Ruoyu Zhao

The Critical Design course and project are finish. “Wicked Problem” is the theme of our project, and we can discover and explore from any aspects around us. We need to make short videos according to the theme to express my views on “wicked problem” and the content I want to express. The theme of the project and the content of the course make me more aware of the significance of my future career. I really like the way the class focuses on discussion and research. The discussion among classmates enables me to understand the problems from different perspectives, and everyone has an interesting point of view.

The “wicked problem” that I study is the information looking for from my life around me. The biggest news in 2020 is probably the new coronavirus, which began to appear in wuhan, and then within a few weeks quickly infected 40,000 people in China. Studies have found that the virus originated in bats, but no one knows how it was transmitted to humans. At the time of uncertainty, news began to emerge that the new coronavirus was caused by Chinese people eating bats. Then the Internet and the news all appeared to accuse the Chinese people of eating bats. Because the media misled many people to believe the news, there was discrimination. Some people began to ostracize Chinese people and teaseChinese people. Some Chinese people were threatened and beaten. Because the media makes Chinese students feel unsafe, our families are worried about us. We were afraid to wear masks outside for fear of being laughed at, of being misunderstood that we had a virus. But it’s just a kind of danger because we know what China is going through and that’s why we’re so worried. This is the “wicked problem” that I want to express, the discrimination caused by the misleading media.

In my short video, I used a lot of news broadcast content to emphasize the influence of media on us. I chose the Chinese students being interviewed to reflect the pressure brought by media on Chinese students in the video. In fact, I am not very satisfied with my own work, because I did not do more original contents but much more contents from the Internet material.

According to the development of the project, I found this problem and realized the influence of media. When we study the media, we must think about the subject content carefully, and we should not spread the information irresponsibly. A lot of our ideas are inspired by material from our daily life. When we decide to use the topic, we have to do research and we have to convey the right ideas.

Reviewing the learning of the Better lives two-week course, the central idea is to analyze the learning of sustainability from different perspectives in each lecture, which makes me understand the importance of sustainability more. Why we need to change and why we need to understand, because it will have a great influence and help for our future career development, we should choose the fashion industry to express fashion and create fashion in a more correct way.

What impressed me most was katelyn toth-fejel’s lecture.The relationship between sustainability and society makes me realize the impact of social problems on the future life of the whole world. Different fields are advocating environmental protection, but there are few real changes. More and more people can understand the importance of sustainability and hope to do something to change it. But the easiest way we can do that is to stop wasting, but the only way that can really change the problem is through social change. Lecture Katelyn mentioned Sustainable solutions only succeed if they address the economic, environmental and societal the conditions.The three – legged who metaphor describes this situation, in that if one of The “legs” is removed, The who will fall over.

-Fast fashion is now the biggest source of environmental pollution in the fashion industry, and the promotion enables customers to get the cheapest clothes and get more choices at cheaper prices. This is why most people choose to buy fast fashion brands.

If we really want to change this kind of consumption, we need to change not only from the fashion industry but also from the social lifestyle and structure. Now the problem of environmental pollution is caused by the way we live, fundamentally some habits of life affect the development of this problem. You can start with educational changes so that a new generation of students can learn about a new way of life, so that you can really change the problem. As better lives is now doing, it’s not just about fashion students understanding that the problem should be accessible to everyone, it’s about more people understanding the source of the problem.

Now there are many new ways to obtain clothes, such as buying vintage and borrowing clothes from friends. The prices are also very cheap and there are many choices. As a fashion  styling student, my job is to try different styles and lots of new clothes, so we often borrow clothes and rent clothes. As a student of this major, I can advocate through my works that people do not need to buy new clothes and accessories to be fashionable. Fashion trend is a circle, a lot of fashion will repeat we can through their own creation to change the shape.

The Better lives course is very enlightening, and all of the content is wonderful, and it puts the fashion industry in perspective through different social phenomena. Before learning this course, my impression of the fashion industry was just a consumer concept, hoping to pursue the latest trend but never seriously thinking about the operation of this industry, and the pollution caused by clothing. The first class talked about power in the fashion industry, and power is at the heart of what’s going on in any industry. Only people with power can control the development of the industry. It’s been a problem since ancient times. Historically, only families with power could enjoy the most luxurious clothes and articles like the luxuries we can buy with money now. In ancient times, only people with power could have them. But 20 per cent of the people in society make 80 per cent of the money so it’s never going to be balanced. Whether it is fashion or lifestyle, there is a big gap. For those who have power, what they want most is profit and annual increase in sales, but they seldom consider environmental pollution.

The relationship between power and media can also determine the trend of a few people, most of whom are controlled. Social media has become a part of the life of today’s young people, and Instagram is the software installed in every young person’s mobile phone.

In Instagram, some users are users and some users are creators. In speech JuliaCrew mentioned 200 million users, forty-five per cent of users will pay attention to fashion bloggers, users want to learn the style of the fashion bloggers to influence their own style and way of life, so they will want to have their way of life or is in the same fashion sheet is tasted, fashion bloggers are the main source of income is recommended products so many brands are willing to cooperate with they want bloggers recommended to provide sales. Fans to fellow blogger’s recommendation to buy, when consumers see fashion bloggers recommend will have the desire for shopping, so now there are many according to fashion bloggers to recommend and buy a lot of bloggers now can improve the high sales of bloggers every fan every purchase is recommended in order to popular. It’s also a new kind of a waste so the power of the media is very powerful, this new industry is very popular but it’s also a new waste of resources problem.

I think this course is very meaningful, let us learn fashion love fashion and hope to work for students in the fashion industry to understand the dark side of the fashion industry early so that we can have better awareness in the future study and work.