4 Thursday, May 27, 2021 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com OPINION T he strawberry dress. The crossover leggings. The Vivianne Westwood pearl choker. There are endless examples of fashion trends that TikTok has breathed into existence. This relatively new smartphone application has so much ownership over these trends that their original names are frequently tossed aside in favor of “the TikTok (insert article of clothing).” As an Aerie employee, I saw the buying power behind TikTok firsthand as I watched girls swarm to our store for months in search of “the TikTok leggings,” a term that can be linked to both Aerie’s crossover leggings or Amazon’s scrunch leggings. TikTok’s seemingly endless amount of discomfiting content and young audience have built a connotation of thoughtlessness around the platform. But seeing droves of people who had never been in an Aerie before walk in with such purpose and interest illustrated the tangible effects of this deceptively simple app. For an app that is so commonly deemed to be “stupid” or “for middle school girls” — an insult rooted in the well-established tradition of delegitimizing female interests — TikTok has created an impressive amount of careers for users in a relatively short period of time right from their own bedrooms. However, TikTokers are rarely given the respect that influencers on other apps are given. Whether or not their content deserves this respect is dependent on both the TikToker and the perspective of the viewer. With their problematically superfluous associations with the fashion industry, fashion TikTokers are often seen in a materialistic manner. However, considering the 156,000 emails Aerie received from customers asking to be put on the waitlist for the crossover leggings, this “materialism” resonates with audiences of a multitude of different backgrounds. At some point, we have to ask ourselves: Is liking clothing and the way it can make you feel frivolous, or is the assumption that these interests are frivolous, frivolous itself? Similarly, is TikTok thoughtless, or is that connotation a result of thoughtlessness? Many people make a pointed effort to separate themselves from what society generally considers to be unimportant. In terms of TikTok and fashion, two subjects that are frequently discredited, TikTok’s ability to get people to spend money — a metric American capitalism places particular emphasis on, for better or for worse — stands in stark opposition to the perception of frivolity around the two. The subject of a TikTok does not seem to affect the popularization of a specific piece of clothing. Even videos that have nothing to do with what the creator is wearing have gone viral due to their clothing. The particular TikTok that sparked the frenzy around the aforementioned leggings was a simple dancing video. This trend embodies the constant presence of the fashion industry in our lives. Just by dancing, Hannah Schlenker, the creator who made the video that began the craze, caused Aerie stores all across the country to sell out of the leggings — an item that, from my experience working there, had not been performing well for months. W ho is the first Colombian you can think of? Maybe it’s a popular musician, like Shakira or J Balvin. Maybe it’s an athlete, like weightlifter Oscar Figueroa or soccer player Carlos Valderrama. Or maybe it’s an actor, like “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara or “Ice Age” star John Leguizamo — who, in researching this piece, I was surprised to find was born in Colombia. In any case, the answer is probably not former President Alvaro Uribe. This is not terribly surprising; the only foreign leaders most Americans consistently seem to recognize are British Prime Ministers and long-time leaders of enemy nations, like Fidel Castro. Nevertheless, he is probably the most important figure in shaping Colombia over the last two decades. During his administration from 2002 to 2010, he implemented far-reaching neoliberal economic reforms such as privatization of state-owned enterprises and strong economic deregulation. He also cracked down on the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, a guerrilla insurgency that had been on one side of the nation’s decades-long civil war, reducing its membership from 20,000 to 8,000. He was incredibly popular throughout his presidency, winning re-election in 2006 with around 62.4% of the vote and leaving office with an approval rating of 75%. It is unsurprising that both of his successors, Juan Manuel Santos and current President Iván Duque, are both deeply connected to Uribe, with the former having been his Minister of National Defense and the latter’s party, Democratic Center, having been founded by Uribe. All of this popularity comes in spite of the fact that Uribe and his government’s security forces, in their effort to vanquish FARC, enacted untold amounts of brutality toward Colombian civilians. The most notable examples of this are the series of murders known as the “false positives” scandal. During Uribe’s presidency, civilians, often poor and mentally ill, were promised high-paying jobs, lured into remote areas, killed by military officials and officially recorded as FARC militants to inflate military kill totals. Until these murders were revealed in 2008, the military officials involved were frequently given promotions for the estimated 10,000 killings between 2002 and 2010. Additionally, Uribe and a number of his allies were found to have ties to right-wing paramilitary groups, which over the course of the civil war killed around 100,000 civilians. Horrifyingly, all of this was carried out with U.S. funds as part of the Plan Colombia program, which pledged $10 billion between 2000 and 2015 to Colombia to fight both FARC and drug trafficking. Its principal advocates included then- Senator Joe Biden. Why is this relevant to today? Over the past few weeks, Colombia has been engulfed by protests. These protests started over a since-scrapped plan by the Duque administration to raise taxes on the poor, but they have now broadened to include frustrations over the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the fact that it has broken the 2016 peace deal with FARC — killing a number of social movement leaders and former FARC fighters. The police’s response to these protests has been swift and brutal, killing 39 protestors, arbitrarily detaining 900 and sexually assaulting 12, according to human rights group Temblores y Indepaz. One of the most prominent voices in favor of this crackdown has been Uribe himself, whose tweet expressing support for police was removed by Twitter for “glorifying violence.” This type of violence against protestors is not unprecedented for Duque. In 2019, protests over police brutality were met with police brutality themselves, with one estimate stating that 13 protestors were killed by police in the first two days alone. TikTok: A fashion marketing monster Colombian state-sanctioned murder: the U.S.’s darkest secret Design by Madison Grosvenor 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 tothedaily@michigandaily.com Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan since 1890. MARY ROLFES Editorial Page Editor Julian Barnard Zack Blumberg Brittany Bowman Elizabeth Cook Brandon Cowit Jess D’Agostino Andrew Gerace Jessie Mitchell Mary Rolfes Gabrijela Skoko Jack Tumoowsky Joel Weiner Unsigned editorials reflect the official position of The Daily’s Editorial Board. All other signed articles and illustrations represent solely the views of their authors. CALDER LEWIS Editor in Chief EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBERS BRANDON COWIT | OPINION COLUMNIST OLIVIA MOURADIAN | OPINION COLUMNIST Olivia Mouradian is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at omouradi@umich.edu. Brandon Cowit is an Opinion Columnist and can be reached at cowitb@umich.edu. Read more at michigandaily.com Read more at michigandaily.com