Exploring the Links Between Social Media & Fast Fashion Consumption

The #INSPO behind my short-form web documentary series ‘Gen Scroll, Like & Add to Cart.’

Comparing my mother’s shopping habits to my own originally sparked my curiosity about what drives consumerism today. She is mostly thoughtful and restrained when it comes to purchasing unnecessary and excessive items. However, it was only in my twenties that I truly paid attention to her value in and advocacy for living simply.

Now, in my thirties, I am attempting to align with the values of "less is more" when it comes to materialism. Naturally, it has been very hard to commit to this and buy less clothing—especially with the influence of modern media. Despite this, I'm still trying to be a thoughtful consumer and find my fashion 'retail therapy' fix through other joys.

VIDEO: A compilation of #OOTDs I posted on Instagram. I was a bigger fashion consumer during most of these snippets. I do love fashion styling and appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into designing and making garments. Today, I am actively trying to focus on re-wearing what I have more often.

Doing it for the 'gram… Oh, and TikTok and YouTube!

I’m very much interested in learning about the impact of social media on the rapid growth of fashion consumerism, specifically fast fashion. I'm currently planning to produce a short-form web documentary series based on my practice-based research, which will be titled ‘Gen Scroll, Like & Add to Cart.’ I’ll explore the consumption habits of my interviewees from different generations, focusing on the environmental, psychological, and societal factors that influence the similarities and differences observed.

We are scrolling into the future.

I’m definitely someone who finds themselves glued to their screen, mindlessly scrolling through social media. As a Millennial, it's no surprise! Social media was a significant part of my childhood, and I have been scrolling into my thirties. Sounds sad? If you think, "yes…" that's understandable! I grew up during the days of MSN Messenger and MySpace. Later, Facebook came along and obviously took over—having a significant influence on tech and our lives in the western world as a whole.

Fast fashion brands are the biggest offenders.

Social media platforms have become marketing machines. They’re no longer just online spaces for creative, entertaining, and informative content to share with friends and family, as in the early days of Facebook. Most content now has a promotional element. Whether it's showcasing desirable lifestyles or advertising the brands we wear to attract interest and generate sales, there is some form of strategic communication behind what we view. Instagram and TikTok, the newer kids on the block compared to Facebook, have taken over and propelled fast fashion consumption through brands’ own content and influencer collaborations.

In saying this, I don’t want to just shine the spotlight on social media apps and their users. I would also like to emphasise that fast fashion retailers and the industry as a whole are leading contributors to climate change and plastic pollution, as reported by Greenpeace.

As highlighted by the BBC and Earth.org, fast fashion is responsible for almost 10% of global carbon emissions and is the second biggest consumer of water. Although many sustainability messages on social media focus on encouraging consumers to change their habits, they should also pressure retailers to make changes to their supply chains.

Mountains of clothing and textile waste  from around the globe are discarded in Alto Hospicio, Chile. Much of it is made from non-biodegradable synthetics and will remain here for generations (Bartlett, 2024).

Image (Merino, 2024) and National Geographic ARTICLE LINK

Fast fashion is cheap, but its environmental impact comes at a high price.

According to Earth.org, the term ‘fast fashion’ was coined by the New York Times in 1989 to describe the Spanish retail giant Zara. The brand had newly opened a store in New York and launched their mission for design, production, and distribution to take just 15 days.

Fast fashion is a business model in which cheap, disposable clothing is produced rapidly by mass-market retailers to keep up with the latest trends. It is designed to encourage consumers to shop regularly and ‘throw away’ often, as described in the article ‘Out of Style: Will Gen Z Ever Give Up Its Dangerous Love of Fast Fashion?’ by The Guardian. These clothes are made from poor-quality, synthetic textile fibres, such as polyester. Researchers estimate that polyester takes 20 to 200 years to decompose.

Let’s educate ourselves and other young consumers!

Online clothing retailers, such as SHEIN, launch a staggering 10,000 new items on their website daily. This retailer recently shared its sustainability report on the Business of Fashion website, revealing that they are the biggest polluter in fashion today. The latest numbers show that SHEIN produces more emissions than Inditex, the multinational fashion design, manufacturing, and retailing group that runs Zara and many more. This is truly shameful!

There is much work to be done. In my opinion, a good place to start is educating via the online platforms where most fast fashion consumers are influenced to continuously ‘add to cart’. I’m aiming for my short-form web documentary series to primarily target Gen Z (born between 1997-2006) and Millennials (born between 1981-1996) through social media apps such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. According to Forbes Advisor, these generations are the biggest users of these apps.

My documentary production will begin with an interview with my mother.

My first interviewee, as part of this practice-based research, will be my mother, Elena Ryan. She is a Baby Boomer (born between 1946 and 1964) who has observed her generation and younger ones express themselves through fashion. Additionally, she immigrated from the Philippines to Australia and has experienced contrasting cultures and lifestyles.

Firstly, I want to learn from her what she observed as the cultural and economic differences in consumer behaviour, comparing the Philippines to Australia upon her arrival in the 1980s. Secondly, I would like her to provide an overview of how she thinks consumer behaviour has changed in Australia from the time of her arrival to the present day. Furthermore, I want her to discuss what she perceives as the differences in people's relationship with clothing before and after the advent of social media.

More to come on the development of this documentary production.