Shein is bad for the planet and bad for humanity. They profit through exploitation; mostly of their workers (breaking even Chinese labour law), ripping off designs, dodgy marketing practices, skirting local tax laws and employing dark UI patterns. Their clothes are so low in price and quality that they are often worn once and thrown away. At $40B GMV they are bigger than most of their competitors combined; fast fashion on steroids, flying under the radar. Their mere existence is accelerating the destruction of the planet and feels like a distopian hell hole that won't be stopped.

It works something like this;

1. Somebody uploads a design they found (probably stole) and creates a piece of clothing

2. Somebody else with just a shred of desire clicks on a couple of buttons and pays $3.78

3. A Chinese sweat shop worker immediately picks up the order and creates the piece of clothing and gets paid $0.03 for the trouble (whilst working 18 hour days in leui of any breaks, weekends or holiday)

4. The clothes get air shipped across the world and delivered to the customer, skipping customs and taxes

5. The customer, who basically forgot they bought the clothes (it was after all purchased in a tiktok haze and didn't affect them much financially) trys on the item, takes a photo, and throws it in the closet

6. A year later it gets donated to charity, who assesses the quality and redirects it to landfill

(most of my information here has come from a documentary, "Inside the Shein Machine)