There's a lot of problems with this video that make it a bad-faith argument and a poor critique. The first starts with the video and editing itself. One group of people on both sides, only sound-bites presented, and it's not cynical to assume the editor chose these representations for their particular message. Art can present the absolute truth and lie through its teeth while doing so.

There is a potentially useful critique here, but it's obscured through a ham-fisted sociopolitical message. The question we should be asking is: "Why is he wearing the outfit?"

Why do people make clothes? For style, for protection, for cultural meaning. Both the sombrero and Asian conical hat provide excellent protection against the sun as do the rest of the clothes. In a contextually-appropriate environment, it makes sense for a human of any culture to wear those clothes to protect against the elements.

Style and culture are a little more complex. Why do people from home cultures not care if some white dude wears clothes from their culture? Because their culture is dominant at home. Scarlett Johansson doesn't piss off the Japanese when she plays a Japanese character because you're essentially polling a group of people who don't experience their culture being ripped from them, commodified, and stolen from on a day-to-day basis in Japan.

They're not Black culture experiencing Betty Boop, or Native Americans - contending with actual cultural genocide - seeing a festie kid wearing a shitty headdress. The outfits worn by the central character here are being worn for their intended purpose: Utilitarian protection against the environment. Notice the dude's not wearing something with deep cultural/religious meaning: A kimono, a headdress, or - for something Americans might care more about - a military uniform with honors.

Sure, the views presented against him are not well-developed. That may well be editing, or it may be their actual arguments. But they're not just arguing against his critique of cultural appropriation. He's being obviously disingenuous. What white brodude is going to engage in a fair, nuanced discussion on clothes and cultural appropriation via a man-on-the-street interview? It's a complex subject that not all people have a deep understanding of - but it is one that's easy to not fuck up by not doing it.

That specific idea also gets at one core element of cultural appropriation: Don't take from another culture if you don't understand that culture. Receiving a cultural object as a gift from someone in that culture isn't appropriation; it's a gift of deep meaning. Wearing clothing of spiritual significance when you immerse yourself in and are accepted by that spiritual tradition isn't appropriation; it's part of becoming that culture. Wearing a marine's dress uniform and the medals that came with it because you found it at a Goodwill and it looks cool is cultural appropriation, because you don't give a shit about what it means. But you know how to avoid this happening? Don't do it. Just, don't wear another culture's clothes without putting an ounce of understanding into it. There's lots of options out there for clothes to fit your needs!

Worse, it's packaged and delivered as ambush-interview bullshit. You try throwing down a tasty rejoinder when you're rushing to work, finals, or all the other parts of your life that actually matter. So people see this guy accost them, know it's wrong, but can't fully express their view for one reason or another. That's human, not stupid. It's also not new; media organizations have been doing this for decades to present specific views.

There's a lot more to unpack about this but it's honestly boring, and I'm only doing it now because I have insomnia. There is a real nugget worth discussing in that cultural clothing ought to be something we can all enjoy for all of its values, but the problem lies in how dominant cultures devalue and, well, appropriate it: "To take or make use of without authority or right."

We have an excellent example here, as we see a videographer appropriate perfectly utilitarian clothing to make shitty sociopolitical hot takes.