Would you pay nearly $2,000 (about 13,340 yuan) for shoes that look as if they came from a landfill? Well, Balenciaga believes consumers will pay that. The company recently began selling a new line of “destroyed” sneakers.

According to the brand, the shoes were designed in an effort to promote sustainable fashion. It stated that the destroyed appearance means the shoes can “be worn for a lifetime”.

However, many claim that the brand has gone too far. One main criticism is that these shoes mimic clothes worn by people who are suffering from poverty and homelessness. It is seen as insensitive (冷漠的) to put such an expensive price tag on an item that many homeless and poor people might be seen wearing.

“Poverty isn’t an aesthetic (美感), nor is it something to take style inspiration from. Glamorizing destroyed shoes to fit a fashionable agenda indicates privilege and ignorance,” noted Input Magazine.

This is not the first time brands have evoked anger with their designs.

Back in spring 2021, US art collective MSCHF and music artist Lil Nas X designed what was known as the “Satan Shoes” using Nike Air Max 97s. The designers changed the shoes to include an inverted cross and a pentagram (五角星形), which are signs of Satanism (恶魔崇拜). They even placed real human blood from members of the art collective into sections of the shoe. They said it was a sacrifice for art. But it outraged many religious and conservative groups.

In the same year, Chinese brand JNBY also landed in hot water. Some of its children’s clothes had patterns with a demon-like creature and texts such as “Welcome to hell”. Though the company said the designs were due to “freedom of imagination”, many customers thought these designs were harmful for children, as they included “violent and problematic content”.

To make products stand out, fashion designers should be creative. But they must be sure not to take their creativity too far. After all, artistic expression doesn’t always win and brands must ultimately answer to their consumers.

Online live streaming(直播) is big business nowadays, making huge profits and attracting hundreds of millions of viewers. In addition to adults, this rapidly expanding industry is now drawing underage live streamers, who are not of legal age. According to a report by the Sina Weibo Data Center, live streamers aged 11—16 accounted for 12 percent of all streamers in China. The figure has been rising still, while streamers are getting younger.

It has been found that a large number of underage streamers are drinking, smoking or even exposing to attract viewers. In the best case, live streaming will affect children’s schoolwork and waste their precious youth. In the worst case, they will develop bad values and an improper outlook, which will damage their future.

“Webcasts (web broadcast) are suspected of having a hotbed of improper program. Particularly, the involvement of underage streamers in this industry is making the situation more complex” said Mao Jianguo from Southern Metropolis Daily.

Some legal experts recently issued a report on protection of the children in the cyberspace(网络空间), suggesting that those under 14 should be restricted from independently live streaming and posting videos online.

However, it is unwise and impossible to totally reject all underage streamers but it's necessary and even urgent to standardize the underage webcast sector.

Fortunately, some webcast companies have said that they will not allow streamers under the age of 18 and online live streamers must register by using their ID. However, the reality is that many underage streamers choose to avoid that by using the IDs of adults, who also go through the face scanning required for conditions. All this means that to block underage streamers from webcasting, it’s not enough to depend on their self-discipline.

Parents should tell their children about the disadvantages of getting involved in live streaming so that children develop an objective attitude toward live streaming. Adults should not lend their IDs to children to register for live streaming. And the watchdogs must patrol(巡逻) webcast platforms more actively and remove all unauthorized videos of underage streamers.

In the modern world more and more people meet the problem of identity.The most interesting example is that of a so – called “banana”, which refers to an American who has an Asian face but holds Western values.

In Shanghai, there now live a group of people from abroad.They look no different from the locals and speak fluent Chinese or even Shanghai dialect, but when it comes to writing Chinese characters, they are almost illiterate（文盲）.Jack is such an example.He never learned to read or write Chinese characters, which he finds mysterious and difficult.From time to time, he files to the US as he does not feel Shanghai is where he comes from.“But when I am in the States, I feel that’s not my home either,” he said.

At De Gaulle Airport in France, there is a Swiss man who has been living in the waiting – room for a long time because he lost h is passport during his travels.He was refused entry into several countries.But when he was eventually allowed to return to Swizerland, he refused to leave the airport.His reason was very simple—“I am sure who I am.I need no acknowledgement from others,” he said during an interview.For th is reason   he was honored by the Western media as “the Hero of identity.”

As the Internet becomes more and more popular, the problem of identity becomes more serious.In a virtual world, people can have different addresses registered with different names.In the Internet chat room, even one’s gender（性别） is hard to determine.It seems that in the glohal village, people are saying hello every day to each other without knowing whom they are talking to.

What will be the next crisis（危机） of identity? With the development of cloning technology, it might be: who is the real “I”?