How Fast Fashion

Keeps people poor….

Companies like Shein are using influencers to get Zoomers hooked on truckloads of shoddy clothing.

Ella Tummel

August 29, 2025

The American Prospect

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-08-29-how-fast-fashion-keeps-people-poor/

One in three Gen Zers report a feeling of addiction to fast-fashion shopping.

Earlier this month, I went thrifting, a habit many Gen Zers prefer over buying new. But as I flipped through the racks, I noticed prices have been creeping up. I pulled out a yellow tank top, likely from the late 2000s, cotton, and slightly worn. The price? $13. By comparison, Shein sells a nearly identical shirt for $2.24, about the cost of a bus ticket in Cincinnati. Even thrift shopping, once the bargain option, now feels like a luxury.

But there’s a catch to this wonderland of cheap fashion. According to UCLA’s Sustainability Committee, the average fast-fashion purchase lasts fewer than ten wears before it falls apart or is thrown out. That’s if it doesn’t fall out of style first. Still, the appeal is undeniable. Fast-fashion platforms bombard shoppers with daily flash sales, push notifications, and endless pages of inventory. Shein alone lists over 600,000 items at any given time. To a consumer on a budget, it feels like a sense of freedom.

In reality, it’s a trap: The illusion of affordability masks an industry built on overconsumption. As the fast-fashion industry grows along with economic uncertainty, so does consumer demand for mountains of cheap clothing.

It’s not just the cluttered graphics and $5 price tags that hook people. The real sales pitch comes through influencers. “Haul culture,” the crown jewel of fast-fashion marketing, has become impossible to avoid online. One in two college-aged individuals watch fast-fashion haul videos at least once a week. On TikTok alone, # Shein has garnered over a million posts in the last three years. These videos follow a familiar formula: A grinning influencer hoists an oversized plastic bag overhead, then pulls out item after item, each shrink-wrapped in more plastic, until the floor practically disappears under the drifts of packaging waste.

One video shows a teenage girl preparing for an upcoming cruise by unveiling over 40 articles of new clothing. Item after item, bikini after bikini, each labeled as a “summer must have.” But as you watch, it becomes clear that the draw isn’t the clothing, which is barely any higher-quality than its plastic packaging, it’s the sheer abundance. The spectacle is in the volume, not the value.

YouTuber Shawna Ripari, who’s been critiquing haul culture for over a year, says the popularity of these videos made her rethink her shopping habits. “A lot of people’s definition of wealth or success or happiness hinges on money and material things,” Ripari said in an interview. “Aesthetics get people to continuously shop and continuously buy things, rotating them throughout your home.” That addictive loop, fueled by aesthetics and constant novelty, is an engine propelling fast fashion’s meteoric rise. A study by ECDB supports this trend: Shein buyers have increased their purchase frequency from an average of 1.7 to 4.3 times per year since 2019.

This abundance doesn’t come free. A single shirt might be only a couple of bucks, but if you’re buying 40 at a time, it adds up. Fast-fashion companies partner with “buy now, pay later” services like Klarna, Affirm, and Afterpay, encouraging young shoppers to spread the cost of their purchases, averaging over $100, across smaller payments. For cash-strapped teens and college students, it feels painless until the charges pile up. Forty-four percent of Gen Zers reported using BNPL services in the past year. Additionally, nearly 71 percent of Gen Z BNPL users juggle more than one loan at a time, with 26 percent managing three or more loans simultaneously.

Clothing purchases dominate BNPL usage. According to LendingTree’s 2023 survey, 41 percent of U.S. users have utilized the service to purchase clothing, shoes, or accessories, making fashion the most common category for BNPL consumers. But the impact of fast fashion goes beyond the financial strain; it also weighs heavily on emotional well-being.

One in three Gen Zers report a feeling of addiction to fast-fashion shopping, and for many, the consumption of cheap clothing delivers a quick dopamine hit that fuels a cycle of constant purchasing. “I get messages from people who tell me their stories, and shame is quite often a part of it because of how much they’ve accumulated or how much debt they’ve gotten as a result of their shopping,” said Ripari.

The deals are designed to appear painless and fun, but for many young shoppers, the aftermath is debt, clutter, and guilt—hardly the glamorous lifestyle being sold to them by influencers. Meanwhile, secondhand stores, once the affordable alternative, are being flooded with fast-fashion cast-offs. That influx has pushed thrift store operation costs and hence clothing prices up, while driving quality down, making the so-called sustainable option less accessible to those who rely on it.

Fast fashion tells consumers they can “shop like a billionaire,” but billionaires don’t live paycheck to paycheck, and they don’t rack up BNPL debt on flimsy polyester tank tops. What looks like freedom of choice is a trapdoor in today’s economy, one that keeps people shopping, spending, and cycling through wardrobes they can’t afford and debts they can’t outrun. For consumers, the fallout is twofold: the financial strain of constant purchasing and the personal shame of overconsumption.

Fast fashion is an industry that thrives on volume, aesthetics, and continuous rotation. It trains shoppers to see clothes as disposable, and by extension, to see their money the same way. But there are ways to step off this treadmill. As Ripari puts it, “A good starting point is simply paying attention—without judgment—to your daily life. When are you shopping? Where are you shopping? Be aware of the choices you’re making.” Noticing these patterns is the first step toward escaping the cycle of overconsumption these sites are peddling.

Ella Tummel is an editorial intern at The American Prospect.