Adulting - Let's Talk About... Overconsumption

Episode Date: October 6, 2024

 Hello and welcome to Adulting, and the thirteenth episode of Let’s Talk About… a broadening of Adulting... where that was about all of the things we never got taught in school, this is almost like seminars on life; where my audience (that's you!), get to chat anonymously about things they couldn't necessarily discuss over lunch with their friends, or feel like they don't have anyone to talk to about whatever it may be.  To get involved, follow me on Instagram @oenone, where every Tuesday we vote on a topic and every Wednesday we dig deep. Let’s Talk About… overconsumption. The submission read Romanticizing Overconsumption on Social Media. This is a topic that has come up time and time again and I am really glad that we’re finally getting into it! I hope you enjoy  as always, please do rate, review and subscribe! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Hello and welcome to Adulting and the 13th episode of Let's Talk About. A broadening of Adulting where that was about all of the things we never got taught in school. This is almost like Seminars on Life where my audience my audience that's you get to chat anonymously about things you can't necessarily discuss over lunch with your friends or just feel like you don't have anyone to talk to about whatever it may be to get involved follow me on instagram at anoni where every Tuesday we vote on a topic and every Wednesday we dig deep. Just to say actually right now I am going

on a little holiday next week so we won't be doing it next week. I'm just going home to my parents house for a week to basically sit on the sofa and watch TV. Just really feel like I need to switch off for a little bit just so you know but I'll be back the week after. Anyway let's talk about overconsumption. The submission read, romanticizing overconsumption on social media. This is a topic that has come up time and time again. I'm really glad that we're finally getting into it. I hope you enjoy. And as always, please do rate, review and subscribe. Okay, so some initial messages about why people want to talk about this. Online influencer lifestyle isn't sustainable for most of the population.

It normalizes excessive spending and influences me to spend much more. Constant hauls making me feel like I need to buy new clothes when the ones I have are fine. We're using up resources and creating so much waste, it's destroying the earth. It adds to the overall crushing weight of being a woman, needing to have every trending item. A longer message read. I feel like for years we were on a real upward trajectory with this post-COVID, and now this autumn hits

and I've never known this sudden switch like it. My social media is bombarded with new autumn trends, decor, et cetera. It feels like it's suddenly gone mad after years of pushing for sustainability. I'm not a mother, but I managed to fall onto mum talk the other week and I was shocked by how many parents

pack back-to-school and Halloween boxes for their kids, which feels so unnecessarily lol. I never had that. I also feel like with Vinted, we've suddenly forgot what the point was and now I see many people buying more clothes from there than they ever would knew. I'm not sure where this mentality switched from,

but it feels like there's always pressure to buy something. It's all keeping up with the Joneses at the moment. There's so much in this that I want to respond to. I think that this person is right. There was a point when sustainability was really at the forefront of our minds. I think I decided to actively opt out of fast fashion, I think in around 2019. It's not to say that I don't occasionally, and I do mean occasionally buy fast fashion. Gym kit is the one place when I probably still do buy things that aren't secondhand and not necessarily from a sustainable brand, but I do not buy from ASOS, Zara, Pretty Little Thing, Mango, any of those high street shops. In the last, in that that period I've probably bought do not know a handful

of items or my mum's bought it for me and then I guess I've just like okay I'll keep it she'd forget anyway but I do think there was a time and at that time and I think that because I'd made also part of it was I'd made this point on social media I'd said it and that's such a big accountability thing when you've got loads of people following you so I really did stick with it there has been a shift now where I do think that we do are allowing ourselves to self-soothe with shopping and consumption and I do wonder if part of that is tied into this economic crisis and just really difficult time globally that we're going through with a lot of political unrest. We're living through a genocide. There seems to be climate crisis, which obviously, ironically,

directly ties into overconsumption. But I do think that that is definitely having some sort of impact in individual culpability, responsibility, and self-awareness taking a slight back seat i think when everyone's cortisol levels are heightened and everyone's purse strings are tightened there can be perhaps more of a swing towards apathy when it comes to personal choices because everything feels so stressful and so difficult and so hard that we want to put a plaster over the issue. I guess it's in a way a bit like binge eating or any other, you know, drinking too much or making choices that just make our lives that maybe are really chaotic and difficult feel a bit better. I wonder if that's collectively slightly what's happening. And maybe when we're in a place of feeling more comfortable feeling more

engaged feeling less dissociative and less disenfranchised maybe it's in those periods when we feel like we have more agency to make better decisions not saying it's good I just think that personally has a point and I also notice that trend and I've also noticed my own sometimes feeling like and I've actually noticed my own sometimes feeling like and I've actually had conversations like this recently like oh what does it matter like we're coming up against such big barriers there are all these bloody billionaires just constantly accruing more and more money there's all these celebrities flying on private jets there are governments that will not stop bombing and flattening lands like why should I just not buy a top I do think that that

perhaps is part of it and I do think that also means that perhaps figures that are not interested or engaged are capitalizing on the fact that you know a lot of people feel like this and so maybe that creates a kind of weakness within us god so it's really a really long-winded answer but we'll come on to that more later the The back to school thing's funny. We once did a, let's talk about, about Christmas time and finding Christmas time very overwhelming with the overconsumption. And one of the things that was brought up is this new Christmas box thing, which I didn't know was a thing. I think it can be tricky territory with this because sometimes it's just nice little treats that are tied into sort of a time of year like Halloween but obviously as well I can imagine that it does

come into probably a lot of like plastic consumption and it does feel a lot but when we were speaking about it with the Christmas I almost need to refresh my mind but a lot of mothers were writing and I kind of came around to the idea of the Christmas box because initially I was a bit like what the hell and the last one on vintage we had another message about this I'm just going to get that okay but who cares that people buy a lot ofed as long as it's being used and kept out of landfill? Surely that's better than the alternative, which is either buying lots of new or shopping unwanted things on landfill. I think slightly what's happening with Vinted is, and I think this is true of charity shops, and I've worked with charity shops in the past. I'm a massive charity shop shopper.

And even that in the last five years, I've really noticed the quality of the stuff in charity shops has really gone downhill because I think what happens is people will buy quite a substantial amount of clothing from a fast fashion brand it's cheap it's not very good quality you probably don't value it that much because the way you the reason you bought it is because it's on trend because it's cheap and so after a few wears you think I'm over it but I'll go put it in a charity shop and then that means I don't have to feel bad because it's not going to landfill and so I can just buy more that isn't actually true especially with a lot of fast fashion stuff uh charity shops will only put stuff out on the shop floor that is like good quality but they are kind of overrun with Zara and pretty little thing and stuff so

people are obviously still really consuming it but I think people imagine the cycle ends if you put it on into trad shop and I think the same thing happens with vintage where people will buy something from a fast fashion brand people will sell it on vintage and yes someone buying an item of vintage that's fast fashion is I guess better because it's second hand and it is kind of stopping it going into landfill but it still means that the production rate is probably the same there are so many clothes I guess better because it's secondhand and it is kind of stopping it going into landfill. But it still means that the production rate is probably the same. There are so many clothes already out in the world. Amazing secondhand stuff. Like it's really disheartening actually in the UK how difficult it is to find good quality vintage that isn't either extortionate or just like difficult to come across. When I was living in Paris, every single vintage shop

was stuffed full of some designer stuff yeah that was extortionate but if it was just like a really cool 80s top or 70s or 60s or whatever if it was just not a famous brand it would be priced really reasonably and I think that that is something actually lots of European countries I remember even when I was in Italy in Turin I managed to find some amazing bits a lot of their vintage shops are stuffed full of actual vintage secondhand good quality rather than like last season's are or a few weeks old pretty little thing so with the vintage thing I think what's happening is because people are so much more aware and because people do like buying things secondhand, there is maybe a little bit of dishonesty in buying things on Vinted. Not necessarily dishonesty.

I mean, it is ultimately good that people are buying things secondhand. But the problem is I don't actually think people are buying any less. I think they're just then actually, if anything, just going on to sell it and then buy again. So I think that can kind of be the issue sometimes with Vinted and reselling and charity shops and stuff is we have to remember that it's great to buy things secondhand. But buying, selling your stuff doesn't mean it's like, I guess, a small barrier into that piece of clothing, going from point of production to end of life as a piece of clothing and ending up somewhere, you know, in a mound of clothes. Another message read, I actually don't follow many influencers who do regular hauls either but I still feel influenced to buy buy buy because

these women look fab and seem content back to the highlights real posts and I guess at some level I must aspire to look like them and live like them and the easiest way to achieve that is by wearing the same clothes much easier to spend x amount on that jacket they look so chic in than to ask myself what it is about their lifestyle that appeals to me and how can I get there. I also agree with the point about Vinted. The app is so easy to use now that I buy all my clothes there but this summer bought way more than I ever had previously because it came with a little boost of I'm buying consciously to stop supporting fast fashion but I didn't need any of it regardless of where I bought it.

So much to say to this if you haven't read my book Pad Influence I do actually talk a lot about these subjects in the book specifically in relation to this message about how as a consumer you do need to be really conscious of how influencer marketing works. I think it's such an astute observation from this person that when we form relationships with people that we follow online, buying products that they advertise to us somewhere subconsciously definitely does bring us closer, which is like a concept that I write about in the book. And so having an awareness of that is really good because the reality is it's not really going to bring you that much closer.

I still love following people online and their influences who I think are really interesting and I love how they style stuff and I might follow them for lots of various reasons. Maybe it's because I know how the sausage is made. But even when I get that pang of like, oh my God, I really want that outfit this person has on. I'd love that jacket. When I actually step away from my phone and I kind of let myself forget about it for a minute, that impulsivity of feeling like feeding that craving I guess of wanting that dopamine hit of it can go away and it's kind of like a trait you have to like untrain yourself when it comes to shopping and the point about vintage as well is so interesting because there's lots of different ways that you can cut up how you approach shopping so if you're

looking at it from like a sustainability point of view, then you could say that I only buy things secondhand, I repair things, I hire things, or you could say, I buy extremely expensive, but worth it products, which are so well made that they'll never fall apart. That's also like one sustainability angle. But then another sustainable angle could be I don't shop at all. And that, you know, in fact, true sustainability is never really buying anything. And again, it's repairing what you already own. It's perhaps doing like clothes shops with your friends. I do love shopping and I love clothes. And I think that it's quite ignorant of us to be too damning on ourselves to say that we're never going to shop again because it is part of life's pleasure and if you love fashion and it's the world we live in. And so I think that we have to cut ourselves a bit of slack in realizing that we can't do things perfectly.

But I think looking at why we want to consume at such rates or at such volumes and even learning to shop your own wardrobe and getting better at wearing the clothes you already have how often are you wearing the same pair of jeans and same top and then when you have a date or you have a special occasion oh my god I need a new top but actually there's probably like 50 things in your wardrobe that you've never really worn for whatever reason you're saving it for best we don't think it's right we don't think it's fashionable if you stop yourself from shopping for a bit if you put yourself on a ban for whatever period of time and make yourself shop your own wardrobe I think you'll be really surprised to find how many things you actually already have that are really cool that you can style differently that you can wear differently and so yeah there's

there's kind of all different elements whether you're looking at from like an ethical point of view how are my clothes made a sustainable point of view how many clothes are being made and how many things am I putting into production or even kind of like your own psychological point of view of why am I over consuming what am I trying to heal what am I trying to gain from this purchase and I am someone that does love buying things I love that dopamine hit and sometimes when I'm really sad I will actually just go out and find myself like going to a charity shop to buy something. It's absolutely trying to like put a plaster over a wound. You know, we call it retail therapy for a reason. It can be quite

therapizing. The other side to this conversation was a lot of people being quite critical of influencers as a concept, which I understand. It's tricky territory it's again something I spoke about kind of extensively in bad influence and another message read I feel like we buy more stuff because all we do is sit around consuming other people buying selling stuff like it's made all fun and shiny looking and we're bored af doing nothing because phones and social media is just one massive ad board it's not like the telly where you had ad breaks and then a program. It's all just stuff being sold and we're on it 24-7. We're bound to be pulled in and given to the advertisement. It's official. Mad men now live on our phones. Depending on like who you're following and how

it works, it kind of is like TV with ad breaks because lots of people who are influencers, it kind of is everyone kind of has to be an influencer. Now, if you're trying to write a book at a publishing deal, they want you to have a following. If you're a singer or an artist, you know, your talent managers will be like, you need to be big on TikTok. So often now what happens in any creative industry is maybe some of the people that you're following aren't even influencers. They're just other creatives who now have a big following at the top of their page and actually have to do advertising as a means to support their creative endeavors that is kind of where the world is going it's

actually really hard to be paid for your art exclusively it's something because of a lack of arts funding it's something we talk about a lot on everything is content and so influencers there are you have the influencers who kind of exclusively do fast fashion hauls and that's their bread and butter. I don't really engage with that kind of person online. Influencer, I think is an umbrella term for quite a varied and vast amount of content creators that exist on these platforms. And I do agree that there is harm in the people that are over-consuming. consuming then again you also have to remember we do have agencies as consumers it's like that phrase you know vote with your wallet vote with

your likes with your engagement the content you're consuming algorithms are designed to push content that does well often people love watching videos of people buying fast fashion there is also this unfairness that you know in order for people to feel like they want to get closer to influencers as we've spoken about who could make lots of money really lucrative brand deals from selling really cheap items of clothing are encouraging their followers to feel closer to them by being like buy this h&m top that i love i wear all the time the followers are then buying it in order to feel a closeness towards this influencer who is then profiting off the advertisements or the affiliate links or whatever. I think that, but in general, not all of advertising is like that and not all of influencing is like that. And a conversation

we kind of came up against in this conversation was about how much influencers are sort of held up as being sort of, I guess, the main bone of contention when it comes to overconsumption. And another message read, I really like the You're Wrong About podcast on influencers and how they interrogated that so much of the backlash against influencers is driven by misogyny. Much easier to hate on the woman who spooks you from your phone every day than the huge organizations making much more profit off this type of marketing and the mainly men sitting behind these companies. Influencing is marketing, but I've never heard anyone call my friends who work in marketing roles unethical.

It's a job. Huge amounts of people work for companies who are undertaking some form of unethical activity. And another message I received read, I work in law and you often have to work for companies who on a personal level you don't believe in and think they're harmful. For example, fast fashion brands. I consistently battle with this but ultimately have to go for work for them because I don't get a choice in what work I do. Unlike influencers who can decide to promote sustainability etc but choose not to because it hurts their bank account, doesn't align with what their followers want to see, they just don't care. I do however try as much as possible to buy slow fashion or buy items which

will last me years i struggle to have empathy for certain types of influencers who just over consume buy lots of clothes and then return most of them after they've filmed etc and feel like sometimes they stay ignorant to avoid having to admit they're part of the problem this message did rub me up wrong the wrong way a little bit and i don't want to be rude to this person but i think this is quite an interesting take on this because fundamentally i don't know what firm this person works for but how law works is obviously there'll be more lucrative and less lucrative roles and you could go into certain areas where you wouldn't have to represent certain brands and so with influencers yes there is like a direct brand to contact kind of thing and the amount of work that influencers

turn down I think you'd actually be astounded by and the amount of job offers and the amount of money that I mean just anecdotally recently for instance I haven't had that many brand deals and I've had a couple come in that are loads of money and I've just said not for me can't align with that I don't have the protection of some this being like, oh, it wasn't actually my choice because fundamentally you do have a choice. That being said, and I'm probably going to butch this, but we live in this economy, late stage capitalism. It's extremely difficult to earn money that does not in some way have a negative impact in terms of environmentally or ethically. So I don't mean to have a go at this person, but I think we can't really draw lines about who does and doesn't have agency. I think fundamentally, everyone currently is

struggling financially, most people are. And unfortunately, we don't live in a society which allows people to just work a normal, fruitful, purposeful nine-five job and be able to live within their means in a way that allows them to have the freedoms of you know going on holiday once a year or going out for drinks with their friends you know we are it is crunch time I think turning inward on each other in this moment and kind of blaming each other for where your jobs are is feels incorrect it's not to say that we should drop all of our morals and ethics and just like make as much money as we possibly can take any job on because what does it matter everything's unethical and everything's unsustainable but I do think that we can't just be like because influencers

are front-facing and I'm obviously talking about myself within this and also not myself everyone in this world it's quite neoliberal it's quite individualistic it's a really difficult time everyone wants to do the best for themselves and we do have to make choices sometimes that feel less ethical and there are sliding scales to that but I think there are very few people within society unless you are a teacher a doctor a nurse a, a cleaner, or anyone that's doing these kind of frontline jobs that actively help and are, you know, helping other people by virtue of the vocation that they are. Pretty much any industry that you go into is somehow funded by or supported by or backed by or invested in companies which are unethical and unsustainable and again that doesn't mean that we should be like oh well it exists everywhere but I think we do have to be really careful about

blaming individuals that are existing under a system that is fundamentally corrupt and flawed someone else actually did reply to this probably I should have just read that message rather than me reading mine uh me blabbering on it read i also work in law and also struggle with the fact that the companies my films works for are unethical e.g oil and gas companies and their values do not align with my own but i disagree with this person it's definitely a choice to stay and it's because the pay is better the work is more glamorous or interesting or whatever the reason is i think it's a cop-out to say that those of us in law don't get a choice in what work we do unlike influencers it's true we don't have the choice directly presented to us day to day in the way that I imagine influencers do but we implicitly make the choice every day by choosing

to continue working for the firm with those clients and it's ultimately possible to move and lots of people do and I think that's kind of what I was saying and also I really don't want to be like hyper defensive of influencers because I think that's just really stupid of me but another thing that also is interesting is being an influencer you are freelance you are self-employed your salary is very lumpy you do not have a salary as it were you're not on a payroll there is very little stability and perhaps if you do see an influencer doing something really out of pocket yes like this person said they could also go and get another job but it could be because you know they need to get paid I'm just trying to

be partisan on all sides I also think that the original message about the lawyer who said they do these certain things in their work and they feel like they can't avoid that I also do think that it's honorable in what they said that we try and offset these things in our individual lives, whether that's with our shopping habits or how we vote. I think that there is a disabling factor in the fact that, like I said, we live in a corrupt, late-stage capitalist country and society, which means that we cannot always avoid being a part of the tapestry that makes up the systems that we live under. And so it is great that when it comes to our individual choices, we do take that agency that we do have. Another message read, there's nothing wrong with being critical of

unethical industries and people working in them. I think it's more of a reflection of the amount of criticism against influencers versus lawyers working for oil and gas companies, to stick to the same example, can seem disproportionate. And this and this is saying well other factors can be at play here such as misogyny and jealousy the criticism and backlash against over consumption and haul type content is crucial to bring about change so that it no longer becomes acceptable to engage in this type of unethical behavior the problem can be when that is used to paint all influencers who share our content as promoting harmful practices just because they shared a link to their new jacket that 300 people

message asking for feels a bit different in terms of behavior but at the end of the day can still end up with others engaging in over consumption but that's where personal accountability is important so i think there's so many things at play here that we need to consider. Firstly, there is our own personal consumption of content and how much we're willing to be influenced and how much we take our agency and realize that we don't have to follow certain types of content. We don't have to engage with it, not to victim blame but another message that I thought was really interesting and very true I'm often quite shocked on and about in the world and nobody is dressed in a particularly fashionable way I mean this in good faith and with kindness it serves as a good reminder that the products and lifestyles that are visible to us every day on our little digital boxes are not realistic but funnily enough you rarely hear someone admit that they don't need or can't afford new bits and there was also other

messages about how people feel more pressure when they're in big cities like London than they do when they go to the countryside or back home to where their parents live. And I think that is the fundamental thread that runs through all of these podcasts is if we are consuming too much content and content is heightened, it is designed to grab your attention. It is designed to keep you on these apps. The things that are most engaging, influencers are vying for views and likes and engagement from followers, which means they have to do content which is the most grabbing, which is the most engaging. And in a way, as consumers, we can vote with our likes and our engagement. And if we disengage from content that promotes over consumption that will sway the algorithms in some way but I'm always shocked

by how few people still the conversation about fast fashion has reached I think you guys as my followers are very engaged this is something that I talk about it's something we all kind of struggle with in terms of carrying a lot of climate climate crisis skill and trying to figure out what actions we can take in order to mitigate some of the impact that we are having. But that isn't a universal feeling. And so it can be quite disheartening when you do land on different corners of the internet and there are so many people that are engaging with this content content perhaps not understanding the harm or the content creators not necessarily realizing how problematic it can be to be encouraging people to buy tons and tons of clothes that have been made really cheaply in dire circumstances and the production and the production chain and the volume of production

is just harmful to the planet and the people making our clothes but the other point about when you go outside into the real world is so true whenever I'm on the tube often I'll sit there and think god it is just not a lie but it's like in the real world if you're in Soho you're walking around Covent Garden or you're in a particularly sort of fashionable area yes you might see lots of young women and men walking around looking very cool or if you're in East London actually that's probably more where you'll see it but if you're just like on the tube on the bus commuting to work most people are just getting on with their lives wearing normal clothes normal and butter commas and it's really not as big of an issue as if you engage with so much of this content can make you feel so everyone's kind of under pressure but influencers

are also influenced by audiences and what they want to consume and so I think we have to remember that both as consumers and as influencers that we both have agency there and then we also have to remember that also at the top it's like how are we shopping how are we voting with our wallet forget about being influenced if less people are buying from fast fashion brands less fast fashion is going to get produced and so changing our shopping habits is a massive thing that we can do in order to try and enact change further up the line but that is really difficult because as I said these huge conglomerates that make so much money so good at advertising so like greenwashing it does feel like you're fighting a dying fight but you can kind of pull out of the fight in terms of allowing yourself to be influenced so much with over consumption by opting out of fast fashion by making a list which is a really

good suggestion someone said which is something I have on my phone. So at the minute, I've been borrowing my housemate's coat that I love, which is like this big oversized leather blazer from the Frankie shop. So I have that on my list. And then I have, what else do I have on there? I can't even think. Oh, I want a nice new white tank top. So things, basically, I wear my clothes. And then when I feel like I've got a dearth of something, like, oh, I wish I had this to go with the skirt.

Or I wish I had these shoes to go with this dress. I put it on the list, but it has to kind of go with something I already own. Because sometimes when we buy fast fashion, I think what happens is we'll buy a slew of kind of like on-trend items that maybe we wouldn't normally wear, that wouldn't normally go with anything else. We'll wear the top once for a night out. And then actually afterwards kind of be like, this isn't really my style. Getting to know your own style, thinking about the clothes that you wear over and over again maybe you have a little black mini dress that you love wearing out and it fits your body really nicely and you like how you feel in it maybe you could say I'd love to look for this kind of cut of dress in a different color I know I'm going to wear it all the time and put that on your list and then if you go to impulse

buy stuff online especially if it's like sales or stuff which is like kind of the worst time to shop because even though it's cheaper I think you do end up impulse buying more if it's not on your list you can't buy it it's kind of a good rule of thumb obviously trying to shop things secondhand but as we've spoken about it's definitely better to buy things secondhand but I actually before Glastonbury for example bought a load of stuff from Vinted had never really bought that much stuff from Vinted I tend to buy a lot of my secondhand stuff in charity shops or vintage shops just so like trying stuff on and feeling stuff so I bought this like bundle of stuff for Glastonbury and then I the girl like gave me

a discount that's quite a good discount and then it arrived and my friend Poppy was like no no I think all of that is from Shein so I got absolutely fooled there basically i think some people will buy stuff off alibaba or sheen or really cheap websites and then upload them with like different descriptions onto vinted that was my own stupidity but what i mean is you do have to be careful but if you're buying actual vintage stuff you're trying to find stuff that's like slightly older although obviously I know that sellers sometimes do hike up the prices on like y2k items yeah just being really clever with your search terms and how you use vintage buying stuff in charity shops borrowing clothes from your friends realizing that trends often unless it's something you already wear you're probably going to be over

it within like five minutes and also it's that immediate rush of wanting something it's the fun of like buying something I will sometimes just sit in the evening and put stuff into my basket on Farfetch or Net-A-Porter which I can't afford to buy and not buy it and sometimes just that process of kind of selecting items imagining wearing them and I can't even I did this like not that long ago and like I remember being like oh my god I really want this I don't really know what it was now so just changing your habits around shopping and changing your mindset and being like this isn't something I can access this easily it does have to be a bit more of a process if I need something for an event consider hiring it I love hiring outfits like peer-to-peer hiring especially is amazing but there's loads of hiring websites

that you can use and that means that you do have to be a bit more ahead of the game in terms of you can't just do next day delivery on a fast fashion website you do need to think about that a bit more but I think adding that mindfulness into your shopping is the main element so being like I can't just have this because I want it right now I have to really know that I want it if you are someone that finds yourself getting really overwhelmed by content, which is promoting lots of purchasing, then you take that cue and say, I'm just going to unfollow these people because it's just not healthy for me. And it's making me feel inadequate in some way, trying to just as much as you can relieve that pressure. Because as we've said in every episode, when we look up, when we go out into into the real world a lot of these things that we feel are so pressing and so damning don't really exist you know it is

just uh in the digital universe on our phones that everything is so heightened that would be my advice and I also just wanted to add about influencers that do hauls and stuff I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm not trying to excuse it I'm not saying they shouldn't be criticized I don't think it's good practice but I think what is really important to remember is that they are not doing that because it's good or because they want to have a shit ton of clothes maybe they do but actually fundamentally they're doing it because that is the content that people engage with and that is the content that makes the money and it's the content that people want to see and so when you're watching that like oh my god I need to have all this stuff they wouldn't have all of that stuff if you aren't watching them buy all that stuff that's kind of what I'm trying to

get out but I'm really finding it difficult to articulate again I do think I talk about this much better than bad influence but just whenever you see someone doing something or even like the way I think again it's probably like because I know how the sausage is made but when I watch certain reels about people's lives I can't watch them as like an enjoyable fun thing all I'm thinking about is like where have they put the camera and how many cameras and how many takes is it taken to shoot that and god that must have taken all day and blah blah blah so I'm always watching it maybe more from like a production point of view and really thinking about what's going on behind the scenes.

And that's an amazing privilege maybe because I don't get as sucked in to the mirage of some content. And so I think forget about what you think about whether they should be doing it. I think you just have to remember that you are not, no one needs that many clothes and no one who has that many clothes is buying them to make them feel happier, to make them feel better. They're doing it because it's their job and because people like watching it. And that is just not the lay person. Most people are not buying hauls of clothes every single week. And if you look at, you know, if you really want a new piece of clothing if you do want to buy it from a fast fashion brand ideally you know you don't but if you're buying something that's your

style that you love if you go and feel the fabric maybe read the um what it's made of when you're in the shop andrea triong is amazing actually for this and she kind of talks about shopping like the best quality because part even though obviously deep fast fashion clothes are terrible in terms of how they're made but if you can't feel like you can't fully avoid that then andrea chiong is amazing because she basically talks about how to find like good quality things in fast fashion shops so if you are going to buy from fast fashion it still has to be really mindful is this something you're going to wear time and time again are the fabrics made to last in that case there is like more room to be making a mindful decision ideally you're buying everything

second hand I know it's not always that easy I know that sustainable brands can be really expensive and we did have a conversation about investment pieces as well but I feel like I've gone on too much and also I'm so sorry I've recorded the second half of this podcast quite early in the morning which is why I'm talking quite softly now I weirdly found this episode quite difficult because I have so much to say from every single angle and also it's difficult existing within the influencer space and making sure that I'm trying to be a voice that is both objectively critical and knowledgeably aware of how it works and how much influence there is actually so much of a broader term than sometimes it gets thrown at it but I hope that you found this interesting in some ways and the main thing I wanted to take away from it

is just that sometimes I think we forget we can opt out like you don't have to allow yourself to feel these pressures and it is amazing if it's just not an option. And that's kind of where I've got to. It's not an option for me. I can't just go into Zara. I can't just go into H&M. Sometimes I'll see a friend wearing something and I'll feel really jealous, but I just go, oh, I guess I can't have it. And after a while, it really does become so easy. It is just easier. And there are different ways that you can make your wardrobe feel fun and exciting. And if you find people who are good at doing styling videos or if you need to look back at old catwalks and get inspiration from ways to put old pieces together in a way that feels fresh. And if you do need that newness, that's okay.

It is retail therapy for a reason. Just making sure that it's more of a treat. It's a special occasion. You're really valuing your clothes. And that's something that you're going to try and keep forever that would be my advice I am today headed back to my parents house because I'm doing Cheltenham Literary Festival today the day this goes out on Sunday and then I'm going to be spending a week on the sofa hopefully doing nothing although actually do you know what funny enough what I'm doing I've got loads of stuff to put on Vinted. So this week I will be putting everything on Vinted,

well not everything, but just a load of clothes, which I never normally do. I normally put all of myself into charity shops, but I was like, maybe I've got so many clothes that I'm a bit of a hoarder with my clothes because I buy so much secondhand. I then rarely want to get rid of it because I'm worried that I'll never be able to shop again and it has turned me into a hoarder. So I am going to be working a load of stuff from Vinted, ironically, I promise that it's all genuine secondhand stuff. Anyway, thank you so much for listening and I won't see you next week, but I will see you the week after. As always, please do rate, review and subscribe. Bye! shoot. I do. Daily Jackpots. A chance to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner by 11pm every day. 19 plus and physically located in

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