A Beginner’s Guide to Shopping Secondhand

For my genre remix, I decided to touch on what I discussed in my RSA. My RSA was about the poor ethics and marketing strategies of the e-commerce brand Temu. On their storefront they sell a wide variety of goods including clothes which contribute to the fast fashion industry. Due to the overconsumption of clothes in the past few decades, fast fashion has become the primary source that people buy their clothes from, but it has also been negatively impacting the environment at the same time. This is caused by the linear lifecycle of clothing in which most of the new clothes being produced end up in landfills or as waste elsewhere. So, I created my remix to respond to this issue and the additional problem that most people are unaware of the many ways to shop in a more sustainable way. Since the biggest consumers of fast fashion are Gen Z and Millennials, I wanted to design my remix in a genre that they would be likely to consume. For this reason, I decided to remix my EAC into an informative social media campaign about the available means for second-hand shopping, specifically in a format best fit for TikTok. It is composed of infographics that briefly introduce, in my opinion, the best platforms or ways to buy clothes in a sustainable way. One feature on TikTok that has become very popular since it was recently added is the option to create ‘slideshows’, which are essentially a collection of photos that people swipe through. Many of today’s viral trends are in this format and there has been a discussion between TikTok users about how when they see a slideshow on their For You Page (FYP), they swipe before even thinking about what the post says. This is the ideal arrangement that I want my remix to be viewed in because it helps catch the attention of my target audience and others who might not be interested based simply off the topic at hand. Additionally, I decided to make the infographics in a minimalist style that combines classic and modern features in order to appeal to a larger group of people. I started by making the background color a solid blue, because most people are attracted to it and it is known to represent calmness and responsibility. I then chose an elegant yet bold font and made the font color off-white so it would be easy to read and not too startling or too simple. These were just a few of the decisions I made based on research and previous knowledge about the genre. I also 

found while creating my remix, that there are constraints at play with this genre. The biggest constraint for me is that I couldn’t put too much information, because it could be hard to read or people might just get bored and lose interest. So, I had to be concise yet informative at the same time, which was somewhat difficult to achieve. Furthermore, another constraint is that TikTok is quite different from other social media platforms, so if I wanted to use Instagram or even X (Twitter) to spread this information, I’d have to change the layout and maybe even the style to fit the audiences of each platform more precisely. The research I did mainly consisted of two things; finding inspiration based on other similar TikTok posts and looking up demographics of not only my genre, but also of the platforms I was introducing people to shop on, plus a little bit of their history. For each slide of my remix, I wanted to give a little background on each option and explain what they are known for. Since the title of my project is “A Beginner’s Guide to Shopping Secondhand”, I thought this would work well to help people figure out which would be best for them, or allow them to try out the ones that stuck out. I believe that this, as well as the amount of options I gave were my biggest strengths. However, I also see many ways in which my remix could be improved. As I previously mentioned, there are other social media platforms in which this campaign could be shared such as Instagram and X, but some things would have to be changed. With this being said, this could be posted by many people or an account could be created to further talk about this issue and give tips to viewers. In the future, I plan to start my own resale business using some of the platforms I discussed. In this case, I would post this remix to an account dedicated to my business in order to gain interest of people in my target audience. Overall, the purpose of this project was to educate others on what is already available to them so they can shop in a more eco-friendly way. Many people my age avoid secondhand shopping because they believe it is much more work than buying new clothes. However, there really isn’t a big difference between scrolling through Zara or Depop to find something you like, so why not choose the option that is going to save you money and save our planet all at once.