Throughout the history of humanity, humans have always wanted to fit in. Corporations, of course, have caught on to this and exploited it. By having their advertisements claim that their product is all the rage, and everyone’s just rushing to buy their product, you may feel the need to do the same so you won’t be the one person who didn’t. So you’ll fit in. Or maybe, those advertisements aren’t just claiming those things; maybe everyone is rushing to buy this product. That type of pressure, the feeling that if you don’t follow along with everyone else you’ll be shunned, is the type of feeling that corporations want.

A good example of this is Apple, and how every few years they’ll come out with a new IPhone, and each time hundreds if not thousands of people will line up and wait for hours just to buy it, even if their old IPhone is perfectly fine. They do this, because they’ve been led to believe that they have to for whatever reason. They’ve been led to believe that they constantly need the new and “improved” product, even if it’s just the same, if not worse, than whatever they currently have.

Another thing I believe is important to mention is the culture of fashion currently. Fashion, and what’s popular, is constantly changing, which has been true for a very long time. However, with the rise of sweatshops and companies being able to produce a bunch of clothes quickly and cheaply, it’s caused what’s popular to change more rapidly than before. People often feel like they must constantly have new and “trending” clothes. I’ve noticed that rewearing outfits has been deemed as somewhat socially unacceptable, especially if you’re someone in the public eye. This mindset promotes the idea that we need more clothes than we actually do.

This brings me into my topic, which is how these things that we so constantly buy are made. Oftentimes, sweatshops depend on the exploitation of people who need money, and maybe don’t have as many protections or rights as others. Sweatshops are factories that mainly employ women and children who are struggling with poverty, and underpay them greatly even though they may work up to 16 or more hours a day. The kind of environment that is provided in a sweatshop is unhealthy and even lethal. This kind of treatment results in clothing that is of incredibly poor quality, because they’re made incredibly fast and cheap.

The reason I bring up sweatshops is because a lot of people have resorted to buying clothing from companies like Shein or Temu because they’re so horribly cheap. We’ve been convinced that we can never repeat an outfit, or that we have to constantly keep up with trends. So, to not waste thousands of dollars on expensive name-brand clothing, people have resorted to just buying from the absolute cheapest and most unethical companies they can. This isn’t the consumers fault, for the most part, though. It is instead the companies that run these sweatshops, and the corporations that have given us this mindset in the first place.