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The Online Shops Need to Be Stopped

I am staring inert but unblinking into the gaping maw of late-stage capitalism. 

If you keep up with the news in any way, you probably have a lot of anxiety about the state of our planet. This is a post about one of the industrial revolution’s more frightening consequences: fast fashion. 

I was in a wedding recently and I was shopping on ASOS (where the bridesmaids were supposed to buy our shoes) and I saw this article; apparently ASOS has a flourishing journalistic community, who knew?

In the spirit of transparency, I saw this article and wrote this script in the summer — late June most likely. And it feels like it could’ve been yesterday, but I come to you bearing this message in winter of 2023. 

Anyway, the preview I saw (that got me to click) was captioned, “Hot girl summer is so last year.” The first paragraph reads, “Hot girl summer, who is she? TikTok is hailing summer 22 as the season of the ✨ feral girl ✨ The vibe is less about matching your yoga set to your green juice (buh-bye, wellness warriors ⚔️), and more about club-ready lewks and doubling down on EVERYTHING ✌️ Think balance thru the week🧘‍♀️, party on the weekends 🕺 The aesthetic? Wearing cute ’fits, living your best life with no filter. Scroll on to find your ‘feral girl summer’ uniform 🥳” 

I thought to myself, why say this? When I am certain you, like everyone else, capitalized on this phrase that Megan thee Stallion coined. 

Like I said, that’s only the first paragraph, so here is the article if you wanna read the whole thing, but the rest is just shilling specific ASOS products, loosely connecting them to this concept of a feral girl summer. 

To prove my point about ASOS switching up, I googled “ASOS ‘hot girl summer’” and this article comes up along with two other pieces from ASOS. One from June of 2021 called Top 5 Summer Dress Trends reads, “The jersey cut-out. ASOS DESIGN tie-front mini dress, $35. This is the kinda dress that’s manifesting a hot-girl summer.” Another from July 2021 is called Hot Girl Summer Glow Up. “You are looking FIRE and need that summer wardrobe to complete the hot girl summer look and soak up that much needed dose of vitamin D.” Could be a double entendre, but I’m choosing to ignore that possibility.

So in at least two other pieces of writing, ASOS was capitalizing on Hot Girl Summer by using it to sell their clothes. Which, fine. I don’t blame them. Because everyone has been talking about hot girl summer because Megan is a marketing genius. But to then turn around and publish something saying hot girl summer is so last year, who is she? What a slap in the face to someone who probably moved a lot of product for you without seeing a dime. And in favor of just a derivative of that phrase? [Blank] girl summer at this point is just a spin on what Meg has already established. Y’all will do this until the end of time with what Black women create. 

And to be clear, it’s not just ASOS doing this, though they were the first ones I saw. This “feral girl summer” business was taking off on TikTok. The Today Show posted about it. I guess who I’m really mad at is white women.

Today Show, how could you?

This one goes out to Nasty Gal. I got an email that Nasty Gal was having a 60% off sale for dresses and shoes, with an additional 20% off with a code. Why am I on Nasty Gal’s mailing list? It’s personal. It’s actually quite inappropriate that you would ask me that. 

I click over to the app to see what they have going on. And I notice a little asterisk at the top of the product image when I tapped on something. The note beside it said “Discounts may not be based on former prices.” So I click to see the pricing policy. Because if not former prices, what would the discounts be based on?

“Our percentage off promotions, discounts, or sale markdowns are customarily based on our own opinion of the value of this product, which is not intended to reflect a former price at which this product has sold in the recent past. This amount represents our opinion of the full retail value of this product today based on our own assessment after considering a number of factors. That’s why before checking out with your new Nasty, it’s important to acknowledge that you understand this.”

Discount prices based on their opinions… not prior prices.

First of all, whoever wrote that disclaimer needs to be jailed for making people read that last sentence alone, period. “Before checking out with your new nasty” UGH! I get that the business is called Nasty Gal, but don’t you ever do that again, do not ever refer to your products as Nasty, like the noun. Heinous. 

Nasty Gal always has at least a 50% off sale. So they have these inflated prices striked through with these incredible 50% off “deal” prices, which is a tactic to encourage people to buy it now, before the price goes up. It’s also one of those sites with no reviews. And their return policy? You get 28 days to return and you have to pay for the shipping!

I made a return with them for the first time, and when I found out that was their return policy? I don’t think I’ll ever buy from them again. I might look at the app for inspiration, but the quality isn’t all that when it comes to the clothes and shoes, and I’m trying to invest in jewelry that will actually last, so I have no business over there, and I would not recommend it to my dear readers unless you are in desperate need for some very trendy but very cheap accessories. And not even then, really.

Tobi. I just wanted a third point (I ended up coming up with a 4th one, so honestly it doesn’t even really matter), so no real offense intended to Tobi, I generally love what I get from them (although their sizing is ridiculous, I think they only do XS-L, so they can work on that). But point three is the backless trend. And as far as places I buy from, Tobi is definitely one of the main offenders. 

Every time I think I’ve found a dress or top that could work, boom, third photo in the carousel shows the entire back is out. It’s held together by a single thread and the last of the praying grandmothers.  Bring back BACKS. Why does every dress have to be backless? GIVE ME THE BACK. Make it backFULL. Some of us wear BRAS. Yes, boob tape exists. And that has nothing to do with me.

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I’ve noticed this in swimsuits too. Personally, I like my swimsuits to be a little more conservative, and I also like them to be simple. A one piece is perfect for me. But with all the cutouts some of these one pieces y’all are coming out with have, what’s the point? A cutout in the front, and a keyhole in the top, and a criss-cross cutout back? What are we doing here? And oftentimes the cutouts don’t even be in flattering places. Like, a giant cutout in the middle of your back? Why? Just a massive expanse of skin in the middle of you? What’s the purpose of that when we think about where we want the eye to go? Maybe I don’t know anything, but that doesn’t seem right. But yeah, I’ll die behind that. These cutout one pieces are ugly, and the ones that aren’t might as well be bikinis.

And don’t even get me started on the material being used for swimsuits. What, pray tell, is the logic behind a ribbed bathing suit? If I have a sweater in this material, I should not be seeing bathing suits cut from the same cloth!

My 4th and final point is an observation about the state of fashion in general: we are in an epidemic of ugly dresses. Like I mentioned, I was in a wedding recently and it was also graduation season, so I was in the market for a couple of new dresses. And oh my word. We are destroying our planet to mass produce the ugliest fast fashion imaginable, we really are not seeing heaven. It’s the fiery furnace for us. And with the way this planet is heating up, that’s BEFORE we even get to hell. 

Pay close attention to what I say next. Too. Many. Design. Elements. Does it need to have ruffles, and ruching, and stripes, and a floral print, and cutouts, a deep V down to your sternum, and a lettuce hem? What are we *doing*? Is this who we *are*? Not only have we lost the plot, the last place we saw it was a labyrinth in Crete. I don’t know if we’ll ever find our way back.

Those were all my major complaints. I’m not even gonna touch Shein because I don’t know anything about it, but I’ve heard two main things, one of which is child labor. They’re not the only ones doing that. But the other is lead?? There’s lead in the clothes?? Why?? What exactly is the draw? Paying ONLY a dollar to get lead poisoning from a crop top? I’m not convinced!

We really need to stop purchasing fast fashion at the rate that we are. I’m obviously guilty, too. I’m not Jesus preaching to the Pharisees. I’m shoveling fuel into the firebox of this evil, out-of-control locomotive just like everyone else. But I just think it’s just *that* much more insulting when the clothes are UGLY and the brands wanna pull stunts. PICK ONE!!

In terms of things we can do, not buying clothes as often is a big one. I’m sorry to the influencer girlies. The haul culture needs to stop. The landfills are at capacity. Thrifting is probably the best we can do. Buying clothes that already exist. I have this shirt that I thrifted in college. My sister makes fun of me for how often I wear it, but shouldn’t that be the goal! To have clothes we love and rewear. And it’s so cool to think that shirt had a life before me and stands to have a life after me. Plus I probably paid $5-$10 for it, so the cost per wear is pennies. With that said, DO NOT clean the thrift stores out to resell. Don’t even get me started on the Depop resellers pricing clothes like they’re brand new. I don’t have a heaven or hell to put people in, but if I did? Resellers, you should be scared of where you’re going.

That concludes my thoughts on why the online stores, really just the fashion industry, need to be stopped. And I guess I am mainly talking about fast fashion. But quiet as it’s kept, the sustainable brands are making some ugly stuff too. I don’t like to say it, but the garments speak for themselves. 

Thank you for reading this blog post. Like, comment, follow. Share with a friend who likes to laugh or is consuming at an unsustainable rate. It can really feel like there’s not much we can do to mitigate the impact of fast fashion as individual citizens who still need to clothe ourselves, but I will share some resources about fast fashion since I didn’t even touch on microplastics and the impact on the environment, the *shocking* and *sad* quality, and the despicable conditions and poverty wages that the people who make the clothes are forced to accept. I was in the process of signing off, but I had to drive that point home. Thanks again. Bye!

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