“Give Sustainability a chance”: A digital ethnography of fashion YouTubers

The purpose of this research project is twofold. Firstly, this research aims to gain a better understanding of the interactions within a slow fashion community on YouTube and the ways fashion content creators engage with their audiences to expand the scale of their channels. Secondly, their approach to promote sustainable fashion brands through eWOM videos is studied to capture collaborations between influencers and fashion brands through marketing endorsement. To achieve the objective, a mix-method approach, including digital ethnography and computational network analysis, was applied. Based on 30 days of digital ethnography, the online interactions between the slow fashion content creators and their audiences were studied. On the other hand, quantitative results were gained through the data retrieval based on the queries of ‘declutter wardrobe’, ‘ethical fashion', and for three interviewed YouTube accounts to comprehend the overall interaction and popularity of the slow fashion communities active on YouTube. Based on the results, slow fashion YouTubers are found to engage actively both with the audience and other YouTubers through post-video discussions. Moreover, they tend to create genuine and honest contents while managing social media channels to increase the number of subscribers. Networking with YouTubers dedicating to similar values is also essential to make cross-channel promotions possible and grow their followings. Furthermore, the identities of slow fashion YouTubers range widely from casual content creator to independent solo entrepreneur and entrepreneurs depending on multiple other businesses. Simultaneously, they engage in social activism against injustice and raise awareness for mental health to develop the persona in the online sphere. To promote sustainable fashion products, a series of research and selection are done priorly to generate sponsored eWOM aligning ethical and sustainable values. Such findings provide an academic understanding of the sustainable fashion community on social media. Through the parasocial interaction with the virtual community and the genuine content depictions, fashion influencers are able to promote slow fashion in the online sphere to gain the awareness of sustainable alternative of fashion. It also offers insight into marketing strategies for fashion industries to promote sustainable products. Future research into fashion influencers can focus more intensively on the perspectives of their audiences.