Shein Influencer Trip

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Overview

Shein Influencer Trip, also known as Shein Brand Factory Tour, refers to a publicity promotion by the fast-fashion online clothing company Shein in which several social media influencers took a trip to China and toured a factory where they made posts praising the clothing company in June 2023. After word spread online, the trip became controversial because Shein allegedly runs sweatshops and has been accused of engaging in other unethical business practices. According to many posting about it online, the influencer trip was an attempt to rehabilitate the company's image but received largely negative reception and coverage.

Background

Shein is an online retailer famous for selling clothing at very cheap prices. Content around "Shein hauls" and purchases from the retailer are prevalent on TikTok. However, the company has also broken Chinese labor laws and committed human rights abuses, according to reporting from the BBC^[1] and other media outlets (example seen below).

In June 2023, a group of influencers from Instagram and TikTok (including creators such as @itsdestene_, @danidmc and @itsjustajlove) was invited to the Shein factory in China as part of a partnership with the company where they met executives and toured the factories of Shein.^[7]

A TikTok posted on June 21st, 2023, by Shein's official account in the U.S., @shein_us, showed the influencers touring a Shein factory and discussing their impressions. The TikTok received over 140,000 views over the course of five days (shown below, left).^[2] The influencers also posted individually on their own accounts about the China trip. For example, itsdestene_ shared that when she asked workers about child labor and their hours, the workers were surprised by her questions (shown below, right). itsdestene_ received almost 300,000 views over the course of a week for the TikTok video.^[3]

Developments

DaniDMC Response

One of the influencers specifically targeted by critics, @DaniDMC, defended herself in a since-deleted post from June 25th, 2023, announcing that "to be a pioneer you gotta take a lot of shit sometimes" and arguing that those criticizing Shein were "xenophobic" and "misinformed" (seen below). She also shared that in the aftermath of the controversy around the Shein influencer visit, people online purportedly harassed and abused her.^[6]

Online Reactions

As word spread of the promotional tour in late June 2023, reactions on TikTok and Twitter were largely negative from many users reacting to the event. For example, on June 24th, 2023, TikToker sipteawithmelissa called the trip "the biggest load of propaganda crap" (seen below, left), receiving over 2.7 million views in two days.^[4] On June 25th, social media influencer Melissa Tovar accused the Shein influencers of "selling out" and damaging the credibility and reputation of the influencer profession itself (seen below, right), receiving almost 300,000 views in a day.^[5]

Shein

Shein is a fast-fashion retailer based out of Nanjing, China founded in 2008 that sells affordable women's clothing. The company has faced numerous controversies since being founded, including for human rights violations and trademark disputes.