The harm of microtrends
Ever wonder what happened to the $3 Shein crop top you purchased in 2020? Chances are, it is either gathering dust in the back of your closet, or joining the 92 million tons of textile waste in the landfill. What used to be the trends of each decade is now shifting every year, month, and even week. When everyone is trying to find a way to be original, is anyone really?
While there is nothing wrong with being trendy, it is concerning to watch as clothing gets purchased and discarded within a matter of months. In some instances, these items are of such low quality that they fall apart and are unable to even be donated to a local thrift store. Clothes are meant to be worn many times, but with microtrends changing so quickly, that plaid skirt from last month is tossed right into the wastebasket. This fast fashion culture is not only polluting the environment, but the perception of clothing as an industry.
The primary driving force behind these small shifts in fashion and culture include social media pages such as Tiktok and Instagram. Social media influencers often display their fun and lavish lifestyles online, and consumers find their posts “aesthetic.” From cottagecore, coconut girl, and even the original vsco girl, teenagers try to replicate a certain lifestyle in the way they dress. However, many do not consider the fact that social media influencers and celebrities have one thing that most teenagers do not: insanely massive amounts of money to spend.
Many consumers use fast fashion to keep up with the latest trends, and they are not entirely at fault. Styles move so quickly, that if one were to spend $50 on every shirt they purchased, we would all be bankrupt. Therefore, consumers are not directly to blame for using cheaper websites such as Shein to achieve their fashion desires. However, this is very unsustainable and a painful cycle to witness. To buy a shirt one day, and not wear it ever again after the month’s trends have flipped, is absolutely absurd.
I urge all consumers to think to themselves, “Why am I purchasing this?” Most likely, you are the target market of a particular product and have been effectively brainwashed by their marketing strategies. In order to end this senseless cycle, ask yourselves, “Would I wear this in a month? Is this truly the way I’d like to express myself? What possible effects will my actions have?” By critically thinking before clicking that purchase button, we can all take part in improving fashion culture, our environment, and most importantly, ourselves.
Thus I have to say, this article is like totally rad dude, like totally correct am I right. As the human race, we are wasting a lot of earth’s natural resources and they are depleting quickly. Just look at oil for instance, we only have a limited supply of oil in this world, and then what then? As the top species in the world, we need to have the obligation to look out for others and our climate. We only have one earth and we need to preserve it. And even science has taken a look outside of our little blue world, and just our planet is very rare. The fact that it is habitable by life, the odds just worked out in our favor. We are very lucky as a species to survive on a planet and we need to do our best to keep it alive.
This is really good because it points out the cons of following new fads and trends. Social media promotes a very lavish lifestyle that most people don’t have. Recently, I was able to watch something about managing your money and the importance of not making an impulse buy. The speaker urged us to wait a week before buying something. This week’s time period gives us time to reflect on whether we really want or need any item. People these days have a tendency to buy things that we see online or in stores just because we like it at that moment. It hadn’t been on our radar previously and therefore we had no need to buy it but because we saw it in the stores and liked it we did.
I think this article brought up a really good point is that people follows the trending style but they never thought about their own style. I’ve seen some of my friends literally buying tons of new clothes because there is a new style on social media. And the next thing is whenever that style is not trending no more they just leave the clothes in a corner or throw them away. In my opinion trying new styles is a really good idea so you can find the best fit. But before trying you need to know if you are actually interested in this style or you are just following the trend. People should have the outfits that make them feel like themselves, not copying others style.
I totally agree with this article I think that especially now in the twenty-first century there is large overconsumption of fast fashion. seasonally I see at target them change all their products to fit the next season knowing that all those “trendy” clothes are being sent to landfills and even burned if terrible to the environment. I highly recommend starting a capsule closet that has pieces of clothing that can be worn all year round which would help decrease the number of clothes to buy but also help stop the overconsumption of fast fashion. I’d also recommend just buying second-hand.
Thank you for writing this article. I think that everybody should step back and reflect on whether they actually want to wear something or not. “Do I have a history of changing my clothing style twice in a year? Does the clothing I wear come from my personal style, or is it something you see on TikTok?”. If you wear trendy clothing to fit in, you should be aware of how unsustainable it is. It’s even more important to recognize that there are so many students on campus who don’t follow trends yet fit in just the same! 🙂