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Scenic Route
Life's one helluva ride — why not enjoy the view?
The Scenic Route Podcast is your audio chill pill, serving up mindset shifts, laughs, and 'aha!' moments that fuel your soul and your wallet.
We're all about:
- Finding purpose (without the fluff)
- Embracing the soft life (because hustle culture is so last season)
- Real talk (sugar-coating? Not around here)
- Actionable insights (for when you're ready)
- Daring convos (we go there, babes)
- Building resilience (without the toxic positivity)
- Mindfulness for real people (with real problems)
Whether you're feeling lost and emotionally exhausted, hiding from your kids in the bathroom, need a break from the chaos, or want to zen out, we've got you covered.
Join Jennifer Walter, sociologist (MASoc UCC) and pathfinder, on this journey to inner peace — with a generous side of potty humour.
Ready to care less about others' BS and more about your own bliss? Hop on The Scenic Route. Trust us, the view up here is *chef's kiss*.
New episodes drop every Tuesday.
Your next chill session awaits. You coming?
Scenic Route
Fast Fashion Exposed: You Deserve Better Than Consumerism with Aja Barber
Ever hit "complete purchase," only to be smacked with a wave of buyer's remorse? Join activist and author Aja Barber as she rips the band-aid off our collective consumption addiction and helps us imagine a world beyond fast fashion.
In this eye-opening episode of the Scenic Route, we dive deep into:
- Why your shopping habits might be a hangover from colonialism
- The truth behind "retail therapy" and emotional spending
- How to break free from the buy-buy-buy culture
- Finding your authentic style without breaking the bank
- Why secondhand shopping is your secret weapon
- How to recognize and resist manipulative marketing
- Building a wardrobe that reflects your true values
Aja Barber, author of "Consumed: The Need for Collective Change," shares powerful insights about:
- The real environmental and human cost of fast fashion
- Why "style" can't be purchased but must be discovered
- Breaking the cycle of overconsumption
- Finding freedom beyond the dopamine hit of shopping
- Building a conscious closet that lasts (and your proud of)
Whether you're a conscious consumer or just starting to question your shopping habits, this conversation is your wake-up call to reclaim your style, your values, and your purchasing power.
Join us on the scenic route.
Connect with Aja Barber
Website
Instagram
Threads
Join her Patron for all things sustainable fashion (incl. the best secondhand finds!)
Buy her book Consumed: The Need for Collective Change: Colonialism, Climate Change, and Consumerism
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Desire to find your Scenic Route? Visit jenniferwalter.me — a welcoming space for the emotionally exhausted to rest, discover, and playfully embrace inner peace. Embrace a softer, more fulfilling life today!
For snapshots from Jennifer's scenic route to a softer life come over to
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ever hit complete purchase, only to be smacked with a wave of buyer's remorse. Babes, if you've ever found yourself justifying yet another online shopping spree to your bank account and your conscience, this episode is for you. This week, we're ripping the band-aid straight off our collective consumption addiction. Fair warning this episode might just be the wake-up call your wallet's been begging for. Our guest this week is the incredible Aja Barber, a rebel with a cause who's figured out how to keep her work supported without selling her soul. She's here to help us navigate the murky waters of you-are-what-you-buy culture and maybe, just maybe, find a lifeboat out of this capitalistic hellscape. We're diving deep, babes. We're talking the real cost of that treat-yourself mentality, why your shopping habits might be a hangover from colonialism, and also what's lurking behind that urge to buy, buy, buy. I promise some laughs along the way, because if we can't chuckle at the absurdity of it all, what's the point? So are you ready to question everything you thought you knew about stuff, to imagine a world where retail therapy isn't a thing? Hop on the Scenic Route, where we're saving hard truths with a sign of hope. Your next holy crap. I need to rethink my life moments away.
Jennifer Walter:Hi and welcome to the Scenic Route podcast, where we believe in embracing life's journey with purpose, curiosity and a bit of potty humor some I'm Mom, and I'm always looking out for that perfect slice of gluten-free rhubarb pie. Every week, I get the joy of sitting down with dreamers and doers who dare to take the road less traveled in pursuit of their own magic. Together, we dive into the inspiring stories of soulful entrepreneurs and visionary leaders who boldly share their beliefs, lessons and fuck-ups. Excited so am I. You're exactly where you're meant to be, and now let's take this conversation off the beaten track. Aja Barber is a writer who lives in London with her husband and two cats. She just wants the fashion industry to be better and for you to have better clothes. She is the author of Consumed the Need for Collective Change, colonialism, climate Change and Consumerism, and you should read it. Asha, welcome to the Scenic Route podcast. How are you? I'm pretty good.
Aja Barber:I'm pretty good. My legs hurt. I've started exercising again and I'm already regretting it.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, I had. I started yoga again like two weeks weeks ago and I was so sore the day after I was like, yeah, that that's how it feels to start again.
Aja Barber:Yay me, yeah so I'm doing Pilates and yoga. I like yoga, I don't like Pilates. But, um, something I talk about openly is that I had an open myomectomy last year and, like it messes your stomach muscles up because they they cut through a lot of it, and so I feel like I need a little extra, something to like get everything back together again. So I've committed to Pilates for this winter, but I I am full of regret.
Jennifer Walter:No, but like respect to you, for like I mean, it took me almost three years, from a C-section and then laparoscopy, to remove endometriosis. To be like, I might think about starting exercising again.
Aja Barber:Yeah.
Aja Barber:I think for me part of what made my recovery pretty like. I think I had a really smooth recovery from the open myomectomy and I think it was the yoga. I too I at my peak I was doing yoga like three, four days a week. Now I'm more like two days a week, but I think yoga, ballet, all of that stuff, and I like ballet, but I've been feeling a lot of aches and pains so I haven't been doing so much of it. So I feel like I need to like beef up the stuff like Pilates and yoga so that I can continue to do ballet we're that age right, yeah, yeah, where you need like supplement exercise to like do the exercise you
Jennifer Walter:actually enjoy it's bad, but anyone listening, you're not here to hear us talk about middle age I suppose you know what maybe you are it's an honor to be this age.
Aja Barber:It's an honor to every year is an honor, but like as you, but as you get to certain ages, there's just things that you have to do, like Like I remember when I turned 30, I was very much like right, I'm committing to vitamins, I'm committing to removing my makeup at night, I'm committing to a bunch of different things. I said I'd stop biting my nails. I lied about that. I still bite my nails, but yeah, but it's good to have like those little benchmarkers where you just realize, as you age, you have to do more for yourself and that's OK, that's you know. The alternative is is not reaching certain ages. So it's an honor to be here, but yes, it's. It's like a car you have to fix more things.
Jennifer Walter:And you have to, yeah, you have to do more maintenance, for sure.
Aja Barber:More maintenance, more tune ups.
Jennifer Walter:and you have to, yeah, you have to do more maintenance, for sure, more maintenance, more tune-ups yeah, so I I actually brought you on to really also talk about the relationship, our relationship with things and, ultimately, consumerism. And we live in a world where it's kind of like what we buy defines who we are, where economic growth is seen as the ultimate measure of progress and sally rooney just the other day wrote it brilliantly this cultural fixation of growth and novelty and reinvention, and we just have to like more and more new, new, new. And did you see that? I posted about that?
Jennifer Walter:yeah, I, I've had my notes I wrote my notes and then I saw your newsletter and I'm like damn, no, okay, weird, weird.
Aja Barber:This is why she has goals for me, because I think people some people, not everyone but I think for some of us, we're getting to a point where we realize our obsession with endless growth on a finite planet isn't healthy for anyone, it's not healthy for us, it's not healthy for the planet, and so I like to ask people like what is it that you really want out of life? Like what is enough for you? And once I realized that, it really helped me change my relationship with a lot of things. It also helped me with my platform, where, you know, I started to have a platform back in like 2018. And I remember being like yeah, you know what? I can't sell things on this platform. I can't work with a lot of the big you know a lot of the big like corporations that are sponsoring people in online spaces. I can't do this because they are the problem.
Aja Barber:And so it helped me to come up with a message that was true to myself, but also one that had integrity behind it, because I knew that for me, the goal is never to make millions of dollars a year, because I actually don't need that sort of money to have a happy life. And I think for someone like Sally Rooney. She has reached like such a level of success in her writing that she can really pull back in other areas and be like do I need to do this? No, and do what? Will it make my life happier if I do this?
Jennifer Walter:you can go all Marie Kondo and be like does this spark joy?
Aja Barber:no, it does not yes, and like I think that's true freedom to get to a point where you don't have to do certain things because you know that, like it won't bring you the things that you need right. There's a certain level of money in our society where there's, like this study done I can't remember if it was like Princeton or Yale, but it was like years ago and basically they studied people at different levels of income and what they found was, at a certain point, the happiness levels really plateau and the income that they found was the amount that you needed in most states in the United States to live a life where your needs were cared for, so where you could afford to maybe buy property, where you could afford healthcare, where you could take a few nice holidays, where you could treat people to nice things. And then after that, the level of happiness whether you were making, you know, $150,000 a year or $150 million a year plateaued.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, diminishing marginal utility 100%. But it's interesting, like you brought this up right, brought this up right, we we buy to also kind of like feel, have this need like we. We feel like we when we achieve and we have more money, it means something or it confirms the story we tell, we tell ourselves about ourselves and like how we so we also buy to fit in like god. Yeah, we have this urge to be long.
Aja Barber:It's very human yeah, one of the things I talked about and consumed was how, like when I was in my like early, like late teens, early 20s, I read a magazine article where I learned about the birkin bag and this was even before it was like on Sex and the City and like this. They had asked this, like businesswoman, like what her most expensive purchase was, and she said, oh, the Birkin bag. I was on the wait list for three years. It's extremely rare, blah, blah, and I remember being like that's what I need, I need that. And then when I go into the business world, people will take me seriously. And so, like I had a whole plan in my head that I would save, like throughout university, I would put myself on the wait list and then I would save and save, and save and by the time I got my first job, hopefully, I would have the money saved to get a Birkin bag. And like, in retrospect, I think Birkins are really ugly. And like in retrospect, I think Birkins are really ugly. Like, I never questioned whether I liked the bag. It was all about how I thought the world would treat me and see me if I had the bag.
Aja Barber:I like a lot of other things that Hermes makes. I think that a lot of their products are really, really beautiful and the people that work in Hermes stores I find are usually pretty cool, like it's funny, because they have a reputation for like being really like snotty. But I think that if you're a nice person, people in stores are always generally pretty nice. Like it's a rarity when I experience like store snobbery. But, um, that bag is not for me. It was about the status behind the bag and I think, if we're really honest with ourselves, I think that's what's behind a lot of our purchases.
Jennifer Walter:Oh, 100%. We're also being tricked into how our need to belong is exploited in very different ways of branding status symbols like a birkin or lifestyle marketing and all these things, and we have to unt this web of hey, what is like my identity and what? What it's really, what do I?
Aja Barber:actually like what actually makes me happy? Yeah, what do I actually need to be happy for me? I think my needs are actually pretty like simple. I want to get to a point where I can really produce creatively in a way where I'm not trying to please Like. I feel like to get to that point, you have to sort of be like independently wealthy in our society, and it's not that I really want like wealth, but would it be nice to not have to worry about, like, how do I pay a rent or a mortgage? Yeah, that would be really good. Do I have to take this job? That doesn't necessarily align with what I want to do, because I'm paying for these things, you know, and it would be nice to be able to help my loved ones out, and so that's really my only goal for working. It's not because I want to fly in private jets, god. No, it's because I want to have a comfortable, nice life where I can help loved ones and be generous with people around me. That's my goals. I don't even have to take like exotic holidays. Like I'm really lucky I live in London. I can get to some pretty cool places by train, you know. So I think that I already have a really good life, but I would like to achieve a level of security where it changes my relationship with work. That's the goal for me.
Aja Barber:And once I understood that this idea of like making millions and millions and millions of dollars is not actually appealing to me at all, because I don't think that you need millions upon millions of dollars to live the life that I want, and I think if more people ask themselves what it is that they truly want, they'll get to that point as well. Like I don't even have a car, and I'm really happy about that. I'm lucky I live in London, I don't't need one, and like we will continue that way until you know, maybe we might need one. Say, we like have a kid and like I'm older, so like the chances of having multiple babies at once, especially because I have a parent who's a twin, is pretty high. So like would I get a car if I had like multiple little ones? Possibly because they walk slow? But if nothing about my lifestyle changes, I expect to be car free for the rest of my life but that whole thing of asking yourself what you truly want and need.
Jennifer Walter:I just recently saw a tiktok from alok wade venon who said it beautifully. He said kind of like they said, to figure out what, like who you are, you have to heal. And in order to heal you have to hurt and you have to like, be willing to and to be courageous to break your heart right. You have to ask yourself questions of the concept of self and who you are and what you're meant to be in this world and what you're meant to do. And how was it for you, how, like, how can we bring up like the necessary courage to ask these questions?
Aja Barber:because the path there is or can be was, in my case, very painful I think you have to be really introspective and brutally honest about like, where you're at. Like, when it comes to need first one, we can justify any bs, our society and like. It isn't just us justifying it to ourselves, it is literally the messaging and the marketing, particularly surrounding consumerism and materialism. You open a magazine and it's going to be like fall things you need to buy right now, and it's like things that you probably already own, like a pair of you know slouchy jeans or a denim over shirt. Like, let me tell you, I have been on this planet for over four decades now. Let me tell you, I have been on this planet for over four decades now and the denim shirts have not changed. The same denim shirt that I bought in probably 2004 from like the charity shop is pretty much the exact same denim shirt that's being sold today, but the media would lead you to believe that you need to buy a new one every single year. You know, and then you start to buy a new one every single year. You know, and then you start to get into it.
Aja Barber:I remember specific fun periods when I was younger when I would be like, oh well, I really need a new pair of boots this winter? No, I didn't. The boots that I had were actually fine. I did not need a new pair of boots. I wanted a new pair of boots because there were different styles that were being pushed that I wanted to engage in. But I did not need and I think the language that we use, particularly surrounding like consumerism and materialism, is so tricky and I really try and pinpoint that to people and there's a level of honesty that has to happen, like when we talk about fast fashion, for instance. People love to go into this whole conversation about the poor people who are buying all the fast fashion.
Jennifer Walter:And I'm like the ones who do the shane halls and are, are we being?
Aja Barber:are we being honest about this? Because, like, I have poverty in my family on both sides and I have never seen any person I know who exists on or around the poverty line doing a hall from shian. Funny enough, and shian as a company would not be profitable without that whole culture. So, like, is it really poor people who are keeping these systems afloat? Or are we kind of full of nonsense about this and not really being honest with ourselves about, like, who made this mess? Who bought all these clothes? You know what I mean? Like, and that's what corporations do as well. Like, they say that they're responding to consumer demand when they push 51 seasons of clothing a year and, uh, it's like, is it consumer demand or is it demand that you've created?
Aja Barber:and need to sustain your and need to sustain your bottom line, which keeps your investors happy.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah. So how do we then start taking consumerism away from our personal and cultural identities, like to really be honest of hey look, I don't need this and I just buy this because I want to like belong to the social group or I want to be seen as fashionable, stylish, whatever?
Aja Barber:it's a bit of brutal honesty which we all have to sort of engage with and that it's also like checking in with yourself in so many different ways. First of all, look at who you're following on social media. Like, when we talk about you know how we're convinced to spend our money in certain ways, we really don't look too hard at like the little like things that happen socially, that that push us in that direction. And social media is something that we all engage with and kind of have to now, because we've created this world where everyone has to brand and sell themselves and it's such a hellscape. But regardless, you have to be on. If you're doing any sort of like creative work or even like freelance work, you have to be on social media. But who are you following? Like we talk a lot about things like, you know, parasocial relationships and whatnot, which wasn't something that we needed to really discuss before. But then you know, the internet changed a lot of how we live and I think sometimes people need to investigate, like, who they're engaging with on social media and why Does that person that you follow? Do they actually really care about their readership or do they really care about selling you things? Is this their job, because I think and I've had this before too there have been people that I've followed in the past where, like, I've been like, oh, but I really like them, and then I realized they were not doing anything of use to anyone else on their profile. So why do I really like them? What element do I really like about them? Do I like their life? Do I like their style? You can get that from other places without being pushed to buy things that you may or may not need you know, and so I think we have to investigate who we're following on social media, how we're engaging with social media, but we also have to investigate ourselves.
Aja Barber:Like one of the things that I do, I track every clothing purchase that I make and I put it on a spreadsheet and I aim to be under a certain amount of items, because the average consumer and this is like an old stat from like 2018 or something buys like 68 items of clothing a year in the United States, and so I don't want to be anywhere near that number. First of all, I don't even buy as much new clothing as I used to buy. I used to purchase a lot, a lot of new clothing, and now I would say no, my cat's trying to jump up on my desk. You can't be, you can't be here, sorry, sorry, that's good, it's the one. It's the one that ruined the chair. Oh, naughty one. Oh, she's so, she's so naughty. I have to hold on to my, my laptop, otherwise she'll like push it off the desk because she's just trying to make room for herself well, you're not giving me giving full attention to her.
Aja Barber:It's like living with a teenager, honestly. So she's really annoyed because she can't get like oh see, she's pushing my laptop, stop it. Oh God, it's a glimpse into my future.
Jennifer Walter:I just told Aja that we're getting two kittens next week, so I'm like, okay, I need to improve.
Aja Barber:She's such honestly like this cat is like she's just her own little person, you know yeah, I really love the instagram stories about all um.
Aja Barber:So we need to. You know, not just self-investigate, but investigate the world around us. Investigate who you're following on social media, what they're you know. What do they encourage you to do? What do they inspire you to do? Do they inspire you to change the world and make it more positive? Or do they inspire you to buy the things that they buy because they get a cut of it? And ask yourself, like, do I actually really, what am I getting from you? Know, following this account, what am I? What am I experiencing? Is this good for me? Is it good for the planet? And then you have to self-investigate, like for me.
Aja Barber:I now track every clothing item I buy, and it's it really tells me a lot about myself. And it's good because I don't want to be just endlessly buying. I think that's what I used to do in the past, and it was always a rude awakening when I realized what percentage of my money I had given to fast fashion corporations at the end of the year. And so now I track all my purchases. I actually buy the majority of my clothing secondhand.
Aja Barber:To begin with, I don't buy as much new stuff as I used to, but I also put it all on a spreadsheet, and that's great because it reminds you what you already have and it also, like it, keeps you honest about, like, what you're spending. Sometimes I even mark how much I've worn an item, because that also gives you insight into, like, what you might not need to buy again. And so there's. There's so many ways to sort of, um, really change how you're engaging with certain systems in our society, but it takes a little bit of willpower and it takes wanting to change and wanting to do things differently yeah, I remember some.
Jennifer Walter:Some of the glorious things about getting older is I definitely realize I give less fucks.
Aja Barber:So if clothing now is not comfortable, I'm like bye, like no yeah, I used to have a lot of heels and I never needed that amount of heels ever. I hardly wear heels now, like I, I will. I try and make an effort to wear them, but it's just not my go-to, you know yeah there's a few pairs that I still wear, but there are a lot of pairs that I just need to like say bye-bye to yeah, and also had clothing of for the person I thought I would be someday and I'm like like what Tell me.
Jennifer Walter:Like a really like a really I was. It was kind of a cool piece, but I got it because I thought it would make me like look, I don't know, more boss, more cool, more edgy. It was what was it?
Aja Barber:It was a wool cardigan, open with leather sleeves oh, so like um 2008, 2009 era helmet laying sort of stuff yeah which was also very much inspired by rick owens.
Aja Barber:I actually have some rick owens pieces that I still really love, but I work in the fashion industry and sometimes I go to fashion events and whatnot. But yeah, I get it. I think we do buy those things. My cat is literally trying to push my laptop off my desk. She's really trying. She's like I'm fighting with my, I'm fighting with my cat over here to keep this laptop from like moving forward because she's trying to get comfortable. So rude.
Jennifer Walter:But yeah, I had to realize it's not my, it's not me yeah, did you sell it?
Aja Barber:yeah yeah, good, yeah, I hope someone else is happy now with it because it's a lovely piece yeah, and sometimes we can totally like experiment with our style and realize that something isn't right for us, but that doesn't mean that we were bad for trying, you know. But as you start to really get to know, like who you are and what it is that you like, you really start to sort of understand what definitely works for you and what doesn't, and that's a great place to be and I remember another big learning was that was more of a painful one because it brought up a lot of other things is that I that it's just not a very sustainable idea to regulate yourself your emotions through shopping?
Jennifer Walter:Who knew?
Aja Barber:Yes, yeah. But society tells us it is Like retail therapy, you know yeah.
Jennifer Walter:But at the bottom of this was like that I didn't know At the time. I did the best I could, regulating myself through buying things, because I haven't been mirrored or taught an other way to regulate. So it also brought up a lot of shit about my past, about when I was a kid and like. So it's not. I get when people are like you need a bit courage to actually do this kind of work because it can be hard it's a lot of unpacking, isn't it like?
Aja Barber:yeah, I think even like, when we think about like, what makes us certain types of consumers. I really had to unpack like my childhood and the parts of my childhood that I didn't like and go back into the root of that to sort of realize why I was where I was at with like constantly buying. Like I got made fun of for not having the right clothing when I was in school and that just made me so ripe for the taking when it came to fast fashion. As soon as I had disposable income in my hot little hands from like babysitting and cat sitting and doing all sorts of like odd jobs, I was just like off to the mall and the reason why was because I wanted to buy clothing so I would be treated nicer by my classmates. And when I think about like how that set me off in a place of feeling like maybe if I have a Birkin bag, the world will treat me in a certain way, you can kind of see where the root of these things start.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, and it's brutal at some points, like I had memories coming up from my childhood. I'm like yeah, yeah, thanks, I thought I went to therapy for this. It's also.
Aja Barber:It's also like in our society, like every single movie that is aimed at, you know, women and girls of a certain age is a movie that has a makeover scene where you have an underdog who is treated badly, yeah, and then they get a haircut and new clothes and then everybody treats them differently. That's like a pretty like generic trope in like any rom-com movie, and so that's the ways in which these ideas are quite like, you know, embedded in our society, and once you start to see it, you can't unsee it.
Jennifer Walter:Mm. Hmm, yeah, absolutely, and you have to do that. Inner work is part of the change, right? Because then we can like go bottom up. But we also need to look at the top down, at this, the systematic structures of things and how we can go about changing that. Like, yeah, and I'm sometimes not sure how. If we look at consumerism, capitalism as a system, I'm sometimes really not sure how we can go about this without like burning ourselves out on an individual level.
Aja Barber:Yeah. So this is why we absolutely need regulation and why, like, I think that it's really important to get involved. Like you might've seen that I shared in my newsletter that there's currently a campaign by the Orr Foundation called Speak Volumes, where you can nominate your big corporation that really gets on your nerves to open up about the amount of clothing that they're making. One of the reasons why we struggle with regulation is because we really don't have an idea for the numbers.
Aja Barber:Like, when people talk about regulating the fashion industry, there is this whole idea that, across the board, everyone needs to do this, everyone needs to do that, and like, yeah, there are certain things that apply to every fashion brand, but the brands that are doing the most polluting and the most overproduction and the most damage because they have a carbon footprint the size of a you know cruise ship are the ones who really need to do the most right.
Aja Barber:But people don't really understand that, and so I think people tend to sort of push, like sustainable and ethical brands to constantly be better and better and better, instead of looking at like Nike and H&M and like you know, adidas and say, actually, you're bigger than all of these companies. You actually hold the burden of doing the most here, you know, and so Speaks Volumes is about getting different corporations to open up about the volumes of clothing that they're producing every year, which will ultimately end up in places in the global south like Ghana, for instance, where the Orr Foundation is based, or Kenya or Uganda loads of places where our clothing ends up. It actually pollutes the local environment and makes things really unlivable for people to live there, and so Speaks Volumes is about challenging clothing manufacturers to talk about the amount of clothing that they produce, so that we can understand who has the burden of cleaning up the mess understand who has the burden of cleaning up the mess.
Jennifer Walter:I'm curious you said you brought up an interesting point right that I came across online too that we seem to have like different rulers one for big corporations, the ones like the ones you mentioned, and one another ruler for smaller businesses who try really fucking hard to already have a sustainable chain and clothing like why do you think? What is your explanation on why? Why? Because people?
Aja Barber:feel like people feel like with corporations that they're like shouting into the void. And I get it. But guess what if you have a hundred people shouting at a corporation and you have like a hundred people send a letter to a CEO, guess what happens? In a lot of cases? That whatever they're being shouted about on social media or through letters or whatever, that actually gets discussed in board meetings and boardrooms. So people feel like I'm just a little person. What can I do if I tell you know, h&m, that they have to stop producing so much stuff? Well, yeah, on an individual level, it probably does feel like you're really just throwing everything at the wall and it's not sticking. But what if you got 20 of your friends to do the same thing? Would you still feel so powerless? I think the reason people hold a yardstick to smaller brands is because they feel like they're more accessible, like when a person who runs a small business puts themselves out there.
Aja Barber:It's almost like we're like let's get them, instead of the billionaire who's sitting in the boardroom with all of his investors laughing like dr evil.
Jennifer Walter:You know it's like, yeah, or the starbucks chef flying to flying, using his private jet to go to work every fucking day. I'm like are you serious, are you exactly?
Aja Barber:yes, let's, let's, you know, talk about an individual who's going on their first holiday of the year saying you really shouldn't be flying. Meanwhile, the starbucks ceo is flying up every single week for you know his little like commute because he's not moving like a lot of times we really chase our tails we chase our tails because we feel like the real work is too hard to do and and like it's not true.
Aja Barber:We just need the numbers.
Aja Barber:That's really it.
Aja Barber:Like one of the things that I learned in my book is that the consumer citizen voice has a lot of power and like one of the people that I interviewed for my book was basically saying that that, like they've been on the ground in like protests for, like garment workers, in, like you know, parts of Asia where if the consumer voice gets involved in what the garment workers are protesting, they will see a change from that corporation. If people say I'm not going to buy this stuff, like you're not paying people, that's unfair, and right here on your corporate responsibility page, you say that like you believe in this and that If we had a hundred, 200 people who put that amount of pressure on different corporations via social media, we could get change. It really doesn't take that many people, it just takes a little bit of dedication. But it's the organizing part where people are just like well, you know I can't really change them, it's just too big and it's like then why are you asking this small business over here if their clothing tags are made from recycled paper?
Jennifer Walter:so yeah, and I mean we see that. I mean just recently it was starbucks right who almost admitted that they're not doing so well, because a lot of people said you know what? We're just not gonna fund genocide. Thank you very much.
Aja Barber:Off you go I haven't had starbucks in over a year and I do not miss their crappy overpriced coffee. I'm, I'm never going back no, no, never fucking ever.
Aja Barber:I think it's easy for me to say that. Living in London, I get it. You know you're in like maybe a rural place and like you've only got Starbucks. I kind of understand to a certain extent, but even then I would just dig in. It's like in lockdown. I got really good at making my coffee drinks at home because I didn't really have an alternative, and it turns out you actually save a lot of money that way as well.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, but still I feel inclined to say the whole shit about Don't buy the latte. That's why you're not able to afford a house. Yeah, exactly, I'm like I have to say this you know what?
Aja Barber:You just bought too many avocado, toast and lattes and that's why you can't have a house someone said I skipped my avocado toasted lattes for five years and I managed to save twenty thousand dollars, and that's still not enough for a home deposit.
Jennifer Walter:So you might as well just enjoy your coffee in peace yeah, well, not in l in London, where you live, and not in Zurich, where I live. So there you go.
Aja Barber:Yeah, but I also think, like I don't actually miss these things as much as I think I will, like I don't I don't buy a lot of the things I used to buy because it's not good for the planet. But what I've also found is like maybe I didn't even enjoy that lifestyle. Like, did I enjoy buying?
Jennifer Walter:over a hundred items of clothing a year. That would have looked so good.
Aja Barber:Dopamine hit sure yeah, but like there were time periods I remember like getting home after shopping at H&M and feeling disgusted with myself, like sitting in my car, being like what have I done? And like I think we need to lean into that feeling more than leaning into like but I'm gonna look really good and I won't wear the same thing twice, like lean into the feeling of horror that you sometimes have when you like open your closet and realize that, like you hate a lot of the clothing in the closet and it's not actually as good as you thought it was.
Aja Barber:Um, but I don't know it cannot be bought by external things exactly, and I just don't miss a lot of the things I used to do, like, if I have a coffee out now, I tend to like have it there instead of getting it to go, because it's nice to like sit down with a friend and have a really nice coffee drink, like that's what I actually like. I didn't want to race around like Starbucks in my hand, you know, and so like, even if I go out for a coffee now, I'm going to go to an independent coffee coffee shop, which I'm lucky I have an abundance of those where I live and I'm gonna actually enjoy my coffee instead of being like zoom, zoom, gotta go grown-ass toddler with a sippy cup exactly, exactly, um, and so I think I actually enjoy life now because it's a slower pace of life and way more intentional, and I also save a lot more money.
Aja Barber:Like I, just when this is a I think you know you probably saw like this this week I was sharing all of my second hand my most expensive second hand purchases this year because that is basically how I go to shop and my clothing in my closet is 20 times better than it was before and I genuinely do spend less money, which is quite sad, because that just meant that I was just buying a lot of crap. Like, and that's the thing when you slow down and when you stop being the person who buys 68 plus garments a year, you have more time. Like people will say like, oh well, you know, I don't know where to shop. Like, it's not my fault that I just don't know, and it's like, but you could actually take the time, can go to h&m's website, let me google and look at you and and look at the 20 000 items that they have listed. Then I think that maybe you could actually just google ethical, slow fashion brands, you know, and and see what comes up.
Jennifer Walter:You can literally do that image search now, so you can take a photo of something and then let it through google image search if you want, or sustainable options like I mean you can absolutely.
Aja Barber:I mean you can use chat, gg, whatever. I don't really use a lot of like the ai stuff, but you can use that to tell you about, like ethical brands. Um, there's just so many different ways to do it and I think people need to like either own up to, like the idea that they're sort of engaging in what's it called when, like, a guy pretends like he can't do a certain task um, there's a word for it, it's not coming to me. It's when the guy's like oh, I don't know how to do this, but really they're just used to like the woman in their life doing that type of labor.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah. There's a phrase for it and it's like on the tip. You know what I'm thinking about, right?
Aja Barber:It's like pretending like you can't do something because you don't want to do it or because you're waiting for someone else to do it, and I think that we we practice that a lot in the fast fashion conversation well, I just don't know where to shop, oh my god. And you just can't figure it out through the internet that you're chatting to me on, you know yeah, you're absolutely helpless with social media, or you're just, I don't know.
Aja Barber:People love to say like, oh well, you know, I can't shop secondhand because I'm plus size and I'm like hello, I'm plus size, you know. And and like join the club. Like, oh well, I can't shop in charity shops because they don't have my size. No shit, they don't have my size either. I don't buy the majority of my clothing in charity shops. I buy it on ebay or vestiaire or the RealReal. I might find something twice a year in a charity shop that fits me. Yeah, if I'm lucky, same. So like, yeah, the majority of us aren't actually finding that much in charity shops, mainly because they're flooded with Shein at the minute, you know. And so I just think that people love to sort of like fake incompetence when it comes to like changing how they engage with this, because they don't want to really change. It's, it's work, it's labor, it's doing things differently.
Aja Barber:It's uncomfortable, but, like, please spare me the like, please spare me the like. You know fake incompetence going on here because, like, people that want to like, internet sleuth can become detectives overnight, but people can't figure out how to find a brand that, like, makes clothing and pays their workers. Are you kidding me? Me weaponized incompetence, that's the phrase.
Jennifer Walter:That's the one.
Aja Barber:Yes that's the phrase I was looking for weaponized incompetence. So, yes, I think, when it comes to the conversation about changing how you engage with these systems, people love a bit of weaponized incompetence. They love to be like I don't know where to shop. These stores don't carry my size and like. As a fat person, I will say like yes, it is legitimate that, like you know, stores do not try and like, include fat people. I'm really working very hard to change that on the ethical fashion landscape, right, but there are brands out there that really do try and make everyone's size and people almost don't even want to look for them or they want to give them a really hard time. Yeah, it's just like, once again, instead of punching up, let's just punch around at what's within our, our reach and it's it's not helpful. It's just not helpful at all. And, like I, when I talk about being honest, it's also time to be honest about actions like that. Are we punching up or are we punching at our neighbor, you know?
Jennifer Walter:yeah, it's always easier to punch neighbors or punch down or even worse yeah, punch down, punch around, whatever you do, don't punch up.
Aja Barber:No.
Jennifer Walter:God, no, that would be an interruption to the system. We do not want this. No, the weaponized.
Aja Barber:Incompetence surrounding this topic really does get me, though, Like people can find anything on the internet. They can illegally download movies, films, they can like sleuth out what their favorite influencer is wearing if they haven't tagged the brand. But they're like I just can't find any ethical brands. Now I call bullshit on everyone for that one like do you not want to search for them? Can you not find them? Are you unwilling to look?
Jennifer Walter:yeah, or are you even like, unwilling to like, sign up to like someone like me's patreon where I share saying we have to, we, we have to kind of like really segue into into your patreon because this is like the perfect build well, this is the thing, and I I also think that it comes down again to like this conversation that I keep having in our society, where we devalue everyone's labor.
Aja Barber:We devalue the labor of garment workers, and that's why we think that shirt should cost five dollars. We devalue the labor of garment workers and that's why we think that shirt should cost $5. We devalue the labor of artists and graphic designers, and that's why we're like I don't see a problem with like AI ripping them off. I don't want to pay someone you know $200 to like do this illustration for me. We devalue the labor of so many of the creative industries and then we wonder why everything is so shit and so like. When it comes to like even things like I want to find new places to shop, people are just like well, why won't you tell me for free? And I'm like, because that's what I do for pay and they're like, but you should tell me for free, and I'm like this is the problem. You devalue everyone's labor.
Aja Barber:Like what I like to do on my Patreon is I really want to show people who subscribe to my work how to do it and the way that I do it. When it comes to rethinking how you engage with this system and also changing the way you shop and and so this is why I do like roundups of my favorite online secondhand finds, you know. This is this is why I am constantly sharing the brands that I buy and how I organize my wardrobe and how I decide what I'm going to wear, because I hope to inspire other people, and I've been sort of thinking about this and shopping this way for over 20 years now. You know, I first started buying items of clothing on eBay when I was like in university this is like early 2000s and I just remember everyone thinking I was being really weird. Like what do you mean? You're buying your shoes on eBay? You know was being really weird. Like what do you mean? You're buying your shoes on?
Aja Barber:ebay, you know yeah by the way, I feel compelled to send you a picture of what is going on behind my computer, since I have mentioned my rude teenager of a cat. So hold on, I'm gonna show it I'm gonna.
Jennifer Walter:I'm curious what's coming up now.
Aja Barber:I've just got like legs hanging out from See, if you, can you see that image?
Jennifer Walter:I love it. I love it. She looks comfortable though.
Aja Barber:Well, yeah, but she's annoying because she's just like she just cats for you. Like she basically gets on my desk and then she takes her foot and she just tries to push the laptop gently off the desk, but she does it very like, smooth and like very subtly you don't like my sister-in-law used to have a dog that would do that to people if they sat on the sofa.
Aja Barber:She would get behind you and then she would just use her hind legs to just push you gently off the sofa and steve's dad was like yeah, one time I found myself on the floor and I was like how did that happen?
Jennifer Walter:yeah yeah, I like our, our old cat rest in peace. She got.
Aja Barber:She got 21 um wow I know good old age yeah it was, it was, but she was.
Jennifer Walter:She was that bitch right like she, when she would see that you like. One time I saw her getting out of her cat litter box and then she realized, oh, human, looking at me and she had like cat litter between her, like paws she would be yeah she would be really look at me and be like so the cat was all over the floor and I'm like OK, message received. Yeah, thank you very much. I know now where we stand where I stand in this relationship.
Aja Barber:Incredibly rude. I love when, like, they look at you and do something that you've like told them not to do. Like cats know their names, they're just not listening.
Jennifer Walter:Like olive knows her name I know right, I just saw her I just saw her ears perk up.
Aja Barber:But the amount of times I'll call her and she'll just like pretend like she has no idea what I'm talking about. Yet you do know your name, don't you? Yeah, you know your name. You're just ignoring me. I've seen that meme that says like if cats could call you back, they wouldn't which is so true.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, like they would like. No, they would not. It's very fully feline behavior of not coming back. But I want to circle back one more time before, before we wrap up. That mentioned before, we kind of sometimes really suck at bringing people together and organizing. And that brings me to the question of well, how can we and by we mean the main white western women how can we do better at like coming together and actually be like? You know, this system it's gonna kill us. We might be higher up the like the chain and it will kill us later, but it will kill us eventually.
Aja Barber:Like, how can we just fucking do better the most effective thing that all of us can do is stop buying so much shit and stop supporting corporations that we know are treating people badly. That's like the most effective thing. Like, if you have to buy some underpants from a store that you know is in the news for not paying their garment workers, I'm not going to show up and slap your credit card out of your hand, right Like people get really defensive with. My message is, if I'm going to, like show up at their house and berate them, which is ridiculous, but again, like the internet makes me pretty parasocial. So, okay, you've got to get your pants from Primark. Would I shop at Primark? No, and I've got enough clothing so I don't even need to be shopping for anything new. But for someone who does, I'm not saying that you're a bad person because that's the only person that makes underpants in your size. What I am saying is, you probably don't need to buy three dresses while you're there, because you already have dresses in your closet that fit and are great and are wonderful. Hey, it's summertime. Do you actually really need a whole new wardrobe to go on holiday? Does it feel good to buy new things? Absolutely, that's why we do it, but do you actually need new things? Be honest with yourself.
Aja Barber:If all of us just stopped buying so much like, if all of us bought, if every consumer bought like one item secondhand in a calendar year, the impacts would be felt like overnight. Seriously, now imagine if every person who buys clothing didn't just buy one item, but bought multiple secondhand items a year. What would that look like? So, like, I always tell people if you have a stigma about secondhand, you really really need to get over it. Now, that's not the only solution. We obviously need to regulate these industries, but like, but like. I will never buy a new pair of jeans because I know that I like a certain type of Levi and I also know that Levi overproduces. So I don't need to buy them new because if I type my size in to eBay right now, I will get over a hundred pairs that people are selling. So I have not bought new jeans in probably six, seven years Not, and I don't need to.
Aja Barber:So let's be realistic about the things that we can change right and say you do really like buying things from a brand that I wouldn't say falls under an ethical umbrella, like Arquette, which is owned by H&M, can you buy it secondhand, because I guarantee you you can buy pretty much everything they ever make secondhand, because they don't make just one of it, they make thousands, and this is why we need to understand how much is being made so we can understand how much responsibility falls on H&M to clean up their corner of the world, and how much responsibility falls on H&M to clean up their corner of the world, and how much responsibility falls on Zara and Nike and Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie and Free People.
Aja Barber:This is why these campaigns are important, but on an individual scale. Stop giving these corporations your money just like that. They haven't earned your money. They aren't earning your money. You're falling into a trap of thinking that the world will treat you differently if you buy all the new things from anthropology and I assure you, some people superficial people might, but that's not actually what you want.
Jennifer Walter:You want something deeper, more beautiful than that it's going back to really thinking okay, what is like our, what is our true sense of belonging, and remove the artificial parts away from it. Right, and to really be like hey, how can I find safety or a formation of identity or emotional support or resources or purpose in another way than thinking, oh, this anthropology shirt is gonna get me in with the right crowd you know what else happens.
Aja Barber:When you stop buying so much crap, you buy and read more books. I think that we are going through like an ignorance epidemic in our society.
Aja Barber:I really do I think that people are not reading anymore and like I'm not saying reading in the ableist way of, oh well, you have to read paper books. No, if you like, listen to, like informed opinions from experts on a podcast. I think that that really counts. I think listening to audiobook counts, but you're getting our information from infographics and like this is not helping us. And like I say that as someone with a platform who will do an infographic, you know you need to do more than the infographic, because the reason I can make that infographic is because I read the book. I'm distilling some of what I've read in the book into an infographic to get people interested.
Aja Barber:But the work doesn't stop there. I want you to read the book as well. I want you to come away from you know, whatever conversation with an understanding that your work isn't just reading an instagram post. Dig deeper, you know, and that's one thing that has definitely happened when you stop with the consumerism, you start being like oh, wow, I actually need to read this pile of books by my bed, and I think that if we all went back to being, you know, a society who actually reads, I think that would infinitely change the game on this planet yeah, because we would also then just demand better for ourselves, better things, and we would be better educated about we'd be better educated about, like what we actually need to like survive and make this planet, you know, habitable for everyone less misinformation yeah, not going back to like before.
Aja Barber:Like, yeah, going back to the middle ages or something where we yeah exactly where we demonize people are dying from preventable illness because, you know they saw an instagrammer who said that, like, drinking a certain type of tea cured them.
Jennifer Walter:You know it gave you the shits.
Aja Barber:That's what it is, but hey yeah sure you lost a few pounds on the process exactly, oh god like it really does annoy me how much people get away with, because, like, if I wanted to like sell out and just sell people just garbage, I would be so rich, yeah, and like I don't want to be rich, rich, but it would be really nice to be able to like write my parents a check and like help them out. It'd be really nice to help out my sister who's a single mom.
Jennifer Walter:That is the type of like money that I want, so they can have an easy life or, like I would like to support my favorite charities better.
Aja Barber:Yes, absolutely I would love to become a board member of more charities by like giving them money.
Aja Barber:I would love to give money to like garment worker unions, which is what I did when I wrote Consumed.
Aja Barber:I gave 15% of my advance to a few organizations like Asia Floor Rage Alliance and the Orr Foundation, who I've talked about their campaign on this podcast Orr Foundation, who I've talked about their campaign on this podcast.
Aja Barber:And so, yeah, I would love to do more good things with my money and be more generous with my loved ones. And you know, if I were a person who was like, yeah, I'll sell that garbage, I would particularly like around the time period of 2020 and 2021, I probably could have made enough money to like pay off a house in London and then some like, realistically speaking, if I were willing to sell my soul to corporations, and so it's very annoying to see people who make so much money from selling people garbage be able to get away with it, and I really think that we all need to sort of like not just break free of these bad systems of listening to people who don't have anyone's interest at heart except for their own, but I think that in doing so, we can free ourselves and get to a place where we're working on healing ourselves.
Jennifer Walter:Yeah, and that's really where we start right. We have to start by healing ourselves and doing the courageous, often really unpleasant work, and then we can go outward and heal more, and heal more. But it has to start with Absolutely. I have. I always have one last question for anyone on the podcast, but I have two more for you, because I'm really curious what is your definition? Or for you? What is the difference between style and fashion? Your definition or for?
Aja Barber:you, what is the difference between style and fashion? Uh, that's a good question. Style is something that cannot be bought and fashion is something that can be purchased. There are people that have the most incredible style that will never shop at the stores that everyone's shopping at, but they have it. They know how to put things together, they know how to wear clothing, they have confidence, they have charisma, they have riz, as the kids say.
Jennifer Walter:Oh good. The youngsters say riz.
Aja Barber:Yeah, as the kids say, style can't be purchased. It can't um. You can work with someone who can help you sort of understand your style, but at the end of the day it really comes down to you where fashion can be can be bought could style then be a byproduct of doing the work on?
Jennifer Walter:on, yeah, understanding yourself and values and better, and then yes, absolutely.
Aja Barber:I think that when you go through that unpacking process and you ask yourself what it is that you really truly like, you're gonna you're gonna start to really understand it. I mean, I always tell people like I play around on Pinterest for like 10 minutes every day and I was like a really early user of Pinterest, I was like a beta user and it was actually my first platform but, like you, didn't get anything out of it, just had a lot of followers.
Aja Barber:But I remember I had a really boring like job at one point where I was like temping and I would finish all my work and then I would be sitting there waiting for more work. So I would just like pop on to Pinterest and then and I would just pin things and I found that I got the same dopamine kick as like buying things. But after a year of doing that I was able to look through all of my boards and see very clearly what my eye was drawn to, what I found interesting, and it was almost like seeing my, my inspirations in front of me. But it happened in a way that was completely, um like unconscious I love it.
Jennifer Walter:Then it just kind of comes together and you see the little mosaic and the puzzle and you're like this is why I'm always telling like people on patreon, please get on pinterest.
Aja Barber:Like you don't spend any money. You can get the same dopamine kick of like looking at lots of clothing and like deciding what it is that you like and you know if there's something that you really, really want and you keep coming back to it. Pinterest is a great way to track it down. A few years ago, after the pandemic, I was like probably about like 10, 15 pounds heavier than I am today, which you know, life ebbs and flows. Bodies are meant to change. Anyways, I need a bigger coat because none of my coats fit me like the way I wanted them to fit. And I got on Pinterest and I looked at this coat that I had pinned like years ago and then I went down the rabbit hole of finding out who made the coat. And then I typed the coat into ebay. One came up on my size, new with tags, new with tags on sale down from 300 to 100, and I was like done yeah, sold like not even thinking about it twice yeah, but that's, that's the beauty of, of.
Jennifer Walter:Oh, that reminds me I when I was like like 20 or something maybe I desperately wanted like those. They were very popular. I'm sure you probably remember those like the charlotte olympia like velvet kitty um belay slippers that they were black and they had like an embroidered kitty face on them and like little yeah, yeah, yeah, I think I remember them, yeah and I always wanted them.
Jennifer Walter:They were like, just so fucking expensive. I'm like, no, no, not gonna happen. And then, during the pandemic one of those doomed uh pandemic nights nursing a baby I saw them on ebay my size for like 60 or 70 bucks and I'm like did you get? Them immediately. Yes, waiting like 15 years for this show oh yeah, I see them right now. Uh, were they flats yeah, the flat ones, yeah, yeah yeah I went 15 years for these shoes.
Jennifer Walter:Worth it, worth it, love them. Oh so, which brings me to my second last question what special item is still on your wish list?
Aja Barber:I don't have anything on my wish list because I have so many nice items of clothing like I really I have nothing on my wish list. There are things that I do always look for, but I just like looking online also because I have a platform and I share my finds with, like the people of my Patreon community, so like I never stop looking, but I have nothing on my personal wish list. I do not need any clothing.
Aja Barber:I don't need anything at this point, clothing is like a hobby, like, oh, I found this really cool brand that I really like and I found, you know, this item on ebay from several years ago. I will buy that for 20, you know, but like I don't need anything, realistically speaking, nothing. Not a new coat, not a new jacket, no new shoes I am good that's a really lovely thing to realize I did get something recently in the mail, though, um, which I was gonna share on instagram.
Aja Barber:Hold on, I would. I'll show you. It's right here. One second, please, please. So one of the things that I do buy is I buy my jewelry second hand, yeah, and I love I was going to do like a video for Instagram, so you're getting like preview. I love looking for, like um Givenchy jewelry from the Ricardo Tichy time period yeah, now you're more fashionable than I am, because I'm like he was a creative director.
Aja Barber:that was amazing and he did a lot of fun shark tooth stuff, and so one of the things that I want these earrings that are like okay, they're.
Jennifer Walter:yeah, aren't they cool?
Aja Barber:So and this is the best part, if your ears aren't pierced, it's magnetic. It's a magnetic clip on, so you can put it anywhere. And it's a magnetic clip-on, so you can put it anywhere. Nice, and it's just magnetic okay so yeah, I these were like.
Aja Barber:I think these were like several hundred dollars on best year on when they first I I don't know what the full price is, I should look it up, but I paid 60 for this on best year. I would happily pay 60 pounds for a piece of Givenchy earrings. I'll show you, I'll demonstrate how it looks.
Jennifer Walter:I'm sure they're going to look absolutely stunning, just like that. Okay, yeah, I really admire them. They're cool, I know not my style, but they're really cool yeah.
Aja Barber:They're really cool and so like, I love going to buy like vintage jewelry and stuff like that, like. But once again, could I afford like Givenchy earrings when they were on the runway? No, can I afford them for 60 pounds secondhand?
Jennifer Walter:absolutely, yes, I can yeah, that's the same thing. I recently my black purse kind of like the handle broke. It was just really not fixable anymore and I'm like, ah, black purse, I'm tricky with purses. And then I found a John now I'm going to mess up his name, really pretty sure, like the retired Irish designer John Rocha, I'm gonna mess it up. And I found one on vestiaire and I bought it for like 20 bucks and I'm like amazing amazing.
Aja Barber:This is the thing. Like you have like a bag or something that like wears out, and then you're like oh, and then you like wait. You look on ebay, you look at vestiaire collective and someone is always selling the exact same item.
Jennifer Walter:Why? I think that's the wish list super abundant I don't need this one you don't actually like.
Aja Barber:You don't actually like need anything in stores right now, because there's probably hundreds, if not thousands, of that item available or will be in a matter of mere months. Like there is pretty much next to nothing that I have not found on resale that I have wanted in the past. Like literally we're talking runway fashion, like blazers that cost like two thousand dollars that I'm literally getting for like 85. Like seriously, so there, this idea of like, need and like, oh, you gotta rush out and get it. It's completely fabricated, babes. It will be there and resell in second hand.
Jennifer Walter:Someone will sell it, but do you, and if not, you will find something just as nice and do you really need it?
Aja Barber:will you live? Will you, will you die? If you don't have it, will you not be able to live without it?
Jennifer Walter:did you die because you didn't get it?
Aja Barber:yeah did you die? Did you die? My cat would say yes when it comes to being fed in the morning. In fact, she did die because she didn't get fed at 6 am.
Jennifer Walter:Well, that's fair. This is just very typical Feline behavior. So, excuse, but like no bitch, you did not die. So, last but not least, before I let you go, what book or what audio, what book are you currently reading or what audio book you're currently listening to?
Aja Barber:Oh, okay. So I've got a few in the works because you know, I review books for my, my big newsletter. Um, I'm currently listening to sally rooney's new one intermezzo, um, and I am currently reading a multitude of books. I'm trying to actually finish 20 books by the edge of my bedside table before you're worse than I am.
Aja Barber:I only have like five no, I've got 20 and I think I can do it if I actually just if I, if I put some like real gusto into it. So, like girl, I could write you a list.
Jennifer Walter:But let's just say I'm reading the new sally, messi, sally, right now because the books, all the books recommended by my guests and of course your own book too consumed is linked on um, the cinegraph book club page. So whenever you need something new to read, go there. And that's another example on a really like super teeny, tiny, small scale. I've been asked by by people of like oh, why don't you link from like that page, that book club page, to like amazon, so you could?
Aja Barber:get like some affiliate money and I'm like, no, I fucking hate amazon like how can I do a cd grab book?
Jennifer Walter:club page and then link to amazon. So I say at the top, please go support your local bookshop. Like yeah, no, I maybe could make 20 bucks a month. Whatever, I have no fucking idea about affiliate stuff right no, like how our bookshop.
Aja Barber:You can actually. You can actually become an affiliate for bookshoporg if you wanted to. I think they have an affiliate program and they're like they work with all the better. So like there, there you go. So you know, there are other. There are even other affiliate programs that you can do, you know yeah.
Jennifer Walter:So with that we end, don't.
Aja Barber:Don't go buy books at amazon don't buy books from amazon, please don't like or anything else for that matter, but amazon has been such a negative impact on the um like book industry that if you don't list your book on amazon it doesn't actually get like any sales at all. That's the sad thing, like when I wrote consumed, I came to my publisher and I was like, so what if I didn't want to have my book?
Aja Barber:on Amazon about it like oh yeah, and they were just like you would not sell a single book and all of our hard work and labor would be for nothing. And I'm like oh, that's brutal.
Aja Barber:That is why my book is on Amazon because they control so much of the market, but I beg of you, please buy it from your local indie and, like I also want to say it was actually a bestseller on Amazon. I will not ever like put that as like a feather in my cap, because I'm like no, I want you to make it a bestseller with your independent bookshops. There are some people who care about the environment that are like best selling author, and I know that they're referring to the amazon numbers and I just think it's mega shady oh, it's shady as fuck.
Jennifer Walter:Like yeah, okay, but yeah it's very shady.
Aja Barber:yeah, yes, I was a bestseller in like environmental books when it came out, but I was also a bestseller on bookshoporg and librofm. So there you go there you go, that's it.
Jennifer Walter:So go read Consumed yes, please, I'm actually one of those awful people who like do highlights and like fold pages and shit.
Aja Barber:That's not awful.
Jennifer Walter:This is something really smart she said, so I better remember.
Aja Barber:Yeah, no, that's not awful. I think you know have fun with the book. You know, there's actually a section where I think it's like list things. So you're supposed to like write things in the book it's kind of like a series like wrecked his book yeah, like maybe we killed that section I don't remember, but it was supposed to be like that.
Aja Barber:So so okay, so we probably. It probably got like cut by my publisher because it was too long. But either way, I have no problem with you marking your book. Have at it, have fun kids.
Jennifer Walter:Well with that, asha. Thank you so much for being on the scenic route with me. It was a pleasure.
Aja Barber:Thank you for having me. I have to dip out really quickly because I have to call my agent, but I appreciate you having me. It's been a great chat.
Jennifer Walter:And just like that, we've reached the end of another journey together on the Cine Group Podcast. Thank you for spending time with us. Curious for more stories or in search of the resources mentioned in today's episode, Visit us at cinegrouppodcastcom for everything you need and if you're ready to embrace your Cine Group, I've got something special for you. Step off the beaten path with my scenic route affirmation card deck. It's crafted for those moments when you're seeking courage, yearning to trust your inner voice and eager to carve out a path authentically, unmistakably yours. Pick your scenic route affirmation today and let it support you. Excited about where your journey might lead, I certainly am. Remember, the scenic route is not just about the destination, but the experiences, learnings and joy we discover along the way. Thank you for being here and I look forward to seeing you on the scenic route again.
