December 9, 2019

Earlier this year, a video on the globally popular platform TikTok has taken the internet by storm. It was of a teenage girl who had imitated a VSCO Girl, with the term being derived from the famous photo-editing application. While many people have bashed girls of her “demographic” for flaunting their scrunchies, friendship bracelets, and Hydro Flasks and endlessly repeating their mantras of “sksksks” and “And I Oop,” I believe their annoying in-your-face nature is what we need to even raise more awareness on the advocacy of environmental sustainability.

Be it as it may, VSCO girls’ values of “natural beauty, feeling comfortable, and being environmentally conscious” contribute to our fight against climate change. Emphasizing their latter virtue, VSCO girls also promote reusable drinking products, an appreciation for nature, and thrifting. Whenever they boast of their reusable metal straws, it is true that they help “#SaveTheTurtles”. They are more than trendsetters. By bringing these kinds of topics and sustainable solutions into mainstream media, they are becoming a new type of environmental activists. Our world is in deep, deep trouble for being too ignorant of our problems, and so if this is how people would listen, why not? Would it not be better to help the environment in your own way, as compared to taking the course of inaction?

Aronoff, K. (2019, September 20). Why VSCO Girls are Going on Strike for the Climate. Retrieved from https://theintercept.com/2019/09/20/why-vsco-girls-are-going-on-strike-for-the-climate/.