In Offence Of The TikTok Trend Cycle

Trends have been around for centuries, and they’re completely normal.

Fashion trends, language trends and cultural trends often help us understand different time periods and cultures. For example, the eighties had distinctive fashion trends that were unique to that decade, like turtle necks, spikes and leather, and lots of velvet.

The thing is though, these trends used to last years. The puffy neon windbreakers and mullets of the eighties were trendy throughout that entire decade, and even now they’re still in fashion because of their association with that quirky period of time. Trends were trendy for a reason… and they stayed trendy. 

Social media has completely changed the way something becomes a trend, and how long it stays trendy for. We’ve been seeing this shift for a while now with influencers on Instagram and YouTube pushing certain products, clothes and lifestyles on their audiences.

However, no app has destroyed our understanding of trends and culture more than TikTok. At the beginning we had things like e-girl and cottagecore, which kind of made sense. They weren’t just fashion trends, they also came with particular lifestyles.

The e-girl lifestyle revolved around gaming, the internet, anime, and the fashion reflected that. Cottagecore didn’t just entail white ruffle skirts and floral patterns, it also consisted of a love for nature, baking, and animals. Even at that point, questions were being raised about why we always feel the need to put ourselves in these restrictive categories, and why we’re always looking for a prepackaged lifestyle to follow. But, it’s only gotten worse from there.

 

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A post shared by Natalia Chamova (@nataliachamova)

In recent months, you’ve probably noticed that trends barely last two weeks anymore, before somebody decides they’re ‘out’, and were actually pretty cringe to begin with. Although, not before everyone’s already gone out and replaced their entire wardrobe.

Exhibit A: This summer was dubbed brat summer, following the release of Charli xcx’s new album. Brat summer was all about partying hard, not caring what other people think, embracing the mess and just letting it go. You might be wondering why we couldn’t just act like this the whole time, did we really need to wait until it became a trend?

Now, before the summer has even come to an end, brat summer is being replaced with ‘demure fall.’ This was inspired by a satirical video posted on TikTok by creator Jools Lebron, who explained how to be ‘demure and modest’ at work – “You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure, very mindful. I don’t come to work with a green cut crease.”

The video amassed millions of views and has been recreated in different ways by hundreds of other content creators. The video itself is harmless and funny, but do we need to dedicate a season to it now? How did it even manifest as a new trend? What does demure fall even mean? 

@charlixcxmaybe one more remix and then ?♬ original sound – Lindsey Buckingham

The need to put people, women in particular, into these performative and completely unsustainable roles is going too far. It’s as if we’re being told we can’t embrace our own style, what we like to wear and how we like to act, if it’s not already a trend.

Most of these trends don’t even make any sense! Tomato girl? You’re just wearing red. Office siren? You don’t work in an office, and although that outfit is amazing you would definitely be dress coded. These performances of femininity are not sustainable at all. They are hurting our sense of identity, as we constantly look for the next trend to define ourselves by. 

And just think about the amount of waste all this overconsumption is causing. Please don’t throw away those Sambas just because the trend is more than three weeks old. You can still wear them! Microtrends are designed so that you spend lots of money on clothes and products only to chuck them once the trend is over.

SustainabilityChic states that today people are consuming 400% more clothing compared to 20 years ago, and that the average person produces around 82 pounds of textile waste a year. Hey, that’s insane! 

It’s time we went back to buying clothes solely because we like them, and wearing them until they don’t fit or they break. Trust me, saving your money and wearing outfits that you actually love will feel a lot better than throwing your money and clothes around every time a new word is unlocked on TikTok.

• Fashion
• TikTok