The social influencer and the fast haul:

Understanding online awareness about climate change

Laura Elisa Briganti MA Thesis New Media & Digital Culture Bogna Konior 23.753 words

1 Contents Abstract 3 1. Introduction 4 2. Theoretical framework 6 2.1 The Rise of the Social Influencer 13 2.2 The Fashion Industry and Climate Change 19 2.3 From Mass Media to Web 2.0 22 3. Case studies 30 4. Conclusion 40 Bibliography 48

2 Abstract This thesis explores the link between social and online awareness about the industry and its impact on climate change. While much has been written on both of these topics separately, the link between them has been underexposed. It deserves to be focused on because social influencer marketing is a contemporary business that is growing rapidly and climate change is a pressing issue that is largely impacted by the fast fashion industry. This thesis will do so by shedding light on the haul video, in which social influencers recommend fashion items to their audience and their (lack of) awareness around the influence that these videos have on purchases which in turn affect climate change. Web 2.0 has allowed for new ways of communication and it is intriguing to zoom in on the moral responsibility some social influencers feel like they have, or do not have when they have grown from “the girl next door” to an online personality with deals involving great amounts of money. It is argued that although ethical consumerism on an individual level promoted by social influencers does impact climate change positively, it is essential to see this impact within the larger context of climate change responsibility in which corporations and businesses play a large role too.

Keywords: social influencer marketing, fast fashion, climate change, YouTube,

3 1. Introduction The new media scene has seen an enormous rise in the popularity of the social influencer in the last few years. The bigger social influencers can have large audiences that frequently, but not always, look up to them and are inspired by them when it comes to their behaviour and purchasing decisions. In the fashion industry, the fashion influencer’s content on platforms is now the place where people get their style information from, instead of the more traditional media people used to get their inspiration from before, such as magazines, fashion shows and television. Fashion influencers are popular on platforms that have risen to great popularity in the new media scene. , Instagram, and YouTube are the biggest platforms on which social influencers present themselves, but within the fashion industry there are smaller platforms such as United Wardrobe as well, that allow people to exchange fashion pieces, ideas and inspiration tips in ways that were impossible up until very recently. The fact that the entire world of advertising around fashion has changed so much impacts the way people perceive and buy fashion tremendously. With influencers always showcasing the most recent products on their profiles to find online for followers and the simultaneous increase of production of fashion worldwide, it is interesting that there seems to be little attention for the effects of this industry on the world by these same advocates for the products. Humans play a central role in the climate change that has been occurring for the last decades. This is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels and destruction of ecosystems, causing an imbalance in the way nature has functioned for millions of years. It appears that the fashion industry is a big part of this problem. Next to the transport and cattle industries, it is one of the most polluting industries in the world. This is mostly because of water consumption, the spreading of pesticides and the ever increasing need for higher production numbers. In Stephen A. Doyle’s paper Supplier management in fast moving fashion retailing he shows that the rapidly evolving industry has caused retailers to opt for the lowest price possible to be able to deliver to the market as soon as possible. According to him, this is largely due to “short product life cycles, high levels of impulse buying and high volatility of demand coupled with low predictability of demand” (Doyle, 272). In our modern globalised world, this has resulted in a system in which inequality is abound. The fashion industry is very large and its impact on people and the planet is devastating. Whether it is the soaking of the countryside with pesticides and birth defects in certain regions as a result of this, or garment workers living under harsh conditions having no other choice because the are officially not directly linked to these factories. The fast fashion industry has figuratively divided the world into two: one world with glossy magazines, celebrities promoting products and glamorous advertisements, and another world in which unhealthy factories and cheap labour cause immense pain and suffering. The low price of the fashion one finds in stores, causes a high price to be paid on the other side, especially when looking at this through an environmental lens. However, when it comes to the social influencers, they do not seem to represent much awareness on this topic on their channels. This is particularly interesting, because their lives take

4 place in the public eye and this causes people to be influenced by their style when choosing to buy or not to buy something. Therefore, they are given, in some ways, more power to change things within the industry than someone who does not have the same large following as them. This thesis first offers a comprehensive overview of the rise of the social influencer and of how they have grown to become so popular on the web. Secondly, the thesis demonstrates how these social influencers navigate within the fashion industry, and what their impact on consumer behaviour is. Third, it explains the rise of Web 2.0 and its impact on the aforementioned perceiving of the industry by its consumers. Lastly, an overview is presented of social influencers on Web 2.0 advocating for the fashion industry, and climate change and the question of who is responsible for it. This thesis tries to bridge a gap between the research that has been done on climate change and the fashion industry on the one hand, and feelings of morality, ethics and responsibility connected to social influencer marketing on the other hand. The theoretical framework is followed by three case studies that focus on the construction of an online identity and the portrayal of self through fashion and material possession. The most attention is paid to this because the construction of an identity and expression through fashion appears to be an important reason for people to desire more clothes, thereby increasing the demand for fast fashion. The social influencers are particularly interesting in this regard, because they form a separate group situated between the consumers and brands. They have a saying in which products get promoted more, what type of coverage is presented on their channels (positive or negative) and have an audience that – to a certain extent – trusts them. Exploring the role of the social influencer within the fast fashion industry sheds light on their unique position between individual and corporate responsibility. In these case studies, the focus will be on three large Dutch YouTubers who together form a representative group of social influencers within the Dutch fashion social influencer scene. They all show different levels of awareness around the topic of climate change, and in the case studies their construction of identity through fashion, ethical approach and views are analysed to paint a full picture. By analysing the haul video, a type of video in which people show what they have bought, the social influencer behaviour is linked to construction of identity and consumerism. The showing-off of their products on their channels allows social influencers to create a revenue stream of their followers getting inspired by their style. The haul is a type of video that demonstrates well how people show-off and construct identity through buying clothes in one specific video format. The popularity of this type of video is clear, as it is a big category for fashion YouTubers that famous fashion social influencers keep making again and again for different seasons, styles and price ranges. That is why it was chosen as video that represents part of the lack of awareness about the fast fashion industry and consumption on the planet’s climate very well. The theoretical framework and case studies show that ethical consumerism, social influencers and their moral responsibility need to be viewed within the large, complicated and nuanced picture of climate change on Earth. A picture which not only consumers, but also corporations and businesses all are a part of.

5 2. Theoretical framework

2.1 The Rise of the Social Influencer In today’s rapidly changing media landscape, social influencers play an important role on platforms. These social influencers are users who have established a certain credibility in a specific industry and their opinions on certain matters within this industry are therefore valued. In combination with this credibility, social influencers have gathered a large following on the platforms they are active on and can consequently persuade the people that follow them. Recently, social influencer marketing has focused more and more on social influencers on social media, specifically on the platforms Instagram and YouTube. The combination of their large audience and the fact that they are a respected name within a certain industry, for example the fashion industry, allows social influencers to motivate people to do certain things like purchase a product or feel a stronger connection with one brand over another. This power to influence is strongly linked to these influencers’ authenticity, for this determines how reliable and trustworthy they are perceived to be. Despite many brands being interested in working together with social influencers, influencer marketing is an emerging field and both the brands and the influencers are still working out the best methods for collaborations with mutual benefits. It is apparent that working together with influencers is effective for brands as the growing popularity and rise to stardom of social influencers have a positive effect on the sales of the brands they love as well. It is no secret formula: using the already existing audience gathered in one place by someone with credibility and a strong reputation in a certain field seems to work well when it comes to moving people to purchase things. When a brand uses influencer marketing instead of more traditional forms of marketing, it saves part of their budget that would under normal conditions be spent on identifying their audience, since the follower base of the influencer is, in the best situation, already exactly that. For an influencer uploading unboxing videos of designer bags, one can expect the audience to be at least somewhat interested in the purchasing of these types of bags. Of course, when an influencer has an audience of five million followers, a brand cannot presume all these followers to be interested in their product, but the fact that this audience is sorted already very specifically by the genre of the influencer and the content that the social influencer creates, causes the brand to rightly believe that there is a good chance of a big percentage of this audience being interested in their product. This makes it a financially healthy choice to spend their marketing budget on. “The use of social media influencer marketing in lifestyle public relations initiatives has broken the wall between the consumer, the brand, and followers through social media content” (Glucksman, 86). Morgan Glucksman states this in his journal Rise of Social Media Influencer Marketing on Lifestyle Branding concluding that the way brands communicate with their audience has changed greatly and positively because of this. However, since the field is evolving so fast and the rules and environment are subject to constant change, both brands and influencers have to pay attention to whether the collaboration is still beneficial for both of them. For example, it was found

6 by Markerly, an end-to-end influencer marketing company, that “influencers in the 10k-100k follower range offer the best combination of engagement and broad reach, with like and comment rates that exceed influencers with higher followers.” This means that engagement tends to decrease when a social influencer reaches 100,000 followers and demonstrates that followers have a preference to have interaction with a social influencer who is (or seems) more down to earth and accessible than someone who could not possibly engage with all their followers. Because the social influencer is not able to respond to each comment individually anymore, the motive for people to leave comments for and interact with the social influencers they follow to get replies fades. Because the social influencer is now so big, the interaction between them and their viewers is now impacted by the impossibility to respond to all followers. The probable effect that this will have on the market, is that brands will be able to select these micro-influencers over the macro-influencers when they know their product is targeted at a niche audience that they will have greater chance of reaching when displayed on a smaller influencer’s profile. The lower price that smaller influencers ask for a collaboration thus helps small niche brands with less budget get to the right people. An example like this demonstrates the importance of knowing the boundaries and conditions for a good collaboration that is beneficial to both parties. An interesting topic that the previous example touches upon is the notion that followers like interaction with social influencers, in particular interaction with social influencers who seem to them approachable, relatable and authentic. In the book for Dummies, written by Shiv Singh and Stephanie Diamond, an entire paragraph is even dedicated to being authentic in the chapter that is about practicing social media marketing on the social web. In this chapter, authenticity in this context is explained the following way: “Everybody talks about being authentic when marketing in the social media realm, but what that means is rarely explained. Authenticity is being honest and transparent: it’s as simple as that (Singh & Diamond, 86). Especially in an industry where (fashion) advice is given so often, an audience will appreciate this honesty and transparency if it shows in the authenticity of an influencer. In the article Marketing through Instagram influencers: the impact number of followers and product divergence on brand attitude by Veirman et al it is stated, when considering the probability that an account is popular when it has many followers, that “It thus seems plausible that an influencer with a high number of followers will be perceived as generally more likeable because he/she is perceived as more popular” (Veirman, 2). So not only the amount of followers influence the interaction between social influencers and their followers, the perceived popularity of an influencer also impacts how an audience behaves towards the social influencer in question. This is not different from previous forms of advertising and consumer relations per se, as the social status and perceived popularity of public people such as social influencers and television celebrities have, for a longer period than just the existence of Web 2.0, been a part of people’s lives. Whether it is by watching a television channel because one’s favourite presenter is presenting the programme or watching a vlogging series because it includes a popular social

7 influencer, public people have always attracted viewers. For example, programmes are often presented by well-known celebrities, because they have already proven that they are good at it, or that the audience enjoys their personality, or both. Shows like Late Night with Conan O’Brien, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert or The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon thrive because of the names mentioned in their titles. The popularity of their presenter makes sure a loyal base of viewers will want to see the show no matter which guest is on, since the host is going to always be there ensuring a certain level of quality or familiarity. But to mention only late night shows would not paint a full enough picture, as this works for almost all forms of popular media and advertising. Jennifer Lawrence wearing Dior dresses to galas, Julia Roberts recommending perfume in television commercials and bus stop posters, the famous line “Nespresso, what else?” that makes people who have seen the advertisements think of George Clooney, celebrities and public people apparently have some authority when it comes to recommending products. It seems that people desire relatability but at the same time, anyone can now come into contact with the display of wealth and decadence on platforms like Instagram and YouTube that function very well by showing visuals. Where someone would have been limited to seeing the wealth of their neighbours in the past, it is now made incredibly easy to compare what one has with not only the neighbours, but with anyone willing to show what they have on these platforms. Therefore, the social influencer seems to be a dualistic phenomenon, where the influencer is simultaneously relatable at some moments, but sometimes displaying forms of wealth unobtainable for the majority of their audiences. What has definitely changed in these consumer relations when comparing this to previous forms of advertising is the way in which interactivity is possible. This interactivity was mostly enabled by Web 2.0, which made it possible for people to interact by methods that were unprecedented. The economy changed profoundly with the rise of web 2.0, people were now able to communicate with each other in ways that were previously impossible. In Influencer Marketing: Who Really Influences Your Customers by Duncan Brown and Nick Hayes, they make an interesting point about this topic when they say that “recent initiatives to take advantage of Web 2.0 technologies are merely reactions that apply old techniques to new media” (Brown and Hayes, 3). They suggest this as a reaction to what is, according to them, wrong with today’s marketing strategies. They claim that the techniques used by large corporations are outdated and it is time for a change. One of the reasons social influencer marketing started becoming so big in the first place, is that there previous forms of marketing could be experienced as inauthentic by consumers. They had had enough of traditional forms of advertising such as television commercials that felt unlike real life, over-planned, misleading and came across as untrustworthy since they were there only to promote sales. It is interesting that similar discussions are arising again now, as social influencer marketing has existed for a bit longer and scandals revolving around lack of influencer authenticity have started occurring in this industry too. “It is, in part, the blurring of the boundaries between private and public or the idea of an

8 authentic individual behind the public persona that makes celebrity images particularly potent ideological symbols” (Khamis, 891). This quote from the article “Can You Handle My Truth?”: Authenticity and the Celebrity Star Image from Erin Meyers relates to how the history of celebrity in our culture is so intertwined with communication technology. People already “know” a celebrity when this person recommends a product to them, which creates a feeling of familiarity. Even though celebrities have existed for a long time, Web 2.0 allows for an entire new mode of interacting with them. This new mode of interacting revolves around the change from static web pages to dynamic and user-generated content, allowing users to interact with each other on a myriad of social media platforms. Thanks to this, discussion with people on the other side of the world has been made possible, and feedback options such as liking, disliking, subscribing, following and unfollowing have become a part of online culture. Moreover, in To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter Alice Marwick and danah boyd state that

celebrity practitioners reveal what appears to be personal information to create a sense of intimacy between participant and follower, publicly acknowledge fans, and use language and cultural references to create affiliations with followers. Interactions with other celebrity practitioners and personalities give the impression of candid, uncensored looks at the people behind the personas (Marwick & boyd, n.p.).

However, according to them, fans must realize that there are power differentials at work and this is similar for followers of social influencers. Even though there has been a shift in supply and demand where the audience appreciates a more relatable celebrity than the far-away celebrity living the American dream, there is still a big difference between them and the celebrity, online and offline. Marwick and boyd’s mention of “the impression” is therefore important, as the impression of an uncensored look can differ greatly from an actual uncensored look. Whereas celebrities of today might tell relatable stories on talk shows, participate in meme culture and seem very down to earth, this can never be fully understood from the snippets the public gets to see from their lives, just as with previous celebrities in an era where people look up to celebrities on television. Instead of looking to these traditional forms of advertising, people started to look to other figures that might give them reliable information. The social influencer was the perfect authority figure to look to in this situation. A person, often someone who could be the girl next door, trying out different types of mascara and telling you which one she liked best seemed way more trustworthy than a hired expert promoting a new mascara on television. This caused brands to have to rethink their marketing strategies, since being perceived as untrustworthy will not be beneficial to making profits. In Nathalie Zietek’s paper Influencer Marketing: the Characteristics and Components of Fashion Influencer Marketing, she explores the new marketing strategies which need to be

9 discovered by fashion brands to keep reaching their audience after people’s media usage and time spent on platforms has increased so greatly. In this paper, she emphasizes the importance of this authenticity, especially for micro-influencers: “the common sense that all experts share is that smaller or micro-influencers are of note for their authenticity. Also in terms of credibility and future perspective micro-influencers are positively mentioned by all experts” (Zietek, 21). Giving the impression of authenticity is important for social influencers, and especially for social influencers with smaller audiences, since they cannot fall back on appealing to authority. When a social influencer’s scope of influence and reach are extremely big, people might view this social influencer as a celebrity of their own right, but micro-influencers do not have this luxury. However, as the market evolved brands also realized the potential of working together with these influencers. In response to social influencers now being more heavily influenced by brands on what to say and do than before, this trust could potentially wane. As a result of this, followers might start to pay more attention to whether an influencer is actually being honest and has done research about the product they are promoting. A logical consequence of the internet in 2019 is that everybody, or more specifically, everybody with access to internet is now able to do their own research. Many young people have grown up in this internet age, and specifically generation Z, the demographic cohort after the Millennials, make up an enormous part of the audiences of social influencers. They spend a lot of time on social media, so if an influencer that they feel connected to promotes a product on a platform, a connection between the customer and the brand is immediately made on a platform they enjoy spending time on. Since people are now able to fact- all that an influencer is saying, it means that the influencer cannot get away with saying something just because they function as some sort of authority within a certain industry. The girl next door is easier to identify with than an A-list celebrity in a commercial for people with average incomes. This new concept of the celebrity has been developing on social media. By being more similar to the consumer, online influencers come across as more trustworthy than someone the audience has next to nothing in common with. “The invitational aspects of Web 2.0 may help to explain the rapid adoption of the technology by girls and young women who are… the most avid adopters of blogging” (Harrison & Barthel, 175). The way separate factors of Web 2.0 invite people to communicate, share and form new groups, shows with young people especially. According to Harrison and Barthel, it is important to develop methods to teach young people how to cope with the changing dynamics of the web. They are more susceptible to not realizing something is an advertisement and may have a difficult time recognizing when an influencer genuinely loves a product or is just moved by financial incentives. Therefore, in recent times many laws and regulations have come into place ensuring that it is always as clear as possible when something is an advertisement or sponsor deal. As people’s time spent on online platforms keeps increasing and their relations to social influencers evolve, people come across many things online that might influence them in their decision-making. Even though the most recent generation has grown up with the internet, the increasing invisibility of this

10 digitalized world seems to decrease media literacy, or awareness for what life is like behind the scenes. Mark Deuze explores this extensively in his book Media Life. He explains that he thinks the biggest challenge of media studies shall be the disappearance and increasing invisibility of these media.

As media become pervasive and ubiquitous, forming the building blocks for our constant remix of the categories of everyday life (the public and the private, the local and the global, the individual and the collective), they become invisible – in the sense that, as Friedrich Kittler suggests, we become blind to that which shapes our lives the most (Deuze, 137).

Many posts on Instagram and YouTube are advertisements but not everybody is always aware of this. With the decrease of physical stores, and the growing online presence of brands in its place, it might not always be as clear as before when brands are selling something, for example when a bag is seen in the hands of an influencer instead of a shop’s window. Previous to the social media era, fashion was often presented to people in magazines and on the catwalk. This way, fashion remained something exclusive, something only meant and visible for a select group. In A Cultural History of Fashion in the 20th and 21st Centuries: From Catwalk to Sidewalk Bonny English highlights what has been changed because of this. She attributes the new fashion publicity and promotional strategies to the “proliferation of designer Web sites, sartorial blogs and social networking, all of which have become an important factor in the promotion, sale and distribution of fashion goods and accessories” (English, 4). The exclusivity that was offered by presenting fashion to a select group, is removed when designer websites, as English mentions, which everyone can read, become the one of the primary sources via which people receive their fashion advice. Moreover, the rise of platforms like Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram allowed for people to experience fashion in a whole new way. Whereas people first had to rely on others to share with them what to wear, people were now able to see everything for themselves on the internet. Not only could they look at the styles of people they considered style icons, they could also visit the websites of clothing stores to see in person what all of them were offering this season. As the internet evolved and the first social influencers emerged, the first fashion social influencers started to make their mark on the platforms as well. “While influencer marketing based on traditional media has been used in public relations for many years, the rise of social media has created the boom of social media influencer marketing” (Glucksman, 78). The effect this had on authority figures in the fashion industry was the same as on all other industries, the previously mentioned shift from for example television commercials to sponsored posts is also true for the fashion industry. The magazines therefore do not have the same influence they had before, as their readers viewed them as distant from their audience and started to look for new sources of guidance. The same way a television commercial felt over-planned and misguiding, editorials in magazines now feel over-photoshopped and

11 untrustworthy too. In its place emerged the fashion social influencers, appealing to the growing need for authentic recommendations and a display of accessibility that had until then not been shown before. Parallel to this, though, seems to be a phenomenon to completely embrace wealth, and the notion to “not be ashamed of money that one has earned but be proud of and flaunt it”. Examples of these include YouTube stars Zoe Sugg and Alfie Deyes that have grown from small YouTubers to YouTubers with millions of followers and have frequently defended criticisms of their loss of touch with reality and living in a million dollar mansion with statements about being proud and happy to be able to do so with the money they have earned. Platforms like Instagram and YouTube have become platforms where fashion brands can interact with people directly. This seems the complete opposite of the way the industry worked before, with fashion shows that were accessible only for the lucky few. The role of the influencer is strongly linked to the girl next door vibe within the fashion industry as well, when a social influencer recommends a piece of clothing, the audience sees this as similar to the recommendation of their friend. The difference between celebrities or experts promoting a dress on a one-way medium like television, versus social influencers telling their viewers all about their shopping experience and showing how they try the dress on for the first time is enormous. The shift from traditional advertising strategies to social influencer marketing in the fashion industry, has not been the sole large shift that happened within the industry. Another enormous shift was the production shift towards fast fashion, and it has altered the production process and the way consumers decide on what to buy vastly. Throughout the history of humanity people have shared and showed others what they have. Showing-off is viewed as a form of a self-conscious emotionality by Jacqueline Nadel and Darwin Muir. Showing-off probably does not begin to develop until the second half year of the second year of lives in children for this reason, but has been prevalent for as long as humans have existed. “Both shyness and showing-off are argued here to require an awareness of the attention of others” (Nadel & Muir, 196). This demonstrates that humans have, for as long as they existed, been social creatures that search for their friends’ attention and approval. Old cave paintings include people showcasing their bows, arrows and spears. During the middle ages, the people who were affluent enough to let themselves be painted enjoyed having their wealth and material possessions painted next to themselves. The fast fashion industry has allowed people to own enormous amounts of clothes, which is something people will naturally desire if they grow the need to showcase what they own from their first year of life and onwards. The change of production in fashion therefore has a big influence on how much people own and how much they want to show this off. This change of production has happened quite recently, as for most of human history fashion was produced on a much smaller scale than it is now. Before, people produced clothing in small amounts, depending on resources like wool and skin from animals they were raising. The industrial revolution changed some of this, as it allowed

12 for new inventions that sped up the production process. But the real turn happened in the 1960s, when fashion brands started developing methods to supply the increasing demand for more and more affordable clothing. Mass media, especially television, in these times are rapidly evolving. Historically, the 1960s take place not too long after the end of the Second World War, when the teenager as a target audience is emerging for the very first time. Previous to the Second World War, this demographic was not, or only rarely, targeted as a specific audience. However, not only in television, but also in music, film and other forms of entertainment, after the war this group became heavily targeted by brands. This largely had to do with the fact that this baby boomer generation was large in number and had way more money to spend than their parents at that age. In the book The Beatles on Screen: From Pop Stars to Musicians this development of consumer culture and the teenager as a new consumer category is illustrated through the use of an example in the music industry: “With the coming of age of the post-Second World War baby boomer generation and the emergence of rock ’n’ roll in the mid-1950s, Hollywood began to realize the potential for financial gain by catering films to this new demographic of teenagers who had leisure time and the disposable income to spare” (Fremaux). It seems that (youth) culture was changing and big brands were realizing that there was now money to be made by targeting films, music and television specifically towards this demographic. The financial freedom that people had in the 1960s and how it differed from the more financially restrained times during and before the war in combination with technological progress and the affordability of mass-produced products like televisions, all contributed to this. In his introduction to his book The History of Television, 1942 to 2000 Albert Abramson states: “Thanks to the efforts of many American radio companies… television emerged from the war years full-blown and ready for use. The rise of the American television industry in both manufacturing and programming was phenomenal” (Abramson, 1). It is interesting to explore what came first, the supply of these teenage products by opportunistic brands or the demand of personal, more tailored entertainment for one’s own age category by these teenagers. Is the creation of the product a response to demand that is already out there or do people see an ad and realize that this is what they want? The fact that televisions could be found in so many homes and broadcasted advertisements about the same products to the same audience has hugely influenced consumer culture. Even though now people have innumerable channels to choose from, for a long time there were only a couple of channels projecting the same product, impacting consumer behaviour patterns. As time went by, in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s mass-production started occurring on even larger scales, with a growing population causing a bigger demand, and an increasingly connected world due to globalization. International production processes now take place worldwide and are at the root of new connections. These connections allowed for worldwide communication and participation. In Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture by Henry Jenkins states that “in a participatory culture, members also believe their contributions matter and feel some degree of

13 social connection with one another (at the least, members care about others’ opinions of what they have created)” (Jenkins, 11). Mass media also kept evolving, which mostly showed up in more people owning televisions, more varied programs to choose from catering to every individual’s preferences, the emergence of computers and the internet, and the large-scale adoption of these products into the homes of more and more people. This culture that Jenkins writes about, in which people contribute and connect with each other, becomes particularly interesting when Web 2.0 arrives. In more recent years, there has been a more participatory culture of the connected world thanks to the internet. It is interesting though, that people active on social media platforms often all know the same influencers, just like people used to know the same television programs before. People’s desire for certain products is therefore very much propelled by how the media are programmed. Moreover, in contemporary times, with algorithms governing what people do and do not see, this pattern is enforced and this relates back to the television broadcasting industry.

2.2 The Fashion Industry and Climate Change The fashion industry is, right behind the transport and cattle industries, one of the most polluting industries in the world. This largely has to do with unsustainable production practices in which litres of water are wasted, unhealthy toxics get dumped in nature and CO2 emissions happen on a big scale globally. The fact that the sum of what people want to buy increases more each year causes clothes to be produced in ever-decreasing timespans. The wish to conform to the latest style trends causes people to consume and throw away on a scale that is unprecedented. In today’s media landscape, platforms such as Instagram and YouTube are probably even further accelerating this trend by implying it is uncool to wear the same outfit twice. With social influencers wanting to cater to their audience new and exciting content to stay relevant, it would not make sense to do the same outfit of the day (a popular trend in the fashion influencer scene) every day. It might therefore even be inherent to being a social influencer that one has to change outfits so often. But this works both ways too, as the audience is also responsibility for their search for new content. There is little to no real discussion possible about the negative impact the fast fashion industry has on the climate, which makes it even more intriguing that this “dirty side” of the industry is so underrepresented in various media. In The Dirty Side of the Garment Industry: Fast Fashion and Its Negative Impact on Environment and Society author Nikolay Anguelov points out the uncomfortable secret of low-cost fashion: “The production of those inexpensive but high-quality fabrics that enable the diffusion of fashion to the masses creates more toxic chemical pollution per item than any other industrial product” (Anguelov, 10). Many papers focus on the waste, water pollution and ecological footprint of the industry and the incompatibility of desire for more and sustainability. In their paper Fast Fashion, Sustainability, and the Ethical Appeal of Luxury Brands Joy et al also emphasize that "fast fashion helps sate deeply held desires among young consumers in the industrialized world for luxury fashion, even as it embodies unsustainability” (Joy

14 et al, n.p.). Since much of the production process takes place in China and India, the footprint of clothes is increased, since these developing countries rely on fossil fuels more than developed countries. For the brands, it is financially beneficial to position their factories in specifically these countries, since developing countries often have less strict laws on human rights, or at least enact them less. The conditions under which workers have to perform in these factories would be unthinkable in many of the more developed countries in the world. The fashion industry is also consuming excessive amounts of water, producing wastewater and contaminating water with pesticides and trash. Since the demand for fashion items has increased so much in these last decades, this impact is enormous. In Two decades of sustainable supply chain management in the fashion business, an appraisal it is stated that “Many academic and business sources quote a World Bank estimates that up to twenty percent of industrial water pollution comes from textile dyeing and finishing treatments” (Khurana & Ricchetti, 91). The factories themselves produce gigantic amounts of waste, but the clothes that are scarcely worn by consumers before being swapped out for something new are responsible for much of the solid waste dumped in landfills as well. Moreover, synthetic microfiber pollution pollutes the sea at a disturbing rate because of fresh water ecotoxicity, killing animals and subsequently influencing the food chain because of microplastics. After zooming in on social sustainability, a topic that this research paper barely has time to address, such as raised concerns in media about the prevalence of only extremely thin models that impact the increase of eating disorders, Khurana & Ricchetti also make another point about the environmental sustainability: “Consumer safety has mainly to do with the impact of chemicals on consumer health, directly, via the persistence of hazardous chemicals in the final products, or indirectly via the release of hazardous chemicals in the environment that reach the consumer via polluted water, passed along the food chain” (Khurana % Ricchetti, 91). All these disposable clothes, often made partly from oil, in factories powered by fossil fuels, transported around the world in transportation systems that run on fossil fuels, contribute to a big amount of global emissions. While there is a big emphasis on transport in the public debate on climate change, the fashion industry often remains unspoken of, even though the numbers add up to an industry with massive impact. Burning fossil fuels makes CO2 levels rise, which causes temperatures to do the same, and it turns out that temperatures do not have to rise that much to have lasting effect on the climate. Since the industry is largely consumer driven, it means that it is also partially controllable. When looking at the consumer, in the book Sustainability in Fashion and Textiles: Values, Design, Production and Consumption it is mentioned that “It requires the use of a collective learning mechanism for all types of environments and stakeholders and the creation of the necessary space for a structure of dialogue on what our vision of sustainable society is” (Gardetti, 8). The fashion industry is a big industry with many factors that contribute to the final outcome, but on the consumer’s end, this means that they can exert their influence by choosing to buy, or choosing not to buy. Both choices will impact the supply-demand balance for each

15 individual customer. One consumer’s demand alone may not amount to much, but when the results of consumers are combined, their actions will be measurable in the bigger picture. Even though the large-scale climate problems arising because of the fast fashion industry are there because of the sum of actions of many consumers, the solution might be at an individual level. The short-term usage of clothes and subsequent throwing away, instead of a more long-term approach in which people buy what they need and a circular production system is maintained would have a positive impact on all the emissions. Nonetheless, it is important not to gloss over big corporations and their responsibilities when it comes to climate change. While ethical consumerism would impact global CO2 emissions without a doubt, it is essential to critically assess the role large businesses and corporations have in this problem. In relation to climate change, there is definitely something to say about the impact of the individual. Even though claims of individual causal inefficacy (ICI) are often made (the claim that an individual’s actions in one entire lifetime still do not make a measurable impact in the larger picture) there is definitely something to say for the effect of all these individual’s actions together. And this does not even take into account the ability of one individual to inspire other individuals around them. In Climate Change and Individual Responsibility Avram Hiller too argues that “ICI is false not just for its claim about whole human lives but even for its far weaker claim of the inefficacy of single individual actions” (Hiller, 349). According to him, this is mostly because people fail to realize how much impact an action can have when its consequences are not directly measurable. Moreover, when referring to how difficult it is for people to grasp individual moral responsibility with regard to global phenomena Hiller asks: “how much harm does a single individual act, such as an afternoon pleasure ride in a gas-guzzling car, cause with regard to its effects on climate change?” (Hiller, 349). He illustrates that if the majority of people answer no to this question, the problem of who is responsible is not solved. If all people answer no to this question, it soon becomes clear that all these individual cases definitely have effect when added up together, but nobody feels responsible for that one Sunday drive. Hiller’s argument here is that the Sunday afternoon drive is the reason for climate change, even though it is very difficult for humans to feel about it this way. Another example of researchers arguing for the impact of individual choice is what Wells et al state in Behaviour and climate change: Consumer perceptions of responsibility:

Carbon emissions are also strongly linked to the consumption of private households and the choices and behaviours of individuals. Motivating consumers to adopt more sustainable consumption behaviours is therefore an important policy goal and a source of potential commercial marketing opportunities (Wells et al, 809).

They emphasize that when moving towards a lower-carbon economy, it is required that individuals take action, because together they form a big part of the problem with their private residences and energy use. In the same paper, they also zoom into corporate social responsibility versus

16 consumer responsibility. Sometimes it seems as if businesses are not frowned upon while making decisions with negative impacts on climate change, while consumers making similar decisions would definitely be frowned upon. “This may be due to the dominance of the notion of consumer sovereignty, which assigns power as opposed to responsibility to consumers, as a key principle underpinning the marketing discipline” (Wells et al, 811). So it seems that there is a general discourse that consumers have sovereignty and the power to change, while this sovereignty is not often linked to big corporations that could have large-scale impacts with their decisions. However, in The Evolution of Corporate Social Responsibility Philip Cochran shows that corporate social responsibility has grown from being discussed solely in academic circles to something that is more widely known and expected. Moreover, he also shows that a company that makes sustainable decisions is not only good for the environment, but this also has a positive influence in how the corporation is viewed in today’s world that is so surrounded by and immersed in media. "Positive media relations can be absolutely critical to organizations in today’s media rich environment. Firms that are seen as socially responsible will have an edge over other firms, particularly those with socially irresponsible reputations” (Cochran, 453). This means that corporations do not only have altruistic reasons to make decisions in line with moral responsibility in relation to climate change, but also gain from this themselves. It is important, according to him, that companies make decisions while solving social needs, and this in turn can lead to more investments and public goodwill for them as well. Moral responsibility of both individuals and corporations are important when assessing who can and should do what to prevent catastrophic results of climate change. Social influencers are interesting in this regard because they are individuals working together with large corporations and brands. The link between fast fashion industry social influencers and the way they operate on social media not representing awareness around climate change has been largely neglected and is therefore an underexplored topic. Many large social influencers do not seem to represent awareness on their social media channels about the effects of the fast fashion industry, even though it is an industry they play a large role in. I would like to shed light on how this situation has taken shape. I will do so by presenting three case studies on three big social influencers that play a part within the Dutch fashion industry. For some reason, ethical consumerism seems to be something that is promoted mostly by niche social influencers and this must mean that there is a reason the mass-adoption of promoting ethical consumerism has not happened yet. Even though the problems of the current systems are clear and there are brands available with production processes that do not wreak havoc on the planet in the same way that fast fashion brands do, the general attitude expressed by social influencers towards fast fashion industry brands is that of loving it and not being able to have enough of it. For the purpose of this research, the focus will be on three Dutch social influencers who each have a high number of followers: Monica Geuze, Mascha Feoktistova and Teske de Schepper. All of these social influencers were not famous before they started their channels and

17 have thus grown from micro-influencers to macro-influencers. They have all become big social influencers by growing their channels organically. Only Monica Geuze already had some followers on Instagram before she started her YouTube channel due to people knowing her from being the DJ of a famous Dutch rapper, Ronnie Flex. She has stated in the Yous & Yay podcast that her Instagram follower count before she started her YouTube channel was around 8.000 followers. What connects these three social influencers is that they are all established, big names in the Dutch YouTuber scene. However, they have different approaches when it comes to ethical consumerism. Mascha Feoktistova does not specifically promote ethical brands but has been displaying more awareness around climate change and the impact of fast fashion the last couple of years, Teske de Schepper has had a very clear image change in her career a few years ago in which she decided only to focus on cruelty-free and ethical brands, and Monica Geuze is a very big YouTuber who often uploads hauls but does not seem to display any awareness around the topic of ethical consumerism in relation to climate change. By comparing the three of them, looking at their content, their follower count and news articles and interaction with their content relevant conclusions could be drawn about the impact of being aware of fast fashion on their channel. In her master thesis, Sophie Giepmans also draws the conclusion, that with the results from her research it can be stated that the using of a social influencer or well-known vlogger for advertisements can increase how highly their audience regard a brand. This means that people have to be aware of the fact that what social influencers express, is picked up by many people. Within these case studies, the identities and images of the studied social influencers are impacted by the relation between identity and consumerism and how they present themselves and construct their image living in a world full of (social) media. Mark Deuze discusses in his book Media Life the notion that humans are not living with media, but within media, like fish in water. He states that where reality is open source, identities are - like websites - always under construction, and where private life is lived in public forever more. His book focuses on the question of how people can live a good life in media like fish in water. It is interesting that social influencers, whose lines between public and private life, and professional and private time, are often blurred by uploading their lives onto the internet, and construct their identity by making haul videos. In Making sense of haul videos: self-created celebrities fill a fashion media gap Sarah Sykes and John Zimmerman research identity creation and communication through videos that were uploaded by users themselves. They considered identity creation and its relationship to, amongst others, fashion videos related to four aspects: “portrayal of self through fashion, material possession, brand relationship, and experience attachment” (Sykes & Zimmerman, 2012). Retailers are very aware of the fact that their product sales are impacted by positive and negative reviews by social influencers. At the same time, social influencers are very aware that the brands they collaborate with and how they portray themselves wearing certain fashion looks to the outside world. If social influencers share with the internet that they have bought something and are now the proud owner of this product, this says something about what they want the purchase of this product to do for

18 their public image. Mark Deuze asks how people can live a good life within media, a social influencer might ask how they can live a good life by how they influence within media. The relation between consumerism and identity has long been conceptualized in scholarly literature. It is clear that people construct their identity by the products they buy, and the last years there has been a notable increase in people who want to consume green, consciously or ethically. Self-identification is therefore an important reason for a consumer to behave the way they do. In the discussion of the research paper To buy or not to buy: The roles of self-identity, attitudes, perceived behavioral control and norms in organic consumerism M.H. Johe and N. Bhullar state that “as predicted, the organic identity experimental manipulation positively influenced participants' intentions to buy organic products as compared with individuals in the pro-environmental identity and control conditions, respectively” (Johe & Bullar, 103). They did a study that found that organic identity can be primed to create identity-congruent shifts toward organic consumerism. This shows clearly that people do not just buy products because they have a need for it and it has a useful function, the buying of the product is also strongly linked to how the person wants to express and profile themselves. Michael Strangelove goes into more depth in his book Watching YouTube: Extraordinary Videos by Ordinary People about new production processes concerning the construction of identity when looking at how YouTube is different from more traditional forms of media like television: “YouTube presents a peculiar set of problems for the construction of identity. It strips our memories of the context that gives them meaning and opens up our lives to misinterpretation. It tempts young people to bring the world into their bedrooms when it might be better to keep the door shut and the camera off” (Strangelove, 40). However, this will not stop people from watching or creating videos, as there are of course more reasons to create videos, such as enjoying the creating of something, or enjoying production aspects of it like editing. Moreover, there are different expressions of identity on social media, the change of Teske de Schepper to only focus on ethical brands and the subsequent change of identity is an interesting change that I want to explore. The fact that YouTube strips our memories of context does not mean that ethical consumerism displayed by social influencers is meaningless. The different degrees to which the channels of these social influencers are characterized by these hauls and shoplogs advocating for fast fashion brands, will help draw a clear picture on the influence that showcasing awareness around the shadow side of the fast fashion industry has on their followers and image. For some reason, ethical consumerism seems to be something that is promoted mostly by niche social influencers and this must mean that there is a reason the mass- adoption of promoting ethical consumerism has not happened yet. That is why it is relevant to study what specific problems social influencers encounter when being outspoken on their social media platforms about the negative impact the fast fashion industry has on climate change. The answer to this question might shed light on the specific reasons in the system causing for the lack of display of awareness, and might even present a solution to how social influencers might change their ways in the future in a way that is beneficial for them, their audience and the climate.

19 2.2 From Mass Media to Web 2.0 The term Web 2.0 was first coined after the dot com bubble had burst. This bubble lasted from 1997 to 2000 and was the result of optimistic thinking about internet companies causing the stock prices to rise and internet companies to grow at extreme rates because of this. In previous years, companies like PayPal, Yahoo! and Amazon had been founded in this craze and a rapid expansion of the internet was occurring. When the bubble finally burst some thought this signalled the end of the internet age, that it had all just been an over-hyped fad. However, others were more optimistic about the future of the web and thus started calling this new chapter in the history of the internet “Web 2.0”. They turned out to be right, the internet was not done for, and the market just needed some time to adjust. Sometimes the technology is already there, but culture has to catch up with the rapid changes occurring in a world that is changing and globalizing fast. Angelo Castellani et al write in the article WebIoT: A web application framework for the internet of things that “the potential of such a change is still to be fully exploited, and phenomena such as social networks and cloud computing are just two of the many innovative solutions that have been born from the Web 2.0” (Castellani et al). People had to realize that not every idea or business was easily transferable to the internet, but some were and the era of Web 2.0 began. Whereas Web 1.0 was static and one- sided, Web 2.0 was dynamic and allowed for users to interact with sites and each other. In Web 1.0, users who accessed the internet could look up information to read and take in, but with Web 2.0 they now had the possibility to share files and participate. In their paper Wielding new media in Web 2.0: exploring the history of engagement with the collaborative construction of media products, Theresa Harrison and Brea Barthel argue that Web 2.0 has created a more active audience, a more participatory audience, that over the long-term join in movements and interact with each other. “Web 2.0 services and applications make possible more dynamic interactions between clients and servers, more engaging webpage displays and applications and ultimately more direct, interactive and participative user-to-user interactions than heretofore experienced on the web” (Harrison & Barthel, 157). This change in structure and usage of the web had an immense impact on the way society functioned. Many industries were disrupted and the advertisement industry was no different, one could even argue it was one of the most profoundly impacted industries. When exploring YouTube in particular, since the social influencers of this paper’s case studies are such well-established names on this platform, it becomes apparent that this participatory culture proliferates on the platform that is so well-constructed for Web 2.0. First of all, Jean Burgess and Joshua Green describe YouTube as “structured and evolving as a media system in the economic and social context of broader media and technological change” (Burgess & Green, 9). These days, YouTube is a mainstream website used by many people and it thrives by having viewers interact with the videos that are uploaded on the site. Many content uploaders will often ask their viewers to “like, comment and subscribe, and do not forget to press thumbs up” causing a

20 higher rate of interaction and subsequent channel growth because of this interaction. This interaction also changes advertising dynamics. In her book Advertising 2.0: Social Media Marketing in a Web 2.0 World Tracy Luted sums up potential digital advertising strategies: “Online advertising is diverse with numerous possible formats. These include paid search ads, display ads, classifieds, rich media, referrals or lead generation, promotional e-mail with embedded ads, and sponsorships” (Tuten, 6). The purpose of an advertisement is to urge the consumer to buy a product or use a service. The emergence of Web 2.0 thus has a gigantic impact on the industry, since Web 2.0 allows everybody to be in direct contact with anyone they want in real time. On top of this, it does not matter where people are: as long as they both have a working internet connections, they will be able to communicate with each other. This goes not only for people communicating with each other, but also for brands who want to reach their potential customers and vice versa. Instead of displaying an advertisement somewhere just hoping it will reach someone, they can now take charge and proactively approach their customers in all sorts of new ways. Brown and Hayes emphasize that this is exactly what they mean when they say that marketing is broken: “Marketing is based on notions that are 20 years out of date. The notion that if you put enough messages out there some of them will be heard. The notion that ‘building the brand’ is money well spent” (Brown and Hayes, 3). With Web 2.0, this does not have to be this way anymore. Advertising stems from a time when a target audience had to be searched for and businesses had a more difficult time making a connection with their customers. In today’s world, the majority of the time people spend on the web, they spend on social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. As it turns out, the time people spend on these sites is so high, that the advertising industry has shifted from traditional forms of advertising like in newspapers or on television to trying to harness the marketing power of these sites. When one looks at the history of advertising on YouTube for example, one sees that the advertisements first appeared on the side. People access YouTube to watch videos and this could previously be done without watching an advertisement first, but as the market evolved the more intrusive pre-roll came into existence. The viewer is now forced to watch an advertisement every couple videos when browsing YouTube, only able to skip the advertisement after waiting for five seconds. The benefit for the brand using this type of advertisement versus the advertisement displayed to the side of the video is clear: whereas first people had the choice to look away, people are now coerced into watching the advertisement, since their eyes are already focused on this part of the screen to watch the video. Nobody forces a viewer to watch the advertisement, but since the viewer has an interest in watching the video, the fact that they will be able to see it after having seen the advertisement nudges them into undergoing the ad. Next to this, in Mapping and leveraging influencers in social media to shape corporate brand perceptions Norman Booth and Julie Ann Matic emphasize that “the emerging new influencer community is wielding significant power over the perceptions of brands and companies, largely driven by the rapid expansion of social media channels through

21 which influencers communicate” (Booth & Matic, n.p.). Channels like YouTube, after realizing what the changes that Web 2.0 brought about entailed, evidently had to come up with new strategies to keep making profits, just like more traditional companies had done in the past. It is interesting to note, however, that in a paper called Video Blogs: A Qualitative and Quantitative Inquiry of Recall and Willingness to Share by Shah et al, critical remarks are made about the ability of viewers to remember information presented to them in these videos. They too, note the significant rise in popularity of these video’s on communities that are flourishing since Web 2.0. A relationship between willingness to share and to recall what they saw in the video’s was not found, which is interesting, especially since brands pay a lot of money to advertise their products this way. The advertising industry thus thinks of ingenuous ways to improve their strategies and move along with the ever-changing markets. One of their answers to increasing their marketing effectiveness in this fast-paced world is to work together with social influencers. Another point that is elaborately discussed in Booth’s and Matic’s paper is that of “nobodies” of the past becoming “somebodies” in the future. This notion is very strongly linked to the feeling viewers often have that they know social influencers. Since they are sharing their lives publicly on the internet, and started out as a “nobody”, people can more easily relate to them and in turn this causes the brands to benefit from working with them in advertisements. Since communication has become such an integral part of Web 2.0, it pays off to have a large audience that one is able to communicate with, the social influencer is often capable and willing to provide this in exchange for money. “Importantly, while some online advertising options are response driven, meaning the goal is to drive traffic to brand web sites where consumers can get product information and purchase products, others, like social media, are desired for their ability to build brand equity” (Tuten, 9). The social influencer advertisements are perfect for this. Audiences seeing their favourite social influencers, having changed from nobody to somebody, wearing a certain item is the perfect strategy to create more awareness around the brand and subtly let the audience of the social influencer start preferring that particular brand. Instead of spending their marketing budgets on magazine editorials and commercials, brands now pay the social influencer to recommend their product to their audience. When it comes to authenticity, social influencers often express the wish to exclusively work together with brands that they feel a connection to and would use themselves. However, history has shown that this ultimate collaboration does not always occur, with social influencers promoting products that they could not advocate for after all and their audiences being disappointed by a lack of integrity. Social influencers in the fashion industry often express the same wish to exclusively work together with brands that they are enthusiastic about themselves. It is very interesting therefore, that these social influencers so ingrained in their particular scene, often fail to pay attention to the devastating impact of their industry on the earth. In an article called Climate change and media usage: Effects on problem awareness and behavioral intentions Arlt et al examine how climate change awareness and media usage are related to each other. Even though

22 the authors emphasize that no single formula can be followed when it comes to this topic, it is clear from looking at the results that media usage does have a certain influence on awareness of climate problems and on related behavioural intentions. This means, that even though social influencers may not always see themselves as role models, and even though there is no clear formula that they can or should follow, they can definitely impact their audience’s awareness on climate change and subsequently inspire behaviour changes by leading by example. After looking at the influence of different types of media, Arlt et al concluded that the effects are complex and nuanced, but that an effect on behavioural intentions, such as becoming more engaged in politics, “is positively influenced by using various media sources and that the strongest media effects in general can be observed in those cases of high usage of various media: that means public television new, print media and online information media” (Arlt et al, 60). It is important to thus critically look at the impact caused by social media alone, and see this impact within the bigger context of all media people find themselves surrounded with. The fact that one social influencer might inspire to consume ethically must be viewed as the example given by just one person in the big media landscape. It would therefore be naive to think that the promotion of ethical consumerism in the fashion industry by social influencers alone might be enough to change everything, but it does have a meaningful - and measurable - impact.

2.3 Climate change and responsibility The reality of climate change is that there is a huge issue facing every single person on the planet. The state of the future is largely dependent on what is done today to prevent further global warming. The leaders of the gas and oil industry have consistently put short-term gain and corporate profits above the future and welfare of the planet. The intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is an organization from the United Nations that was founded to evaluate the risks of climate change. The organization publishes extensive reports on issues around greenhouse gas emissions. In the first chapter of their social report on global warming of 1.5 degrees Celsius, they go into more depth explaining the impact of an increase in temperature that seems, small, but will have enormous consequences on life as humans currently know it. “The overarching context of this report is this: human influence has become a principal agent of change on the planet, shifting the world out of the relatively stable Holocene period into a new geological era, often termed the Anthropocene” (Allen et al, 53). The burning of fossil fuels has an enormous impact, and the latest IPCC report states that people have to make sure that they reduce gas and oil by 20% this year, and by 55% in 2050, to prevent a further rise in temperature. But at the same time, companies like ExxonMobil have expressed hopes publicly of increasing their gas and oil production. It is interesting to critically assess the role the consumer plays within this large-scale problem versus the role of governments and large corporations. The role of the consumer in comparison with that of corporations has already been discussed in more detail before, but the role of the state remains a significant factor. Since the fashion industry is one of the leading industries when it comes to consumerism and pollution on a global scale, it is important to take note of the 23 action of the individual, but also of the actions of entities that could cause substantial change by implementing policies or changing regulations. Because climate change is such a global problem governments might be best equipped to take action with international law and transnational measures. Christina Voigt concludes in her paper State Responsibility for Climate Change Damages that “still, new thinking and legal development are necessary if international law is to be equipped to deal with complex global challenges such as climate change” (Voigt, 22). She emphasizes that there is urgent need to strengthen global efforts to prevent further climate change and that state responsibility should be combined with environmental regulation. Specifically taking a look at the fashion industry - which might also be an example for other industries as well - it seems that the severity of the issue at hand does not seem to be addressed by these corporations, policymakers and social influencers. Even though it has been argued by stakeholders that it should be the state’s responsibility to invest in green energy and promote renewable energy sources and an improved, fairer production process, exceptional progress in this has not begun. Even though there seems to be growing awareness around the topic, and people are implementing lifestyle changes on an individual level, like buying second-hand clothing and donating clothes to charity, scientists are still sounding alarm bells, since it does not seem to be enough to prevent catastrophe. Drought, forest fires, sea level rises that will lead to mass migration, poverty and disease are all probable future scenarios changing what life will be like for future generations if solutions are not presented. It is the combination of different individuals and businesses that amount to this large problem, and it is difficult to say that one industry is responsible for certain effects, and another industry for the other. The problem is incredibly large and complex and effects do not always immediately occur, which makes it difficult to assess who should be held accountable for what. The motivation to change might also be difficult when a system works in such a way that there is always a desire for more, such as is the case in the fashion industry. Since the industry is currently under immense pressure to keep producing clothes at an extremely high rate, the industry must move fast. In reaction to this, a movement came into existence that advocates for a more slow approach: the so-called “” movement. The aim of this movement is to be a sustainable alternative to fast fashion, while being stylish at the same time. Additionally, within the slow fashion movement, there is an emphasis on timeless design and products that last a long time. Both of these focus points are a direct reaction to that, which according to supporters of the slow fashion movement, is immoral about the fast fashion industry. The timeless designs are there to prevent people from wanting to throw away clothes every season in search of something “hotter” that season. Ensuring the materials last a long time is done for the same reason, since people will not throw away their clothes and buy new ones if the materials last longer than the materials from the fast fashion industry do. In the paper Sustainable Markets: Motivating Factors, Barriers, and Remedies for Mobilization of Slow Fashion Ertekin and Atik want to better understand how the current fast fashion industry could move towards more

24 sustainable processes. In their paper, slow fashion is used in their analysis “as an emerging market since it encompasses the whole range of “sustainable,” “eco,” “green,” and “ethical” fashion movements” (Ertekin & Atik, 54). Even though there are corporations such as People Tree and Patagonia which aim to positively impact the climate, these brands still seem to be part of a minority. Large brands like H&M, Zara and Urban Outfitters still remain centre-point in large scandals every now and then and own a much bigger percentage of the market when looking at the sales and popularity of the brand. One might wonder what the root of this seeming lack of indifference around such an important topic is. This indifference does not seem to be displayed just by the corporations themselves, but also surround the social influencers that they work together with so extensively, even though these influencers often have a history in the field and know the practices of their niche well. This might be due to the fact that with enormous, complex issues like the ones climate change presents us with, it is hard to say who is responsible for what. The effects of buying clothes are in no way felt immediately at the moment of purchase, especially since it is not each individual item causing the massive problem, but the total of all these items together. Another reason for this might be the fact that other factors play a role in being dishonest, or staying quiet, about certain topics as well. Factors like money and corruption might cause people to stay silent even though a certain influencer might know about the shadow side of the fast fashion industry. Because they are incentivized to promote a certain brand because it will have a positive effect on their personal bank account, this might overshadow the wish to openly discuss the negative consequences the products will have on climate change in the long run. Since the effects of climate change are often so distant and vague, making money is often a more easy and seemingly logical option than thinking very critically about the results of what one publishes and the impact this has on others. In a neoliberalist society, people are in constant rivalry with each other and it is clear that the need for money becomes an important goal to many in this society. “It is often said that climate change is a matter of individual moral responsibility. The climate change issue can be seen at its core as centring on rich people appropriating more than their share of a global public good and, in addition, harming poor people by causally contributing to extreme climatic events such as droughts, hurricanes and heat waves” (Jamieson, 435). Dale Jamieson states this in his paper Climate Change, Responsibility, and Justice when he explores the moral responsibility problem. He explains that when an action has direct impact on someone else, for example when person A steals person B’s wallet, it is very simple to point out causality and feel moral responsibility for one’s action. However, if multiple people would take money out of a person’s wallet over a longer period of time, it would be more difficult to pinpoint who is to blame for the eventual bankruptcy of the person owning the wallet. This example illustrates the difficulty of moral responsibility for climate change well: multiple people are responsible for an extremely big problem. It does not concern a handful of people stealing money out of someone’s wallet, but billions of people living their daily lives contributing to climate change in small dosages. “Climate change is not a matter of

25 a clearly identifiable individual acting intentionally so as to inflict an identifiable harm on another identifiable individual, closely related in time and space” (Jamieson, 437). Therefore, it is not possible to blame the continued existence of an outdated fast fashion industry purely on the way social influencers behave and partake in this problem online. Next to it being hard to pinpoint who is the one causing something and who is the affected, climate change presents us with the challenge of assessing who is the “guiltiest” and should do most to counteract the effects of climate change. Since the effects of climate change will also not be felt equally by everyone on earth, it is a very unbalanced problem. “Since the atmosphere does not attend to national boundaries and a molecule of carbon has the same effect on climate wherever it is emitted, climate change is largely caused by rich people, wherever they live, and is suffered by poor people, wherever they live” (Jamieson, 439). When taking into account factors like that it is more difficult to feel empathy for people on the other side of the world than for your neighbours, it becomes quite apparent why the problem is so complex and problematic. The effects of climate change will be felt first and foremost by those who are not wealthy or living in wealthy countries, making poorer countries more vulnerable to the negative effects of climate change. In Socioeconomic Vulnerability and Adaptation to Environmental Risk: A Case Study of Climate Change and Flooding in Bangladesh, Roy Brouwer et al investigate the relationship between environmental risk, poverty, and vulnerability. In their case study, the positive relationship between these is established. They state that “Environmental risk exposure also goes hand in hand with income inequality and access to natural resources: higher exposure levels are associated with higher inequality and less access to land” (Brouwer et al, n.p.). The relationship between poverty and climate change is complex, but it is apparent that those who are less affluent are less able to protect themselves against catastrophes like floods, or fall back on reserves when a harvest fails. However, it is important to make a critical note here, as W. Neil Adger et al demonstrate in their book Fairness in Adaptation to Climate Change that “poverty is not synonymous with vulnerability; there are wealthier vulnerable groups, but poverty is nonetheless widely accepted as an important indicator of vulnerability” (Adger et al, 86). Poverty is definitely strongly connected with vulnerability to the effects of climate change, but this previous quote again shows the complexity of the problem and the difficulty of attributing causality to one specific thing or person in such a big problem as that of climate change. When someone is poor, it does not necessarily mean that they will be affected by climate change the earliest or the most, just as it does not mean someone will not be affected if they are wealthy. Vulnerability to climate change is thus strongly linked to poverty, but living in poverty is not a prerequisite to be affected by climate change. Another way in which the media landscape and climate change are connected to each other is the way people perceive the problem of climate change via new media. Even though the general consensus is that climate change is real and action has to be taken now, there seems to be a growing group of people who seem sceptic about the informing of the general public, the

26 validity of the numbers presented and the trust in leaders or experts on the topic. For example, Tien-Tsung Lee explores the notion that a significant number of people and politicians are convinced the U.S. news media have a liberal and pro-Democratic bias in the article The Liberal Media Myth Revisited: An Examination of Factors Influencing Perceptions of Media Bias. But the news media are not the only types of media that are sometimes questioned for their credibility. With large scandals like the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal and subsequent privacy discussions having taken place recently, sometimes it seems that trust of large platforms such as Facebook or Instagram is waning. Especially when it comes to problems like climate change, where one can find so many conflicting opinions on both sides of the spectrum, it can seem difficult to make one’s way in a maze of misinformation. Whereas one the one side, people might be presented with others saying “the climate has changed before” they might find evidence on the other side saying that “climate reacts to that which is changing it at the time, and it is clear that humans are now exerting enormous influence on the change in this era”. The reason for climate sceptics being so abound, is that for anyone saying that 97% of scientists agreeing on the severity of the problems concerning health and environment, there is somebody else claiming that there is no consensus just as loudly. Moreover, people do not want to come across as a know-it-all. Social influencers might have expressed wanting to “do more”, but feel conflicted about this as they do not know where to start. Next to this, they also run the risk of coming across as pushy, losing their audience because of this and with this, a stable source of income to them. Sterckx et al word this eloquently when speaking of potential strategies to morally engage people in the book Climate Change and Individual Responsibility: Agency, Moral Disengagement and the Motivational Gap: “whichever strategy is chosen, overly resentful or blameful campaigns are likely to backfire, since they will provoke more feelings of guilt or more reluctance to accept one’s moral responsibility, which might in turn lead to further alienation through moral disengagement” (Sterckx, 123). It is similar to another discussion about whether it is better to scold or praise children. When scolding people there is a good chance that this will only backfire as people can grow resentful and become defensive, and view the person who is telling them off as someone who pretends to know better. Additionally, people were not necessarily biologically built to oversee the enormous problem the fast fashion industry is for the climate. Since, for a long time, people used to live together as hunter-gatherers in small groups, they are biologically wired to spend time with a maximum of approximately fifty people. Since technology and culture have evolved so incredibly rapidly the last couple of years, the human brain may still be biologically wired for the way life has been for millions of years until not too long ago. This is not only the case for this problem, but actually true for any issue related to globalization and capitalism. The problem is beyond individual comprehension because up until very recently human brains never had to deal with such large problems with effects an individual cannot, or only hardly, oversee. It is therefore in no way unique to the problem of climate change but needs to be put into context, no actor in the whole network can understand it all. The technological progress of recent years allows us to observe the way

27 humans impact the environment, but remains very challenging to human brains. With the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, and most recently the digital revolution, the way of life has changed tremendously for everyone on earth. Like Yuval Noah Harari states in his book Sapiens, that paints a picture of our species on this planet, he states:

The flourishing field of evolutionary psychology argues that many of our present-day social and psychological characteristics were shaped during this long pre-agricultural era. Even today, scholars in this field claim, our brains and minds are adapted to a life of hunting and gathering. Our eating habits, our conflicts and our sexuality are all the result of the way our hunter-gatherer minds interact with our current post-industrial environment, with its megacities, aeroplanes, telephones and computers (Harari, 35).

People’s brains and minds being adapted to a life of hunting and gathering shows up in all aspects of life, and of course the way humans communicate is not excluded from this. The fact that Web 2.0 now allows us to communicate with each other in ways that are unprecedented, has changed the social structure of the web and our way of communicating forever. Large-scale problems like climate change are very difficult to oversee for humans. When zooming back in on the fashion industry, extreme weather patterns are not on the forefront of one’s mind when seeing a clothing haul by a social influencer that one feels close to since it feels like she could be the girl next door. It is hard to think about the long-term, and some might describe it as being stuck in a traffic jam, that could only be solved if everybody would be coming into motion all at the same time. Such a solution would require careful planning, tremendous effort and might seem virtually impossible. However, this does seem to be reality and one of the conditions for this solution to come into existence is for people to develop a sense of responsibility. Even though people might not have a choice as to whether they will be impacted by climate change, they do have a choice in whether to participate in taking action while they can or choosing not to do so. Since the effects of climate change will be distributed unevenly throughout the world, with the poor and undeveloped countries experiencing the negative consequences first, it is important to take a look at the people and corporations with most power in this problem. Because not only the effects of climate change are unevenly distributed, the places of where most of the causes stem from are so too. As a result of some having more impact than the other, it is important to hold these people and corporations causing climate change side by side and see where most of the progress may be made. Whereas ethical consumerism might have a measurable impact and does send a message to the industry through sales figures, one cannot forget the enormous footprint caused by corporations during the production process and might ask critical questions about their participation and taking of responsibility. With social influencers in today’s media landscape, this lack of display of responsibility seems to be prevalent as well. The fast fashion industry is clearly not doing enough currently to

28 restrain their impact on climate change. “It is unlikely that the current fashion system and ongoing cycle of insatiable desires will or continue indefinitely. Consequently, to break this vicious cycle, sustainability should become the core value in the fashion industry currently driven by speed, artificial newness, and planned obsolescence” (Ertekin & Atik, 66). Since people could hardly expect from an individual fashion social influencer to change the inner workings of the industry, one might sooner expect action to be taken at the individual level of the problem. With social influencers specifically, trying to target change on this individual level would have more impact than someone without a large following trying to do the same. A social influencer who consumes ethically and displays this on their channel does not only impact their individual purchase strategy, but also has a chance of inspiring their audience to buy an ethically produced item instead of another fast fashion item they are now not promoting. It might even be as simple as it being in the name of a social influencer itself, the potential change brought about by this person is all in its influence. Since, in today’s world, there seems to be a notion to not want to be annoying others by seeming a know-it-all, the perfect solution to the issue an influencer might have with this problem regarding climate change, is the nudge. The nudge is an aspect of design that alters people’s behaviour without forbidding any options. In Thaler and Sunstein’s book Nudging: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness they state that people have a tendency to stay with the default options that are presented to them. According to them, “two important lessons can be drawn from this research. First, never underestimate the power of inertia. Second, that power can be harnessed” (Thaler & Sunstein, 8). Nudging has intensified through the rise of technology. Since (new) media is so ubiquitous and pervasive, people notice it around them less and less. Since devices are becoming smaller and the youngest generations have grown up submerged in new media, it can be more difficult to notice its presence around us. With the clothing industry being such an integral part of people’s lives, and such an integrated system in the world economy, it is not hard to see why the genre of the fashion social influencer is so large on YouTube. The video platform lends itself excellently for visual input. With fashion being something that is so connected to being seen visually by the eyes, it quickly becomes clear why the fashion social influencer is particularly popular on this platform and the other platform well-known for its visual stimulation: Instagram. There are specific niche genres on YouTube that manage to attract large groups of followers: next to genres such as gaming and family life, fashion and beauty social influencers are amongst the most popular. Whereas years ago, people started innocently filming “what’s in my bag videos” from their bedroom without having any idea money was to be made from this, the platform has now evolved in a huge money-making machine where social influencers can earn money by recommending a certain brand. For the purpose of this research, the focus of the case studies will be on the haul type video specifically. The haul video is a type of video that is prevalent within the fast fashion social influencer industry. In a haul video, a fashion social influencer will show and describe recently bought products. Even though hauls exist for many genres, like beauty, homeware of stationery, the focus within this

29 research will be on the clothing haul for its specific link to the fast fashion industry. The video often consists of the social influencer talking about the shopping experience and what they specifically like about a certain item, while interspersing the talking head shot with shots of them trying on the piece of clothing so that the viewer can see what it looks like when the influencer is wearing it. Watching haul videos fits right in with a bigger overarching trend of people simply enjoying watching other people’s lives, a practice to which vloggers also attribute their popularity to. The haul video might be especially appealing to viewers of the fashion influencer who respect their style and might be looking for inspiration for their own wardrobe. It is no secret that for this exact reason, people might feel incentivized to buy something which in turn caused brands to signal the trend and enter into partnership deals with the influencers. Next to hauls, social fashion influencers often vlog their daily lives, or post content like lookbooks or ‘Look of the Day’ type videos. “In fact, vlogs make up almost half of the top thirty Most Subscribed channels on YouTube. Of the thirty with the most subscriptions of all time, thirteen are channels predominantly built around vlogging” (Burgess & Green, 96). These vlogs and hauls in which social influencers tell their viewers what they bought have an impact on the spending behaviour of their followers. With particularly popular influencers, these types of hauls can result into the product being sold out the next day, which clearly demonstrates the benefit of the brand working together with an influencer for a haul. Many people who started creating content in the early days of YouTube have grown to become (internet) celebrities and have gained massive amounts of followers. It is not uncommon for haul videos to receive millions of views. Even though many developments have changed the internet and the way advertisements work on YouTube, the haul has not become less popular. When discussions were held concerning influencers not being transparent enough about when something was or was not an advertisement, new regulations caused them to always have to be very specific and open when something they promote is a branded partnership or advertisement. In her thesis Exploring Haul Videos on YouTube: A Collective Case Study Approach Emily Keats analysed the content of multiple haul videos. She states that “there is evidence that YouTube (the fashion and beauty community in particular) provides its participants with a collective sphere of meaning exchange” (Keats, 132). She notes that the influencers construct their identities themselves, when making the haul video. By choosing to represent, or to not represent, a certain brand, an influencer makes a statement. The production of a piece of clothing for a brand and the climate change that happens as a result from this, the consumption of the product, and the representation of this to an audience are all intertwined and therefore identity is linked to this process. “While engaged in this environment, users (both video producers and consumers) can explore and construct aspects of their identity, through the production and consumption of haul videos” (Keats, 132). Here, it is interesting to take note that it is not only the social influencer constructing an identity by choosing what to (ethically) consume and display, but also the viewer by deciding to click on which video: a haul or a fast fashion industry brand haul. It seems that appealing to people’s ethical sense of

30 morality would seem ineffective as it might come across as nagging, while selling an eco- conscious identity would work because instead of telling people what not to do and making them feel bad about their behaviour, people like building their identity through the products that they purchase and own. It appears that social influencers have been showing more awareness on the devastating impact the industry their career is based in has on the climate, but this awareness does seem to belong to mostly niche social influencers. As will later be pointed out in the case studies, the awareness on how ethical consumerism displayed on a channel can influence an audience is still seen as something out of the ordinary. When one takes a look at most haul videos on YouTube, only part of them are ethical hauls and social influencers that do create hauls with the emphasis on ethical consumerism most often own a channel that is branded around this awareness. This might have to do with the fact that the climate change movement has also been rising in popularity. Thanks to documentaries such as The True Cost (2016), exploring the impact of fashion on people and the planet, more people come into contact with the effects of the fashion industry on climate change. The True Cost documentary, for example, explains the history of the fashion industry and illustrates, with the example of the Rana Plaza disaster from 2013, how hazardous working conditions can cause enormous disasters. Next to this, the documentary offers the viewer solutions by featuring designers and brands that are trying to make a change, such as Stella McCartney and People Tree. The documentary follows them and emphasizes their different ways of handling the production process in comparison with their fast fashion competitors. But, the mere existence of a documentary like this, which was published so recently, proves that the problems of the fast fashion industry are in no way close to being solved. One might even argue that the problems are worse than ever, with demand continuing to rise at an ever-increasing rate. If the problems presented in this documentary are well-known, and globalisation has created a world that has never been so connected before, why are these problems not among the most widely discussed topics? Why are traditional media and new media and social influencers working in this industry not doing everything in their power to combat the consequences of a system that is so obviously causing misery and inequality worldwide? This is an intriguing question because the fact that this is not the case, suggests that there are more heavy weighing motivations for social influencers to not focus on this.

3. Case studies Fig. 1: query “shoplog kleding” As there are many platforms that social influencers can choose to put their content on, it is worthwhile asking why it is specifically Instagram and YouTube that are so successful when it comes to social influencer marketing. How has it come to be that there is a capitalist economy in which an image of a social influencer can cause clicks on videos and pictures posted online can result in actual money being spent? And why is YouTube in particular so popular with people wanting to follow their style icons in the fashion industry? YouTube is abound with lookbooks, style guides, style tips and haul videos which are all immensely successful. “Unlike 31

Fig. 2: query “duurzame shoplog kleding” Instagram, which is mostly photos, graphics, and short video clips, YouTube gives an influencer the opportunity to create and share videos that dig deeper into their lives. Social media influencers create how-to videos, advice videos, and so much more, and that viewers watch because they value influencer opinions (Glucksman, 83). It appears that video format is the perfect format to create the feeling of “knowing one another”, by seeing the influencer move, speak and go about their daily lives, the feeling of being their friend and knowing them is something often experienced by an audience. There are many different types of haul videos (expensive, cheap, groceries, clothes, make-up, games, the list goes on) and they often contain paid endorsements. When searching for a haul video on YouTube without entering words like “conscious”, “ethical” or “sustainable” all the top results are never focused on ethical consumerism. Instead, selection criteria that the videos do seem to focus on a lot are seasons, stores with the same price range and budget categories like “affordable” or “high end”. This means that uploading a haul video according to selection criteria like these attract more viewers than hauls that focus on sustainable fashion. When comparing the queries “fashion haul” and “ethical fashion haul” and filtering to “uploaded this year” to compare results to see whether this assumption still holds then, two important factors are striking. First, for the first query for “fashion haul”, most videos are uploaded very recently. The range goes from a couple of videos that were uploaded around three months ago to many videos that were uploaded days, hours or even a few minutes ago. When comparing this to the results that one gets when querying “ethical fashion haul”, one

32 can notice the difference in upload dates when exactly the same filter settings are applied. None of the videos that show up within the first twenty results are uploaded less than a day ago. All of them are uploaded months ago, and some even a year ago. This means that the most relevant videos, according to the YouTube algorithm at least, are not necessarily uploaded recently. The YouTube algorithm thus shows older sustainable fashion videos when querying with the same filters as with “normal” hauls, probably due to the fact that sustainable hauls are less frequently uploaded than the other one, and thus stay relevant for a longer period of time. When doing a similar query in Dutch, the same type of result appears. When comparing “shoplog kleding” (shoplog clothing) with “duurzame shoplog kleding” (sustainable shoplog clothing) the results of the second query (fig. 2) are sometimes four years old, the most recent one being two months old, and the rest all being more months or years old again. The query for “shoplog kleding” (fig. 1) are at most one year old, more often being a few months, weeks or even days old. For this research, three case studies were done. Central to these case studies were three big Dutch social influencers: Monica Geuze, Mascha Feoktistova and Teske de Schepper. All three of them display different levels of awareness around the products they recommend and the way they influence their viewers with this. These three influencers together form multiple sources of data that will demonstrate the difficulties that arise when promoting ethical consumerism in relation to climate change on a social influencer’s social media profile. Together, these social influencers reach more than one million subscribers. They form an established part of the YouTube scene in The Netherlands, they have all been active for multiple years, with Mascha leading the way since she has been making videos since 2007. All three of them have won awards, have been interviewed by more traditional media outlets and have had success in other industries (like the music industry) partly due to the success they were already experiencing thanks to their accounts on social media platforms. Another thing that the influencers have in common is that they all make beauty and lifestyle genre videos. For all three of them, the focus of their videos in the past was more on videos like makeup tutorials and tag videos like the “what’s in my bag tag”, the focus now seems to be more on lifestyle videos and vlogs. This change in content could potentially be described to them trying to look for success in other industries (like Teske in the music industry), a decreased interest in only making fashion and beauty videos, and the growing interest in them as a person by their audience and the subsequent interest in just seeing how their lives unfold in lifestyle content. However, the three social influencers all still make fashion and beauty videos. Mascha has a separate channel for her vlogs, and uses her main channel just for the purpose of doing more “professional” videos such as tutorials or hauls. Monica’s content exists largely of vlogs, and has very recently introduced a podcast on her channel, but often a large part of her vlogs consists of content that definitely qualifies as a haul but is just not recorded for a separate video. Teske has lately been focusing on lifestyle and music videos, but pays a lot of attention in her videos to ethical consumerism and sometimes still records separate videos about this as well. This is interesting when seen in context of Harrison and Barthel’s research into people’s adoption

33 of Web 2.0. Since the structure of the web invites people to communicate and share and form new groups, this means that people will automatically communicate with likeminded others in comment sections of social influencer content. This means that people who look for ethical fashion advice will land on Teske’s pages sooner than on Monica’s. But it also means that the people who followed Teske before she changed her lifestyle to include more ethical fashion might have grown together with her towards this, the same way friends also influence each other by growing up together. There seems to be a common notion that ethical fashion is more expensive and “difficult” to obtain, and therefore less attractive to an audience. Since many of the followers of the social influencers of these case studies are part of a young demographic, the price of the products could definitely have an impact on whether the purchases resonate with the audience. The three influencers show a different level of awareness around the fast fashion industry, with Monica Geuze demonstrating the least awareness, Mascha Feoktistova showing an increasing level of awareness and Teske de Schepper actually rebranding her entire online personality around this awareness. By comparing the three of them, looking at their content, their follower count, news articles and interaction with their content, relevant conclusions could be drawn about the impact of being aware of the shadow side of fast fashion on their channel. Moreover, it is interesting to see what difficulties (or walls, maybe even) social influencers run into when addressing concerns about the fast fashion industry in relation to climate change, so that it might become clearer why many big channels do not seem to represent any awareness around the topic. The excessive materialism that is showcased on these channels is therefore not necessarily linked to problems like climate change by its creators. First, Monica Geuze, who seems to show little to no awareness on her channel around fast fashion and climate change. Ever since she started her YouTube channel a couple of years ago, Monica has often showed her viewers what she bought. In her earlier YouTube days, Monica would often record haul videos, showing what she bought. In these haul videos, no mention would ever be made about the impact of the brands that she was buying. Even though many of her clothes come from stores like Zara and Urban Outfitters, of which the last mentioned has a ‘scandals list’ on its general Wikipedia page, no mention was ever made of this. The content would only revolve around the way the products looked and felt, and how much they costed. However, these haul videos should not be seen completely separate of the other content produced by Monica, as it is of course possible for her to state opinions on the fast fashion industry outside of her haul videos. In her vlogs, Monica can often be found making remarks about having way too many clothes and this really being a problem. It is interesting that this problem is exactly what Ertekin & Atik were referring to when they were speaking of “insatiable desires”. The hunger for more is something that is apparently experienced universally by people financially able to buy fast fashion, and the social influencers are not immune to this. I would even go as far as to say that since these social influencers were not specifically elected to be social influencer for their broad understanding of the

34 industry, but more often than not rise to stardom quickly because of luck, hard work and other factors like networks, they might not actually be the right person to look up to when looking for inspiration. Especially when a consumer cares about ethical consumerism, it is definitely possible that the consumer knows more about the topic than a social influencer that is focused on the fast fashion industry. Mascha Feoktistova has, throughout the entire history of her channel, uploaded many hauls, and has recently been expressing more awareness around the effects of consumption behaviour on the climate. In a recent video in which she reacts to prejudices that her viewers have about her, she also reacts to the prejudice that people think she is materialistic. She expresses that she thinks that this might be slightly true, but later adds: “I find it nice to have something beautiful, and then I use it for years… I have some beautiful stuff, but I am so happy with these things, I cherish them” and later says “I love clothes, I love beauty, I really do, but I have my limits, I do not wear a different outfit every day, I wear my clothes for five or six years, my favourite clothes are all second-hand.” These claims can, of course, be true. However, it is intriguing that the next video that Mascha has uploaded after this prejudice video, is a video called “Sorting my COMPLETE lip drawer: Lipsticks, gloss, liquid lipstick, everything” in which she sorts out a drawer filled to the brim with lip products. The drawer is so full that it is not even possible to count the products, but it appears that it must be at least one hundred lip products. So, it does seem that it is interesting to explore how these social influencers on the one hand present themselves, and on the other hand what it may look like for an average viewer. Mascha does express, at the beginning of the video that she feels, more than before, that she doesn’t “need too much, I am going to put some stuff away, and of course I receive a lot from brands, and I just feel like the choice stress every morning makes me wonder if it’s worth it, I think I could do with less.” Observations like this one that she makes about her life are not singular or extraordinary, she has made them more often in her more recent videos. It does seem that she is, therefore, paying more attention to slow movements and minimalism, versus fast fashion and the desire for more. It is clear that people’s desires for certain products are shaped by mass media, and in contemporary times by the content that is uploaded by social influencers. Mascha seems to feel more morally responsible for her content lately, which demonstrates practically that the evolution of corporate responsibility shows up also in social influencers’ business models. Philip Cochran’s statements on how it has grown from something smaller to more widely known and expected, shows in how one of the mainstream social influencers in The Netherlands seems to be representing more awareness on the fast fashion’s industry’s impact on climate change, after niche social influencers like Teske did so first. Moreover, Mascha’s case also proves the statements that a company (Mascha’s business in this case) seen as having a positive influence on the world has positive effects on how it is viewed in today’s world surrounded by media as well. This can be deduced by the view count on her videos when she is profiling her business and online identity as ethical. A video that Mascha uploaded on 22 March 2017 is a shoplog + unboxing of second-hand

35 clothing. The view count of this particular shoplog is, at the moment of writing, 343.086. When comparing this number with other shoplogs uploaded by her, it appears that this shoplog has a high number of views. The first five shoplogs that show up when querying for Mascha’s shoplogs have a view count ranging from 183k views to 310k views, making her second-hand shoplog the one with the highest view count. This is interesting because it appears that Mascha’s audience, even though she does not profile herself as a “conscious” or “ethical” social influencer, is interested in watching content that connects with a more sustainable approach to fashion. When doing exactly the same type of comparison for Teske, the results are the other way around. A shoplog for second-hand clothing attracts 151k views, but a shoplog from five years ago including the brands Primark, Forever21 and Topshop in the title has attracted 322k views. This might have something to do with the fact that Teske attracted a lot more viewers before she rebranded her channel. But if this is the case, it might be so that viewers are just less interested in watching content concerning ethical consumerism specifically. What are the reasons people enjoy haul videos in the first place? They enjoy finding out about something they are interested in, they get to discover products they otherwise might not have known about, they get a sense of someone’s personal style and if the social influencer is a lot wealthier sometimes people enjoy seeing what these people spend their money on, even if this lifestyle is unattainable to them. Teske appears to be the most conscious ethical consumer from the three social influencers. At a moment in her career a couple of years ago, she decided to consume as ethically as possible from then on and only promote those brands that she can morally support. It does appear that with this image change, she inspired people. Next to reactions being overwhelmingly positive on her own channels, reactions from people that adopted behavioural changes can be found on comment sections of other social influencers as well, for example Anna’s comment on Naoki’s blog about cruelty free beauty products: “For some time now, I’ve focused on cruelty free cosmetics. I was never really aware about animal testing… until I read an article from Teske that made me think.” She goes on to explain that she has changed her behaviour afterwards and does not use makeup anymore that was tested on animals. When asked about her functioning as a role for her younger audience and her awareness around this, she says: “I surely am conscious of the fact that I am a role model. I keep it in mind, but try to stay close to being myself”. This quote shows clearly that Teske is very aware of the ways in which people look up to her, whereas Monica has said on the Yous & Yay: New Emotions podcast she was featured on that she is not quite sure why some parents blame her for their children’s behaviour, since Monica thinks the parents should be the ones not letting their children watch her if they do not agree with what she says. Mascha’s, Teske’s and Monica’s unique positions as big Dutch social influencers cause them to be situated between business and consumer. Gardetti’s comments about the use of a collective learning mechanism to help us decide on what our vision of a sustainable society is, becomes important in this light. This collective learning mechanism might be something social influencers could play an important role in because of their unique influential position. With their influence, social influencers might be able

36 to impact supply and demand by influencing their audience, but also send a message to brands in terms of working or not working with them. A good example of this is how Teske decided to only work together with make-up brands that were not tested on animals before production. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the endless uploading of hauls advocating for fast fashion brands by social influencers not displaying awareness, like Monica Geuze does. The portrayal of self through fashion, material possession, brand relationship and experience attachment, as concluded by Sykes & Zimmerman to be the more important factors when constructing an online identity, resurface with these three social influencers as well. All three influencers are self-created celebrities that fill in the fashion media gap that magazines and catwalk shows have left behind. With predominantly young, female audiences and content focusing on beauty, fashion and lifestyle, they often upload haul videos, unboxing of beauty products videos, fashion try-on videos and participate in tag videos such as the ‘what’s in my bag’ tag. The keeping up of an online image is important to these three social influencers as it has been established that their advertisement revenues are dependent on their authenticity, or at least being perceived as authentic. The construction of their online is strongly linked to the first two factors mentioned by Sykes & Zimmerman: portrayal of self through fashion and material possession. When looking into their most popular videos on their YouTube channels, taking into account that the most popular videos of all-time are often videos that contain content on big life events like weddings and announcements of pregnancies that many of their followers will be naturally interested in, many of the other more popular videos revolve around this type of content.

Fig. 3: Teske’s popular videos

37 Fig. 4: Monica’s popular videos

Fig. 5: Mascha’s popular videos

When zooming into these more popular videos featured on the influencers’ channels, it quickly becomes apparent that right behind videos about big personal announcements or updates, the most popular videos often have everything to do with fashion and the material possession of products. Mascha’s channel (fig. 5) seems to include the most of these types of videos, with titles such as ‘Review: lipstickers from the Action €0,89’ and ‘Get Glam with us – with Jessie Maya | Beautygloss’. The fact that Mascha has most of these can probably be partly attributed to the fact that she has two channels on YouTube. One for personal life matters, and one for more “professional” content, this is the channel that the focus on for this research. With Teske and Monica however, things are different as they just upload all types of videos on one channel. But even with them, next to baby births and moving houses, videos like ‘What’s in my bag | Monica Geuze’ and ‘Everyday make-up update’ have the highest view counts (fig 4). When it comes to awareness about climate change, Teske is the only social influencer posting videos with titles that actually hint to this type of content. Whereas Mascha only sometimes mentions something about wanting to cut spending habits, and Monica does not seem to represent any awareness, one of Teske’s more popular videos is called ‘What 1 year of being vegan does to you’. 38 The claims of individual causal inefficacy being false made by Avram Hiller make sense in this context as well. For the social influencers, it is difficult to comprehend how much influence the content of one video may have on the rest of the world. Just like the quick Sunday drive in a gasoline car does not make people feel like they are ruining the climate singlehandedly, so does the uploading of one fast fashion haul not make social influencers feel as if they are responsible for the problematic fast fashion industry. Which they obviously are not in a sense, but taking into account the combined actions of all social influencers, together they definitely amount to a big part of the fashion inspiration in the fast fashion industry. Moreover, Johe & Bullar’s comments on the relationship between identity and organic consumerism are also applicable here. If identity can be used to create identity-congruent shifts toward organic consumerism, social influencers who want to increase awareness about climate change and have a positive impact on climate change do good by focusing on these topics in their videos. For that reason, videos such as ‘what 1 year of being vegan does to you’ have impact on how viewers will want to express themselves. It should be noted that there are thousands of social influencers standing in line to become the next big thing. Seeing as people watch the content that they are interested in, and nobody watches a video they do not like for fun, people will specifically search for the content they are interested in. This means that, if it is indeed the case that moral responsibility is very difficult to assign to one person and people just do not really feel like social influencers are the ones responsible, there will be no incentive for them to change their content. When looking at the subscriber counts of Mascha, Monica and Teske, Teske clearly had to lowest amount of subscribers. Mascha has 600,000+ subscribers, Monica has 500,000+ subscribers and Teske has 300,000+ subscribers. This demonstrates clearly that a social influencer would never focus specifically on ethical consumerism for a growth in subscribers and the increase in salary that goes hand in hand with this. A reason for a social influencer to focus on ethical consumerism is probably purely personal, because the social influencer thinks this is the right moral thing to do. If a social influencer is not performing well, there are so many others eager to take their place that it might be a risky decision for a social influencer to change their strategy if they do not really feel the absolute need to. The fact that many social influencers do not display (a lot of) awareness around the topic of ethical consumerism and climate change might just be a reflection of society, therefore. If there is little to no demand for ethical hauls, the supply will stay away as well. However, if views, subscribers and comments all pointed in the direction of asking ethical consumerism content from their social influencers, change would probably follow soon, because this would translate back into money for them. It would be the same as voting with the wallet, only in this case it would be voting with views. In Voting with the Wallet by Leonardo Bechhetti he explains the concept very well economically when he states:

Buying an environmentally responsible product is to send a signal of approval through the market to those companies that are more effective in reconciling the creation of economic

39 value with environmental responsibility, or that are more efficient in waste management and the abatement of pollution, and therefore contribute to reducing pollution and its harmful consequences on health and global warming (Becchetti, 250).

But this voting with the wallet is easily translatable to the web. That which one gives attention on the web, receives the signal that it is valued, and therefore worth money. Just like the way social media platforms make their money of the attention of its users, social influencers can also make money of their vote through content creation. For example, Facebook makes its money through advertisements on the site, and users see more advertisements the more time they spend on the platform. This means it is beneficial for Facebook to make their platform as addictive as possible. In Facets of Facebook: Use and Usage Kathrin Knautz and Katsiaryna S. Baran state about addicted Facebook users that “27% of participants with addictive tendencies use Facebook to improve their position in society, make up for real-life relationships, and to publish selfies, whereas concerning the entire sample, less than 5 % considered these to be reasons to use the site” (Knautz & Katsiaryna, 86). This research into the addictiveness of Facebook shows how Facebook utilizes people’s wishes to stay connected with each other, to make money of their attention. Social influencers who would want to increase their audience’s feelings of moral responsibility may utilize their viewer’s interests in them in a similar way to make them more aware of climate change through the content they are publishing. This allows the social influencer to make money of their viewer’s attention and clicks on topics that revolve around ethical consumerism and climate change awareness. On the one hand, by motivating consumers to consume ethically, this could decrease the impact of the fast fashion industry has on climate change. However, a social influencer might not feel responsible for the problems of the fast fashion industry due to individual causal inefficacy and thus will not use their followers for this. It is also debatable whether a social influencer would want to play into the addictive tendencies of the platforms they express their styles on, while using their audience as a means to an end. So on the other hand, while there could be something positive that comes out of this utilisation - the decreased impact on climate change - social influencers consider more than this alone, when deciding how and with what to influence their audiences. Just like the social influencers have a big audience and some might therefore call them role models, one could argue that part of the responsibility belongs with the audience as well. By each click, a viewer’s vote, so to speak, on what they deem important enough to watch, they send a message to creators stimulating them to create more similar content. This emphasizes the sheer complexity of the problem of moral responsibility for problems as big and ubiquitous as the fast fashion industry. Teske has expressed on her public blog that she has made a career move that did not help her when it comes to finance, referring to the choice to stop using cosmetics that are tested on animals. As a result of this, she says, she has lost a couple of the brands that were sponsoring her until then that were very important to her, but states having become happier as a result of this

40 choice because she stayed true to her own principles. What this showcases is that at the moment, money will not be a primary reason for social influencers to start promoting slow fashion brands and sustainable fashion, simply because that is not where the big money is to be made (yet). The choice to promote sustainable fashion and ethical consumerism today will be made because of personal motives. Next to this, the fact that social influencers make their money by keeping their audience happy and engaged, causes them to strive for an optimal relationship with their viewers. A big part of this means that they want their viewers to enjoy the content they are creating, and there seems to be a general notion not to want to be perceived as a so-called “social justice warrior”, for this might come across as annoying. The internet is full of “why vegans are so annoying” memes and people often find it difficult to remain objective if their behaviour is addressed critically. Social influencers do not want to lose subscribers and money for this reason, so it seems that money is one of the prime motivators for social influencers to make particular choices. From the view count, it cannot be said with significant determination whether someone who is guided in their purchasing decision by ethical concerns is actually influenced by the social influencers they are watching. The concept of the celebrity has been developing on social media, and so have images of Mascha, Monica and Teske. Many of the posts on Instagram and YouTube are advertisements or part of a sponsor deal. When looking at the posts posted by these three social influencers it is clear that at least half is sponsored content. It could also be the case that viewers are already interested in climate change and ethical consumerism, and have therefore specifically queried some terms that lead them to a video. Moreover, an important question that remains is: does the consumer really care? If the view count on the videos of Mascha, Monica and Teske suggest anything it is that viewers did not flock in great numbers to Teske’s account simply because she is offering content that displays awareness around climate change. With the fashion industry causing such harrowing consequences such as the Rana Plaza disaster, one would expect the consumer to care. However, within a system that is so dependent on revenue to continue existing, it is also obvious that stakeholders would want to prevent these worker conditions and negative consequences on the environment from being widely known, as it would be harmful for their sales. Since there is money to be made on both the side of the influencer, and the side of the brand, they have personal reasons not to emphasize the shadow side of the fashion industry that might weigh heavier than wanting to do something for the greater good. This also explains why decisions like Teske’s require the influencer to strive for personal benefit (like being morally content with one’s decisions) before social influencers would take such drastic actions.

4. Conclusion In conclusion, it appears that capitalism and ethical consumerism are compatible. Meaningful progress can be achieved by consuming ethically and mindfully versus consuming fast fashion. In Who are the Ethical Consumers by Roger Cowe and Simon Williams it was established that it

41 could be said that consumer power was indeed significant, since some captured as much as 5% of the relevant market. In this way, it can be checked whether or not consumers can influence the way companies create supply, and it turns out that they can. Next to this, in Taking Flight: the Rapid Growth of Ethical Consumerism, it was found out that there are so-called “rising stars” in the ethical marketplace, including ethical food, green energy, household goods but also personal items. Importantly, they add in the report that “the government does have an enabling role in promoting ethical business” (Ethical Purchasing Index, 14). Even though some might say it is just a drop of change in a limitless ocean, the fact is that people clearly inspire others and all these individual actions can bring about change. Like the positive reactions to Teske’s ethical consumerism showed, there is definitely support for this lifestyle. Moreover, when one person inspires ten people and these ten people influence their friends again, the effect of one individual’s actions can have a ripple effect and bring about greater change than just the changes of this particular person alone. From the literature review, it is clear that social influencers do nudge their audience and inspire them to choose one brand over the other. It is therefore logical that people might look to influencers when asking questions about moral responsibility in the fashion industry. Social influencers have a large audience, something that other people may not have, and for this reason it could be said that they have an exemplary role. Seeing as many of the people following young audience are young people who are more easily influenced than adults, this argument becomes even stronger. The effects of the fast fashion industry are clear, so why are big names in the social influencer scene not doing everything in their power to bring about change? They do not always feel responsible for their attributing to climate change, and even if they do, they often do not want to lose followers as a result of speaking their mind about this. Next to this, even though it is definitely true that ethical consumerism can have a lasting positive effect on the resources on earth and the emissions of CO2, it is very important to not just focus on the moral responsibility of the social influencer alone. It is clear that the large-scale problem of climate change is a global problem and it is very hard to pinpoint who is guilty of what. Every product that is produced from resources and wreaks havoc on the planet, it is therefore important to be mindful of this. Ethical consumerism alone is probably not the only solution to the problems the fast fashion industry presents us with. Next to this, it is also important to take into consideration that the ecological footprint of certain people is way larger than somebody else’s. The same is true for corporations. It is important to keep track of the scope of impact that one has when undertaking action to limit the damage the fast fashion industry does to the climate. Even though ethical consumerism is important on an individual level, one has to keep in mind that if companies do not change their production processes, large parts of the old system remain intact and the impact of just ethical consumerism will not be enough to prevent global warming then. More influencers seem to be promoting sustainable fashion than before, even though fast fashion remains popular. We cannot blame the social influencers solely for the fast fashion problem, we can only try to instil in them the realization that they have more influence than many

42 others because of their audiences on social media platforms. This solution solves only part of the problem, but by making social influencers more aware of their privileged position to be considered a role model by many, this might inspire change for audiences of social influencers around the world. This would benefit the problem greatly, since it is so difficult precisely because it is a global problem. The scope of the influence of social influencers goes much further than the scope of influence of the three social influencers from the case studies of this research combined. Because Web 2.0 allows for such a seamless user experience all around the world, and social influencers exist in virtually every country where people have access to platforms like YouTube, it would be easy for them to influence the lives of people globally. But it is important to remember that the burden of responsibility for ethical consumerism and a positive impact on climate change does not rest on social influencers alone. Their viewers and corporations play a big role as well. By choosing which videos they watch, a member of the audience can (sub)consciously influence the content that appears on the site. With each view, they support a certain influencer by choosing to give them attention over another. This promotes the creation of certain videos over others, and by changing their viewing behaviour viewers could also impact ethical consumerism positively. With corporations this is different as it basically comes down to implementing new strategies that disrupt the current model on which the fast fashion industry is based. The price of ethical products in relation to the mostly young demographic of many social influencers causes these products to be less attractive to purchase for this audience. One might argue that it is unfair to compare a €2,- T-shirt from a fast fashion brand to a €25,- T-shirt from an ethical brand. Throughout the years, consumers have gotten used to the extremely low prices of fast fashion, having forgotten that what they consider a “normal price” is only possible because of a system with devastating impact on the climate. With so many available options, and the options of fast fashion brands always being the cheaper option, it is no question why people who are not particularly affluent opt to buy these clothes over the more expensive sustainable brands. Moreover, these products are not affordable for the people who are mostly impacted by climate change. People who live in developing countries are more likely to be poor and therefore do not have the same means to get these products as people in more developed countries. The same goes for young people who do not earn a lot because they are still in school, and this is exactly the demographic that watches the haul video content posted by social influencers the most. In these cases, the need of the individual purchasing the product is more important for them at that moment than that of the negative effects on the climate, since these effects are so difficult to measure and seem so far away. The social influencer knows that their videos will be watched by people if they are able to relate to the content and get something out of it that is worthwhile to them. If a social influencer has a young demographic as an audience, like Mascha Feoktistova, Teske de Schepper and Monica Geuze all have, it is purely financially speaking not the best decision to present only ethical brands to them in hauls as their audience will not be able to buy this as much as they are able to buy fast fashion. So, the content presented in their videos is directly linked to their

43 audience’s choice to click on the #ad link in the description bar or move on to the next social influencer that does present them with affordable options. This is a vicious circle that is difficult to escape unless the circle is broken, which is what happened when Teske changed her strategy. We have seen that ethical consumerism does have impact but cannot solve the problem of the fast fashion industry in relation to climate change alone. In Taking flight: the rapid growth of ethical consumerism this is clearly demonstrated by the following quote:

Last year’s ground breaking report from The Co-operative Bank, “Who are the Ethical Consumers?” sought to convey the true impact of consumer power in the ethical marketplace. It established that consumer power was indeed significant, with many ethical products surpassing the 1% market niche and some capturing as much a 5% of the relevant market (Doane, 4).

It was found that consumers do not only care about the environment, but are also willing to participate to have impact and that this impact was measurable. The best thing that an individual and society as a whole could probably do best in this regard, is to rethink why they want to purchase something. The root of the problem seems to be that people have an insatiable longing for more stuff, and nothing could ever suffice. So, instead of a change in choice of products, the most important thing one could do is change their mind-set from always desiring more to “less is more”. President Jimmy Carter described this problem in 1979 in his “Crisis of Confidence” Speech when he said: “we can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. Too many of us now, tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption but we’ve discovered that only things, and consuming things, does not satisfy our longing for meaning.” The longing for meaning also shows in the haul video specifically, in which social influencers profile themselves by showing their audience what they bought. It seems that consuming things allows people to construct an identity. The viewers, in turn, get to watch haul videos that they either get recommended because they are interested in the specific thing that the haul video is about, or because they are interested in the person who is making the haul video. Moreover, they get to live vicariously through someone else’s purchases when they do not have the same income but do enjoy seeing what these people spend their money on. As humans are social creatures, Web 2.0 allows for platforms like YouTube and Instagram to offer the perfect place to share with one another what they bought. The positive side of sharing with each other, however, is over shadowed more and more often by the fact that purchasing more and more does not satisfy this longing for meaning and construction of identity. The happiness one feels when buying a new product is short-lived, and always makes room for the need to buy something else. If people want to prevent large-scale climate change, they need to change their mind-set concerning this particular phenomenon, or the cycle can keep repeating itself indefinitely, causing the planet to undergo enormous climate change effects. The problem of climate change

44 and the role that the fast fashion industry plays in emitting CO2 emissions is unquestionable. However, because the problem is so complex and a lot of nuance is required when trying to assess who is responsible for what, it is difficult to directly point to “the guilty ones”. To identify social influencers as the only root of the problem would be too easy, but it is apparent that they are at least part of the problem and can do their part in trying to limit the effects of the fast fashion industry on climate change. The problems they run into when trying to convert their standard channels to more eco-friendly channels seem to have to do largely with financial security and viewer interest. The financial security is a problem that can only be overcome by the social influencer wanting to overcome this for personal reasons and caring about more than just financial reasoning. The second problem shows how intertwined the issue is, because socials influencers do not only influence their viewers, viewers influence the social influencers they follow by showing them which content they enjoy by clicking the video and thereby becoming a view and liking or disliking the content. This puts some of the moral responsibility in their hands as well, and shows how this part of the problem could be tackled by cooperation between the social influencers and their viewers. There is of course lots of space left for things to learn in further research. This thesis has been limited in its scope by time, so future researchers might be able to draw more interesting conclusion by spending more time on the research and broadening the scope of it. The method could be broadened to include multiple platforms for example. Instead of focusing just on YouTube, it would have been interesting to check whether the same statements are findings are true for Instagram and Twitter for example. This would be interesting because these platforms function differently and this also causes people to use them differently. While YouTube and Instagram are both heavily focused on visuals, a platform like Twitter invites people to mention and react to each other and have a discussion in different manners. It would be interesting to see if the same statements about social influencers and moral responsibility are also true for a more broad range of platforms. In this way, it could be discerned whether they are conclusions that are prevalent on all platforms people connect with each other in Web 2.0, or that there might be something inherent about the interface of a specific platform that causes people to interact with it in a specific way. There might be big differences in online construction of identity varying throughout platforms because of the way these are designed and this could be found out by including more platforms into the case studies. This thesis has focused on the large-scale problem of climate change, and one thing that can be said for sure is that it is an immensely complex problem with a lot of nuances, where if something happens on one side of the system, it may influence another part of the system in unexpected ways. That is why there is still so much to be found out about the online world and its connection to climate change. The fast fashion industry plays an important role in the story of climate change on Earth, and social influencers, in turn, play an important part in the story of (mass) media and social platform development. If, in future research there is more time, it would be intriguing to zoom into what could be done to come up with worldwide solutions to the problem.

45 As has become clear, the questions about who is guilty for what and particularly who feels responsible for what are difficult to answer. More specifically, the broadening of the method as mentioned above would have positive impacts on broadening our understanding of the links between social influencers, climate change and awareness on more places on the web. This would be beneficial to our understanding for the complex problem at hand, and increase our understanding of how the construction of online identity moves people to buy products. I think there would be value in more research being done into the moral responsibility people feel for climate change. The concept of individual causal inefficacy and how this relates to social influencers is particularly interesting in this regard, as I feel there has not been done much research into the overlap of these two matters. Research into this might bring us new insights about how these systems function and what could be done to increase or decrease online feelings of moral responsibility on topics, depending on the context. Perhaps further research into whether feelings of responsibility can actually turn into political action are relevant as well. Can they, or will these feelings remain at the level of just being feelings? It will be useful to get a better grasp at if this is possible and if so, what the ways are in which this can be or is being achieved. Why would social influencers want to motivate their audiences to undertake political action, and are there examples of social influencers that have already done so? And in these cases, did the social influencer play into feelings of moral responsibility or was this not mentioned? This too, might differ cross-culturally and on different platforms, which is another reason why the closer inspection of multiple online platforms will shed light on more aspects of the subject. Moreover, it might be helpful to look into the public understanding of what measures actually benefit global warming and how much. Do the actions of social influencers and their audiences make meaningful, long-term impacts or are the results of online moral responsibility negligible? Related to this is also an opportunity for a deeper understanding of one’s individual moral responsibility versus that of large corporations. With regard to the responsibility of corporations, it might be useful for these large-scale corporations themselves to get a better understanding of how their online presence through social influencers relate to their brand’s awareness on climate change. Ethical consumerism and capitalism are compatible, but individuals and large corporations must both understand their moral responsibility to achieve meaningful impact in preventing further climate change.

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