say that “recent initiatives to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies are merely reactions that apply old techniques to new media” (Brown and Hayes, 3). They suggest this as a reaction to what is, according to them, wrong with today’s marketing
strategies. They claim that the techniques used by large corporations are outdated and it is time for a change. One of the reasons social influencer marketing started becoming so big in the first place, is that there previous forms of marketing could be experienced as inauthentic by consumers. They had had enough of traditional forms of advertising such as television commercials that felt unlike real life, over-planned, misleading and came across as untrustworthy since they were there only to promote sales. It is interesting that similar discussions are arising again now, as social influencer marketing has existed for a bit longer and scandals revolving around lack of influencer authenticity have started occurring in this industry too.
authentic individual behind the public persona that makes celebrity images particularly potent ideological symbols” (Khamis, 891). This quote from the article “Can You Handle My Truth?”: Authenticity and the Celebrity Star Image from Erin Meyers relates to how the history of celebrity in our culture is so intertwined with communication technology. People already “know” a celebrity when this person recommends a product to them, which creates a feeling of familiarity. Even though celebrities have existed for a long time, Web 2.0 allows for an entire new mode of interacting with them. This new mode of interacting revolves around the change from static web pages to dynamic and user-generated content, allowing users to interact with each other on a myriad of social media platforms. Thanks to this, discussion with people on the other side of the world has been made possible, and feedback options such as liking, disliking, subscribing, following and unfollowing have become a part of online culture.
Moreover, in To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter Alice Marwick and danah boyd state that
celebrity practitioners reveal what appears to be personal information to create a sense of intimacy between participant and follower, publicly acknowledge fans, and use language and cultural references to create affiliations with followers. Interactions with other celebrity practitioners and personalities give the impression of candid, uncensored looks at the people behind the personas (Marwick & boyd, n.p.).
However, according to them, fans must realize that there are power differentials at work and this is similar for followers of social influencers. Even though there has been a shift in supply and demand where the audience appreciates a more relatable celebrity than the far-away celebrity living the American dream, there is still a big difference between them and the celebrity, online and offline. Marwick and boyd’s mention of “the impression” is therefore important, as the impression of an uncensored look can differ greatly from an actual uncensored look. Whereas celebrities of today might tell relatable stories on talk shows, participate in meme culture and seem very down to earth, this can never be fully understood from the snippets the public gets to see from their lives, just as with previous celebrities in an era where people look up to celebrities on television. Instead of looking to these traditional forms of advertising, people started to look to other figures that might give them reliable information. The social influencer was the perfect authority figure to look to in this situation. A person, often someone who could be the girl next door, trying out different types of mascara and telling you which one she liked best seemed way more trustworthy than a hired expert promoting a new mascara on television. This caused brands to have to rethink their marketing strategies, since being perceived as untrustworthy will not be beneficial to making profits.
In Nathalie Zietek’s paper Influencer Marketing: the Characteristics and Components of Fashion Influencer Marketing, she explores the new marketing strategies which need to be
discovered by fashion brands to keep reaching their audience after people’s media usage and time spent on platforms has increased so greatly. In this paper, she emphasizes the importance of this authenticity, especially for micro-influencers: “the common sense that all experts share is that smaller or micro-influencers are of note for their authenticity. Also in terms of credibility and future perspective micro-influencers are positively mentioned by all experts” (Zietek, 21). Giving the impression of authenticity is important for social influencers, and especially for social influencers with smaller audiences, since they cannot fall back on appealing to authority. When a social influencer’s scope of influence and reach are extremely big, people might view this social
influencer as a celebrity of their own right, but micro-influencers do not have this luxury. However, as the market evolved brands also realized the potential of working together with these influencers. In response to social influencers now being more heavily influenced by brands on what to say and do than before, this trust could potentially wane. As a result of this, followers might start to pay more attention to whether an influencer is actually being honest and has done research about the product they are promoting. A logical consequence of the internet in 2019 is that everybody, or more specifically, everybody with access to internet is now able to do their own research. Many young people have grown up in this internet age, and specifically generation Z, the demographic cohort after the Millennials, make up an enormous part of the audiences of social influencers. They spend a lot of time on social media, so if an influencer that they feel connected to promotes a product on a platform, a connection between the customer and the brand is immediately made on a platform they enjoy spending time on.
Since people are now able to fact-check all that an influencer is saying, it means that the influencer cannot get away with saying something just because they function as some sort of authority within a certain industry. The girl next door is easier to identify with than an A-list celebrity in a commercial for people with average incomes. This new concept of the celebrity has been developing on social media. By being more similar to the consumer, online influencers come across as more trustworthy than someone the audience has next to nothing in common with. “The invitational aspects of Web 2.0 may help to explain the rapid adoption of the technology by girls and young women who are… the most avid adopters of blogging” (Harrison & Barthel, 175). The way separate factors of Web 2.0 invite people to communicate, share and form new groups, shows with young people especially. According to Harrison and Barthel, it is important to develop methods to teach young people how to cope with the changing dynamics of the web. They are more
susceptible to not realizing something is an advertisement and may have a difficult time
recognizing when an influencer genuinely loves a product or is just moved by financial incentives. Therefore, in recent times many laws and regulations have come into place ensuring that it is always as clear as possible when something is an advertisement or sponsor deal. As people’s time spent on online platforms keeps increasing and their relations to social influencers evolve, people come across many things online that might influence them in their decision-making. Even though the most recent generation has grown up with the internet, the increasing invisibility of this
digitalized world seems to decrease media literacy, or awareness for what life is like behind the scenes. Mark Deuze explores this extensively in his book Media Life. He explains that he thinks the biggest challenge of media studies shall be the disappearance and increasing invisibility of these media.
As media become pervasive and ubiquitous, forming the building blocks for our constant remix of the categories of everyday life (the public and the private, the local and the global, the individual and the collective), they become invisible – in the sense that, as Friedrich Kittler suggests, we become blind to that which shapes our lives the most (Deuze, 137). Many posts on Instagram and YouTube are advertisements but not everybody is always aware of this. With the decrease of physical stores, and the growing online presence of brands in its place, it might not always be as clear as before when brands are selling something, for example when a bag is seen in the hands of an influencer instead of a shop’s window.
Previous to the social media era, fashion was often presented to people in magazines and on the catwalk. This way, fashion remained something exclusive, something only meant and visible for a select group. In A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries: From Catwalk to
Sidewalk Bonny English highlights what has been changed because of this. She attributes the new fashion publicity and promotional strategies to the “proliferation of designer Web sites, sartorial blogs and social networking, all of which have become an important factor in the promotion, sale and distribution of fashion goods and accessories” (English, 4). The exclusivity that was offered by presenting fashion to a select group, is removed when designer websites, as English mentions, which everyone can read, become the one of the primary sources via which people receive their fashion advice. Moreover, the rise of platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram allowed for people to experience fashion in a whole new way.
Whereas people first had to rely on others to share with them what to wear, people were now able to see everything for themselves on the internet. Not only could they look at the styles of people they considered style icons, they could also visit the websites of clothing stores to see in person what all of them were offering this season. As the internet evolved and the first social influencers emerged, the first fashion social influencers started to make their mark on the platforms as well. “While influencer marketing based on traditional media has been used in public relations for many years, the rise of social media has created the boom of social media influencer
marketing” (Glucksman, 78). The effect this had on authority figures in the fashion industry was the same as on all other industries, the previously mentioned shift from for example television
commercials to sponsored posts is also true for the fashion industry. The magazines therefore do not have the same influence they had before, as their readers viewed them as distant from their audience and started to look for new sources of guidance. The same way a television commercial felt over-planned and misguiding, editorials in magazines now feel over-photoshopped and
untrustworthy too. In its place emerged the fashion social influencers, appealing to the growing need for authentic recommendations and a display of accessibility that had until then not been shown before.
Parallel to this, though, seems to be a phenomenon to completely embrace wealth, and the notion to “not be ashamed of money that one has earned but be proud of and flaunt it”. Examples of these include YouTube stars Zoe Sugg and Alfie Deyes that have grown from small YouTubers to YouTubers with millions of followers and have frequently defended criticisms of their loss of touch with reality and living in a million dollar mansion with statements about being proud and happy to be able to do so with the money they have earned. Platforms like Instagram and YouTube have become platforms where fashion brands can interact with people directly. This seems the complete opposite of the way the industry worked before, with fashion shows that were accessible only for the lucky few. The role of the influencer is strongly linked to the girl next door vibe within the fashion industry as well, when a social influencer recommends a piece of clothing, the audience sees this as similar to the recommendation of their friend. The difference between celebrities or experts promoting a dress on a one-way medium like television, versus social influencers telling their viewers all about their shopping experience and showing how they try the dress on for the first time is enormous.
The shift from traditional advertising strategies to social influencer marketing in the fashion industry, has not been the sole large shift that happened within the industry. Another enormous shift was the production shift towards fast fashion, and it has altered the production process and the way consumers decide on what to buy vastly. Throughout the history of humanity people have shared and showed others what they have. Showing-off is viewed as a form of a self-conscious emotionality by Jacqueline Nadel and Darwin Muir. Showing-off probably does not begin to develop until the second half year of the second year of lives in children for this reason, but has been prevalent for as long as humans have existed. “Both shyness and showing-off are argued here to require an awareness of the attention of others” (Nadel & Muir, 196). This demonstrates that humans have, for as long as they existed, been social creatures that search for their friends’ attention and approval. Old cave paintings include people showcasing their bows, arrows and spears. During the middle ages, the people who were affluent enough to let themselves be painted enjoyed having their wealth and material possessions painted next to themselves. The fast fashion industry has allowed people to own enormous amounts of clothes, which is something people will naturally desire if they grow the need to showcase what they own from their first year of life and onwards. The change of production in fashion therefore has a big influence on how much people own and how much they want to show this off. This change of production has happened quite recently, as for most of human history fashion was produced on a much smaller scale than it is now.
Before, people produced clothing in small amounts, depending on resources like wool and skin from animals they were raising. The industrial revolution changed some of this, as it allowed
for new inventions that sped up the production process. But the real turn happened in the 1960s, when fashion brands started developing methods to supply the increasing demand for more and more affordable clothing. Mass media, especially television, in these times are rapidly evolving. Historically, the 1960s take place not too long after the end of the Second World War, when the teenager as a target audience is emerging for the very first time. Previous to the Second World War, this demographic was not, or only rarely, targeted as a specific audience. However, not only in television, but also in music, film and other forms of entertainment, after the war this group became heavily targeted by brands. This largely had to do with the fact that this baby boomer generation was large in number and had way more money to spend than their parents at that age. In the book The Beatles on Screen: From Pop Stars to Musicians this development of consumer culture and the teenager as a new consumer category is illustrated through the use of an example in the music industry: “With the coming of age of the post-Second World War baby boomer generation and the emergence of rock ’n’ roll in the mid-1950s, Hollywood began to realize the potential for financial gain by catering films to this new demographic of teenagers who had leisure time and the disposable income to spare” (Fremaux).
It seems that (youth) culture was changing and big brands were realizing that there was now money to be made by targeting films, music and television specifically towards this
demographic. The financial freedom that people had in the 1960s and how it differed from the more financially restrained times during and before the war in combination with technological progress and the affordability of mass-produced products like televisions, all contributed to this. In his introduction to his book The History of Television, 1942 to 2000 Albert Abramson states: “Thanks to the efforts of many American radio companies… television emerged from the war years full-blown and ready for use. The rise of the American television industry in both manufacturing and
programming was phenomenal” (Abramson, 1). It is interesting to explore what came first, the supply of these teenage products by opportunistic brands or the demand of personal, more tailored entertainment for one’s own age category by these teenagers. Is the creation of the product a response to demand that is already out there or do people see an ad and realize that this is what they want? The fact that televisions could be found in so many homes and broadcasted
advertisements about the same products to the same audience has hugely influenced consumer culture. Even though now people have innumerable channels to choose from, for a long time there were only a couple of channels projecting the same product, impacting consumer behaviour patterns.
As time went by, in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s mass-production started occurring on even larger scales, with a growing population causing a bigger demand, and an increasingly connected world due to globalization. International production processes now take place worldwide and are at the root of new connections. These connections allowed for worldwide communication and
participation. In Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins states that “in a participatory culture, members also believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of
social connection with one another (at the least, members care about others’ opinions of what they have created)” (Jenkins, 11). Mass media also kept evolving, which mostly showed up in more people owning televisions, more varied programs to choose from catering to every individual’s preferences, the emergence of computers and the internet, and the large-scale adoption of these products into the homes of more and more people. This culture that Jenkins writes about, in which people contribute and connect with each other, becomes particularly interesting when Web 2.0 arrives. In more recent years, there has been a more participatory culture of the connected world thanks to the internet. It is interesting though, that people active on social media platforms often all know the same influencers, just like people used to know the same television programs before. People’s desire for certain products is therefore very much propelled by how the media are programmed. Moreover, in contemporary times, with algorithms governing what people do and do not see, this pattern is enforced and this relates back to the television broadcasting industry. 2.2 The Fashion Industry and Climate Change
The fashion industry is, right behind the transport and cattle industries, one of the most polluting industries in the world. This largely has to do with unsustainable production practices in which litres of water are wasted, unhealthy toxics get dumped in nature and CO2 emissions happen on a big scale globally. The fact that the sum of what people want to buy increases more each year causes clothes to be produced in ever-decreasing timespans. The wish to conform to the latest style trends causes people to consume and throw away on a scale that is unprecedented. In today’s media landscape, platforms such as Instagram and YouTube are probably even further
accelerating this trend by implying it is uncool to wear the same outfit twice. With social influencers wanting to cater to their audience new and exciting content to stay relevant, it would not make sense to do the same outfit of the day (a popular trend in the fashion influencer scene) every day. It might therefore even be inherent to being a social influencer that one has to change outfits so often. But this works both ways too, as the audience is also responsibility for their search for new content.
There is little to no real discussion possible about the negative impact the fast fashion industry has on the climate, which makes it even more intriguing that this “dirty side” of the industry is so underrepresented in various media. In The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry: Fast Fashion and Its Negative Impact on Environment and Society author Nikolay Anguelov points out the uncomfortable secret of low-cost fashion: “The production of those inexpensive but high-quality fabrics that enable the diffusion of fashion to the masses creates more toxic chemical pollution per item than any other industrial product” (Anguelov, 10). Many papers focus on the waste, water pollution and ecological footprint of the industry and the incompatibility of desire for more and sustainability. In their paper Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands Joy et al also emphasize that "fast fashion helps sate deeply held desires among young
et al, n.p.). Since much of the production process takes place in China and India, the footprint of clothes is increased, since these developing countries rely on fossil fuels more than developed countries. For the brands, it is financially beneficial to position their factories in specifically these countries, since developing countries often have less strict laws on human rights, or at least enact them less. The conditions under which workers have to perform in these factories would be unthinkable in many of the more developed countries in the world. The fashion industry is also consuming excessive amounts of water, producing wastewater and contaminating water with pesticides and trash. Since the demand for fashion items has increased so much in these last decades, this impact is enormous. In Two decades of sustainable supply chain management in the fashion business, an appraisal it is stated that “Many academic and business sources quote a World Bank estimates that up to twenty percent of industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing and finishing treatments” (Khurana & Ricchetti, 91). The factories themselves produce gigantic amounts of waste, but the clothes that are scarcely worn by consumers before being swapped out for something new are responsible for much of the solid waste dumped in landfills as well.
Moreover, synthetic microfiber pollution pollutes the sea at a disturbing rate because of fresh water ecotoxicity, killing animals and subsequently influencing the food chain because of microplastics. After zooming in on social sustainability, a topic that this research paper barely has time to address, such as raised concerns in media about the prevalence of only extremely thin models that impact the increase of eating disorders, Khurana & Ricchetti also make another point about the environmental sustainability: “Consumer safety has mainly to do with the impact of chemicals on consumer health, directly, via the persistence of hazardous chemicals in the final products, or indirectly via the release of hazardous chemicals in the environment that reach the consumer via polluted water, passed along the food chain” (Khurana % Ricchetti, 91). All these disposable clothes, often made partly from oil, in factories powered by fossil fuels, transported around the world in transportation systems that run on fossil fuels, contribute to a big amount of global emissions. While there is a big emphasis on transport in the public debate on climate change, the fashion industry often remains unspoken of, even though the numbers add up to an industry with massive impact. Burning fossil fuels makes CO2 levels rise, which causes
temperatures to do the same, and it turns out that temperatures do not have to rise that much to have lasting effect on the climate. Since the industry is largely consumer driven, it means that it is also partially controllable. When looking at the consumer, in the book Sustainability in Fashion and Textiles: Values, Design, Production and Consumption it is mentioned that “It requires the use of a collective learning mechanism for all types of environments and stakeholders and the creation of the necessary space for a structure of dialogue on what our vision of sustainable society is” (Gardetti, 8). The fashion industry is a big industry with many factors that contribute to the final outcome, but on the consumer’s end, this means that they can exert their influence by choosing to buy, or choosing not to buy. Both choices will impact the supply-demand balance for each
individual customer. One consumer’s demand alone may not amount to much, but when the results of consumers are combined, their actions will be measurable in the bigger picture.
Even though the large-scale climate problems arising because of the fast fashion industry are there because of the sum of actions of many consumers, the solution might be at an individual level. The short-term usage of clothes and subsequent throwing away, instead of a more long-term approach in which people buy what they need and a circular production system is maintained would have a positive impact on all the emissions. Nonetheless, it is important not to gloss over big corporations and their responsibilities when it comes to climate change. While ethical consumerism would impact global CO2 emissions without a doubt, it is essential to critically assess the role large businesses and corporations have in this problem. In relation to climate change, there is definitely something to say about the impact of the individual. Even though claims of individual causal inefficacy (ICI) are often made (the claim that an individual’s actions in one entire lifetime still do not make a measurable impact in the larger picture) there is definitely something to say for the effect of all these individual’s actions together. And this does not even take into account the ability of one individual to inspire other individuals around them. In Climate Change and Individual Responsibility Avram Hiller too argues that “ICI is false not just for its claim about whole human lives but even for its far weaker claim of the inefficacy of single individual actions” (Hiller, 349). According to him, this is mostly because people fail to realize how much impact an action can have when its consequences are not directly measurable. Moreover, when referring to how difficult it is for people to grasp individual moral responsibility with regard to global phenomena Hiller asks: “how much harm does a single individual act, such as an afternoon pleasure ride in a gas-guzzling car, cause with regard to its effects on climate change?” (Hiller, 349). He illustrates that if the majority of people answer no to this question, the problem of who is responsible is not solved. If all people answer no to this question, it soon becomes clear that all these individual cases definitely have effect when added up together, but nobody feels responsible for that one Sunday drive. Hiller’s argument here is that the Sunday afternoon drive is the reason for climate change, even though it is very difficult for humans to feel about it this way.
Another example of researchers arguing for the impact of individual choice is what Wells et al state in Behaviour and climate change: Consumer perceptions of responsibility:
Carbon emissions are also strongly linked to the consumption of private households and the choices and behaviours of individuals. Motivating consumers to adopt more sustainable consumption behaviours is therefore an important policy goal and a source of potential commercial marketing opportunities (Wells et al, 809).
They emphasize that when moving towards a lower-carbon economy, it is required that individuals take action, because together they form a big part of the problem with their private residences and energy use. In the same paper, they also zoom into corporate social responsibility versus
consumer responsibility. Sometimes it seems as if businesses are not frowned upon while making decisions with negative impacts on climate change, while consumers making similar decisions would definitely be frowned upon. “This may be due to the dominance of the notion of consumer sovereignty, which assigns power as opposed to responsibility to consumers, as a key principle underpinning the marketing discipline” (Wells et al, 811). So it seems that there is a general discourse that consumers have sovereignty and the power to change, while this sovereignty is not often linked to big corporations that could have large-scale impacts with their decisions. However, in The Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility Philip Cochran shows that corporate social responsibility has grown from being discussed solely in academic circles to something that is more widely known and expected. Moreover, he also shows that a company that makes sustainable decisions is not only good for the environment, but this also has a positive influence in how the corporation is viewed in today’s world that is so surrounded by and immersed in media. "Positive media relations can be absolutely critical to organizations in today’s media rich environment. Firms that are seen as socially responsible will have an edge over other firms, particularly those with socially irresponsible reputations” (Cochran, 453). This means that corporations do not only have altruistic reasons to make decisions in line with moral responsibility in relation to climate change, but also gain from this themselves. It is important, according to him, that companies make decisions while solving social needs, and this in turn can lead to more investments and public goodwill for them as well.
Moral responsibility of both individuals and corporations are important when assessing who can and should do what to prevent catastrophic results of climate change. Social influencers are interesting in this regard because they are individuals working together with large corporations and brands. The link between fast fashion industry social influencers and the way they operate on social media not representing awareness around climate change has been largely neglected and is therefore an underexplored topic. Many large social influencers do not seem to represent
awareness on their social media channels about the effects of the fast fashion industry, even though it is an industry they play a large role in. I would like to shed light on how this situation has taken shape. I will do so by presenting three case studies on three big social influencers that play a part within the Dutch fashion industry. For some reason, ethical consumerism seems to be
something that is promoted mostly by niche social influencers and this must mean that there is a reason the mass-adoption of promoting ethical consumerism has not happened yet. Even though the problems of the current systems are clear and there are brands available with production processes that do not wreak havoc on the planet in the same way that fast fashion brands do, the general attitude expressed by social influencers towards fast fashion industry brands is that of loving it and not being able to have enough of it.
For the purpose of this research, the focus will be on three Dutch social influencers who each have a high number of followers: Monica Geuze, Mascha Feoktistova and Teske de Schepper. All of these social influencers were not famous before they started their channels and
have thus grown from micro-influencers to macro-influencers. They have all become big social influencers by growing their channels organically. Only Monica Geuze already had some followers on Instagram before she started her YouTube channel due to people knowing her from being the DJ of a famous Dutch rapper, Ronnie Flex. She has stated in the Yous & Yay podcast that her Instagram follower count before she started her YouTube channel was around 8.000 followers. What connects these three social influencers is that they are all established, big names in the Dutch YouTuber scene. However, they have different approaches when it comes to ethical consumerism. Mascha Feoktistova does not specifically promote ethical brands but has been displaying more awareness around climate change and the impact of fast fashion the last couple of years, Teske de Schepper has had a very clear image change in her career a few years ago in which she decided only to focus on cruelty-free and ethical brands, and Monica Geuze is a very big YouTuber who often uploads hauls but does not seem to display any awareness around the topic of ethical consumerism in relation to climate change. By comparing the three of them, looking at their content, their follower count and news articles and interaction with their content relevant conclusions could be drawn about the impact of being aware of fast fashion on their channel. In her master thesis, Sophie Giepmans also draws the conclusion, that with the results from her research it can be stated that the using of a social influencer or well-known vlogger for advertisements can increase how highly their audience regard a brand. This means that people have to be aware of the fact that what social influencers express, is picked up by many people.
Within these case studies, the identities and images of the studied social influencers are impacted by the relation between identity and consumerism and how they present themselves and construct their image living in a world full of (social) media. Mark Deuze discusses in his book Media Life the notion that humans are not living with media, but within media, like fish in water. He states that where reality is open source, identities are - like websites - always under construction, and where private life is lived in public forever more. His book focuses on the question of how people can live a good life in media like fish in water. It is interesting that social influencers, whose lines between public and private life, and professional and private time, are often blurred by
uploading their lives onto the internet, and construct their identity by making haul videos. In Making sense of haul videos: self-created celebrities fill a fashion media gap Sarah Sykes and John Zimmerman research identity creation and communication through videos that were uploaded by users themselves. They considered identity creation and its relationship to, amongst others, fashion videos related to four aspects: “portrayal of self through fashion, material possession, brand relationship, and experience attachment” (Sykes & Zimmerman, 2012). Retailers are very aware of the fact that their product sales are impacted by positive and negative reviews by social influencers. At the same time, social influencers are very aware that the brands they collaborate with and how they portray themselves wearing certain fashion looks to the outside world. If social influencers share with the internet that they have bought something and are now the proud owner of this product, this says something about what they want the purchase of this product to do for
their public image. Mark Deuze asks how people can live a good life within media, a social influencer might ask how they can live a good life by how they influence within media.
The relation between consumerism and identity has long been conceptualized in scholarly literature. It is clear that people construct their identity by the products they buy, and the last years there has been a notable increase in people who want to consume green, consciously or ethically. Self-identification is therefore an important reason for a consumer to behave the way they do. In the discussion of the research paper To buy or not to buy: The roles of self-identity, attitudes, perceived behavioral control and norms in organic consumerism M.H. Johe and N. Bhullar state that “as predicted, the organic identity experimental manipulation positively influenced participants' intentions to buy organic products as compared with individuals in the pro-environmental identity and control conditions, respectively” (Johe & Bullar, 103). They did a study that found that organic identity can be primed to create identity-congruent shifts toward organic consumerism. This shows clearly that people do not just buy products because they have a need for it and it has a useful function, the buying of the product is also strongly linked to how the person wants to express and profile themselves. Michael Strangelove goes into more depth in his book Watching YouTube: Extraordinary Videos by Ordinary People about new production processes concerning the construction of identity when looking at how YouTube is different from more traditional forms of media like television: “YouTube presents a peculiar set of problems for the construction of identity. It strips our memories of the context that gives them meaning and opens up our lives to
misinterpretation. It tempts young people to bring the world into their bedrooms when it might be better to keep the door shut and the camera off” (Strangelove, 40).
However, this will not stop people from watching or creating videos, as there are of course more reasons to create videos, such as enjoying the creating of something, or enjoying production aspects of it like editing. Moreover, there are different expressions of identity on social media, the change of Teske de Schepper to only focus on ethical brands and the subsequent change of identity is an interesting change that I want to explore. The fact that YouTube strips our memories of context does not mean that ethical consumerism displayed by social influencers is meaningless. The different degrees to which the channels of these social influencers are characterized by these hauls and shoplogs advocating for fast fashion brands, will help draw a clear picture on the
influence that showcasing awareness around the shadow side of the fast fashion industry has on their followers and image. For some reason, ethical consumerism seems to be something that is promoted mostly by niche social influencers and this must mean that there is a reason the mass-adoption of promoting ethical consumerism has not happened yet. That is why it is relevant to study what specific problems social influencers encounter when being outspoken on their social media platforms about the negative impact the fast fashion industry has on climate change. The answer to this question might shed light on the specific reasons in the system causing for the lack of display of awareness, and might even present a solution to how social influencers might change their ways in the future in a way that is beneficial for them, their audience and the climate.
2.2 From Mass Media to Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 was first coined after the dot com bubble had burst. This bubble lasted from 1997 to 2000 and was the result of optimistic thinking about internet companies causing the stock prices to rise and internet companies to grow at extreme rates because of this. In previous years, companies like PayPal, Yahoo! and Amazon had been founded in this craze and a rapid expansion of the internet was occurring. When the bubble finally burst some thought this signalled the end of the internet age, that it had all just been an over-hyped fad. However, others were more optimistic about the future of the web and thus started calling this new chapter in the history of the internet “Web 2.0”. They turned out to be right, the internet was not done for, and the market just needed some time to adjust. Sometimes the technology is already there, but culture has to catch up with the rapid changes occurring in a world that is changing and globalizing fast. Angelo Castellani et al write in the article WebIoT: A web application framework for the internet of things that “the potential of such a change is still to be fully exploited, and phenomena such as social networks and cloud computing are just two of the many innovative solutions that have been born from the Web 2.0” (Castellani et al). People had to realize that not every idea or business was easily transferable to the internet, but some were and the era of Web 2.0 began. Whereas Web 1.0 was static and one-sided, Web 2.0 was dynamic and allowed for users to interact with sites and each other. In Web 1.0, users who accessed the internet could look up information to read and take in, but with Web 2.0 they now had the possibility to share files and participate. In their paper Wielding new media in Web 2.0: exploring the history of engagement with the collaborative construction of media
products, Theresa Harrison and Brea Barthel argue that Web 2.0 has created a more active audience, a more participatory audience, that over the long-term join in movements and interact with each other. “Web 2.0 services and applications make possible more dynamic interactions between clients and servers, more engaging webpage displays and applications and ultimately more direct, interactive and participative user-to-user interactions than heretofore experienced on the web” (Harrison & Barthel, 157). This change in structure and usage of the web had an
immense impact on the way society functioned. Many industries were disrupted and the
advertisement industry was no different, one could even argue it was one of the most profoundly impacted industries.
When exploring YouTube in particular, since the social influencers of this paper’s case studies are such well-established names on this platform, it becomes apparent that this
participatory culture proliferates on the platform that is so well-constructed for Web 2.0. First of all, Jean Burgess and Joshua Green describe YouTube as “structured and evolving as a media system in the economic and social context of broader media and technological change” (Burgess & Green, 9). These days, YouTube is a mainstream website used by many people and it thrives by having viewers interact with the videos that are uploaded on the site. Many content uploaders will often ask their viewers to “like, comment and subscribe, and do not forget to press thumbs up” causing a
higher rate of interaction and subsequent channel growth because of this interaction. This interaction also changes advertising dynamics. In her book Advertising 2.0: Social Media
Marketing in a Web 2.0 World Tracy Luted sums up potential digital advertising strategies: “Online advertising is diverse with numerous possible formats. These include paid search ads, display ads, classifieds, rich media, referrals or lead generation, promotional e-mail with embedded ads, and sponsorships” (Tuten, 6). The purpose of an advertisement is to urge the consumer to buy a product or use a service. The emergence of Web 2.0 thus has a gigantic impact on the industry, since Web 2.0 allows everybody to be in direct contact with anyone they want in real time. On top of this, it does not matter where people are: as long as they both have a working internet
connections, they will be able to communicate with each other. This goes not only for people communicating with each other, but also for brands who want to reach their potential customers and vice versa. Instead of displaying an advertisement somewhere just hoping it will reach someone, they can now take charge and proactively approach their customers in all sorts of new ways. Brown and Hayes emphasize that this is exactly what they mean when they say that
marketing is broken: “Marketing is based on notions that are 20 years out of date. The notion that if you put enough messages out there some of them will be heard. The notion that ‘building the brand’ is money well spent” (Brown and Hayes, 3). With Web 2.0, this does not have to be this way anymore.
Advertising stems from a time when a target audience had to be searched for and businesses had a more difficult time making a connection with their customers. In today’s world, the majority of the time people spend on the web, they spend on social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. As it turns out, the time people spend on these sites is so high, that the advertising industry has shifted from traditional forms of advertising like in newspapers or on television to trying to harness the marketing power of these sites. When one looks at the history of advertising on YouTube for example, one sees that the advertisements first appeared on the side. People access YouTube to watch videos and this could previously be done without watching an advertisement first, but as the market evolved the more intrusive pre-roll came into existence. The viewer is now forced to watch an advertisement every couple videos when browsing YouTube, only able to skip the advertisement after waiting for five seconds. The benefit for the brand using this type of advertisement versus the advertisement displayed to the side of the video is clear: whereas first people had the choice to look away, people are now coerced into watching the advertisement, since their eyes are already focused on this part of the screen to watch the video. Nobody forces a viewer to watch the advertisement, but since the viewer has an interest in watching the video, the fact that they will be able to see it after having seen the advertisement nudges them into undergoing the ad. Next to this, in Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions Norman Booth and Julie Ann Matic emphasize that “the emerging new influencer community is wielding significant power over the perceptions of brands and companies, largely driven by the rapid expansion of social media channels through
which influencers communicate” (Booth & Matic, n.p.). Channels like YouTube, after realizing what the changes that Web 2.0 brought about entailed, evidently had to come up with new strategies to keep making profits, just like more traditional companies had done in the past. It is interesting to note, however, that in a paper called Video Blogs: A Qualitative and Quantitative Inquiry of Recall and Willingness to Share by Shah et al, critical remarks are made about the ability of viewers to remember information presented to them in these videos. They too, note the significant rise in popularity of these video’s on communities that are flourishing since Web 2.0. A relationship between willingness to share and to recall what they saw in the video’s was not found, which is interesting, especially since brands pay a lot of money to advertise their products this way.
The advertising industry thus thinks of ingenuous ways to improve their strategies and move along with the ever-changing markets. One of their answers to increasing their marketing effectiveness in this fast-paced world is to work together with social influencers. Another point that is elaborately discussed in Booth’s and Matic’s paper is that of “nobodies” of the past becoming “somebodies” in the future. This notion is very strongly linked to the feeling viewers often have that they know social influencers. Since they are sharing their lives publicly on the internet, and started out as a “nobody”, people can more easily relate to them and in turn this causes the brands to benefit from working with them in advertisements. Since communication has become such an integral part of Web 2.0, it pays off to have a large audience that one is able to communicate with, the social influencer is often capable and willing to provide this in exchange for money.
“Importantly, while some online advertising options are response driven, meaning the goal is to drive traffic to brand web sites where consumers can get product information and purchase
products, others, like social media, are desired for their ability to build brand equity” (Tuten, 9). The social influencer advertisements are perfect for this. Audiences seeing their favourite social
influencers, having changed from nobody to somebody, wearing a certain item is the perfect strategy to create more awareness around the brand and subtly let the audience of the social influencer start preferring that particular brand. Instead of spending their marketing budgets on magazine editorials and commercials, brands now pay the social influencer to recommend their product to their audience.
When it comes to authenticity, social influencers often express the wish to exclusively work together with brands that they feel a connection to and would use themselves. However, history has shown that this ultimate collaboration does not always occur, with social influencers promoting products that they could not advocate for after all and their audiences being disappointed by a lack of integrity. Social influencers in the fashion industry often express the same wish to exclusively work together with brands that they are enthusiastic about themselves. It is very interesting therefore, that these social influencers so ingrained in their particular scene, often fail to pay attention to the devastating impact of their industry on the earth. In an article called Climate change and media usage: Effects on problem awareness and behavioral intentions Arlt et al examine how climate change awareness and media usage are related to each other. Even though
the authors emphasize that no single formula can be followed when it comes to this topic, it is clear from looking at the results that media usage does have a certain influence on awareness of climate problems and on related behavioural intentions. This means, that even though social influencers may not always see themselves as role models, and even though there is no clear formula that they can or should follow, they can definitely impact their audience’s awareness on climate change and subsequently inspire behaviour changes by leading by example. After looking at the influence of different types of media, Arlt et al concluded that the effects are complex and nuanced, but that an effect on behavioural intentions, such as becoming more engaged in politics, “is positively influenced by using various media sources and that the strongest media effects in general can be observed in those cases of high usage of various media: that means public television new, print media and online information media” (Arlt et al, 60). It is important to thus critically look at the impact caused by social media alone, and see this impact within the bigger context of all media people find themselves surrounded with. The fact that one social influencer might inspire to consume ethically must be viewed as the example given by just one person in the big media landscape. It would therefore be naive to think that the promotion of ethical consumerism in the fashion industry by social influencers alone might be enough to change everything, but it does have a meaningful - and measurable - impact.
2.3 Climate change and responsibility
The reality of climate change is that there is a huge issue facing every single person on the planet. The state of the future is largely dependent on what is done today to prevent further global
warming. The leaders of the gas and oil industry have consistently put short-term gain and corporate profits above the future and welfare of the planet. The intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an organization from the United Nations that was founded to evaluate the risks of climate change. The organization publishes extensive reports on issues around greenhouse gas emissions. In the first chapter of their social report on global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, they go into more depth explaining the impact of an increase in temperature that seems, small, but will have enormous consequences on life as humans currently know it. “The overarching context of this report is this: human influence has become a principal agent of change on the planet, shifting the world out of the relatively stable Holocene period into a new geological era, often termed the Anthropocene” (Allen et al, 53). The burning of fossil fuels has an enormous impact, and the latest IPCC report states that people have to make sure that they reduce gas and oil by 20% this year, and by 55% in 2050, to prevent a further rise in temperature. But at the same time, companies like ExxonMobil have expressed hopes publicly of increasing their gas and oil production. It is interesting to critically assess the role the consumer plays within this large-scale problem versus the role of governments and large corporations. The role of the consumer in comparison with that of corporations has already been discussed in more detail before, but the role of the state remains a significant factor. Since the fashion industry is one of the leading industries when it comes to consumerism and pollution on a global scale, it is important to take note of the
action of the individual, but also of the actions of entities that could cause substantial change by implementing policies or changing regulations.
Because climate change is such a global problem governments might be best equipped to take action with international law and transnational measures. Christina Voigt concludes in her paper State Responsibility for Climate Change Damages that “still, new thinking and legal development are necessary if international law is to be equipped to deal with complex global challenges such as climate change” (Voigt, 22). She emphasizes that there is urgent need to strengthen global efforts to prevent further climate change and that state responsibility should be combined with environmental regulation. Specifically taking a look at the fashion industry - which might also be an example for other industries as well - it seems that the severity of the issue at hand does not seem to be addressed by these corporations, policymakers and social influencers. Even though it has been argued by stakeholders that it should be the state’s responsibility to invest in green energy and promote renewable energy sources and an improved, fairer production
process, exceptional progress in this has not begun. Even though there seems to be growing awareness around the topic, and people are implementing lifestyle changes on an individual level, like buying second-hand clothing and donating clothes to charity, scientists are still sounding alarm bells, since it does not seem to be enough to prevent catastrophe. Drought, forest fires, sea level rises that will lead to mass migration, poverty and disease are all probable future scenarios changing what life will be like for future generations if solutions are not presented. It is the combination of different individuals and businesses that amount to this large problem, and it is difficult to say that one industry is responsible for certain effects, and another industry for the other. The problem is incredibly large and complex and effects do not always immediately occur, which makes it difficult to assess who should be held accountable for what. The motivation to change might also be difficult when a system works in such a way that there is always a desire for more, such as is the case in the fashion industry.
Since the industry is currently under immense pressure to keep producing clothes at an extremely high rate, the industry must move fast. In reaction to this, a movement came into existence that advocates for a more slow approach: the so-called “slow fashion” movement. The aim of this movement is to be a sustainable alternative to fast fashion, while being stylish at the same time. Additionally, within the slow fashion movement, there is an emphasis on timeless design and products that last a long time. Both of these focus points are a direct reaction to that, which according to supporters of the slow fashion movement, is immoral about the fast fashion industry. The timeless designs are there to prevent people from wanting to throw away clothes every season in search of something “hotter” that season. Ensuring the materials last a long time is done for the same reason, since people will not throw away their clothes and buy new ones if the materials last longer than the materials from the fast fashion industry do. In the paper Sustainable Markets: Motivating Factors, Barriers, and Remedies for Mobilization of Slow Fashion Ertekin and Atik want to better understand how the current fast fashion industry could move towards more
