I think we can all relate to the feeling of craving that brand new Nike sweatshirt that all the celebrities seem to be wearing nowadays. We love the feeling of a new and expensive item of clothing in our hands because, well, I’m not entirely sure. I can say that I, myself, have been caught in this weird mindset of needing the newest and most exciting clothing on the market, and not giving a single thought to where it comes from or what goes into it. I’m not sure many people do. And even though no one acknowledges the fact that many industrial, massive name brands employ international workers in sweatshops, we all know about it. To be honest, its a crazy, controversial problem.

In PLP, we have been preparing for our Grade 12 English Provincial Exam by writing an insane amount of essays, and studying what literary devices are the more powerful and useful. We have also been looking at some examples of satirical content, and were then tasked with creating a visual representation of our own satire. We had to create a movie or powerful image, that touched on a world problem of some kind, and transform it into a satire. So I decided to focus on sweatshop labour for big name brands, and make it a satirical 2 minute movie.

I made a video that, I hope, shows how oblivious and uninformed we can be as humans, when it comes to labelling ourselves as “Human Rights Activists” or “Mega Humanitarians”.  I wont go into too much detail, but basically, I wanted to exaggerate the fact that online, we can be powerfully spoken, hidden behind a screen, but in real life, we may have no clue what we are even talking about, and I used human rights as an important example.

Of course, many people stand up to the mistreatment of humankind, and end up boycotting, protesting, and exposing companies and industries linked with sweatshop labour, I have nothing but utter respect for those who do. But I wanted to single out the idea that you cannot call yourself an activist if you aren’t actively supporting a cause and actively making a difference, great or small. If you post on Facebook about how awful humans are being treated by other humans in our world today, and then go and buy a sweater made from the hands of those being brutally forced to work for minuscule wages in crazy conditions, you might want to rethink a few things about your voice and how you portray yourself online versus how you act as a person.