Why we feel the need to follow trends and why TikTok can be blamed for it.

Not all trends are bad – I guess

Image: CottonBro, Pixels

I’m the first to admit that I spend hours scrolling aimlessly through TikTok procrastinating and giving myself ‘just another 5 minutes before I’m up being productive again’ but realistically not many of us hold the strength to stop scrolling until we genuinely loose interest. Recently this has been a lot easier for me. Why does everything have to be so OTT these days? Social media trends run our lives.

Girl dinner started as a safe space for people to share their weird and wonderful food combinations that they call dinner. Like any other trend it didn’t stay innocent for very long it turned into people showcasing and glorifying eating what can’t even be described as a dinner suitable for a small child. I’m all for eating what you want and when you want but trying to normalise eating a cheese string, strawberries, and some hard-boiled eggs for dinner doesn’t sit right with me and a lot of other people. It can even go as far as to be seen as triggering for those who have pre-existing issues with food. Why couldn’t we leave one trend to not go corrupt.

Anyways not all trends are as doom and gloom as this, most of the trends currently circulating social media are quite nice ‘clean girl aesthetic’ being one of them. Promoting people to wear little to no makeup, sleeking their hair back, and wearing a simplistic accessible to most outfit. A trend which glorifies natural beauty and showing your natural features at last! Don’t get me wrong some days we all wake up and think we need that extra bit of concealer to hide our insecurities but for a trend to persuade a young and influential audience to smother their face in makeup is a true miracle.

Don’t get me wrong is being a ‘clean girl’ really what it says on the box. The answer is no. It mainly consists of hair which is in dire need of a wash being chucked into a bun with some leggings and an over-sized jumper but that is a trend I can get behind participating in.

Another one is Stanley cups, if you haven’t heard of these monsters of a water bottle by now I can only but assume you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months. Don’t get me wrong it’s not the cheapest bottle costing £42.99 but there is countless TikTok’s showing dupes you can get for a quarter of the price. The main point is it’s trendy to walk around and drink a load of water which has countless health benefits including clearer skin and flushing toxins from the body.

But an honourable mention must go to ‘Jingle baskets’ and ‘Boo baskets’ in all honestly you could probably go on the internet and find hundreds of other reasons why you can’t have any kind of genuine emotion to somebody unless you’ve purchased them a basket full of what can realistically be described as junk. I’m not saying it’s not a nice gesture everyone has their own love language yours may be gift giving but why is it starting to become a standard to buy your significant other a basket for every seasons under the sun. It costs an arm and a leg and in all honestly how many times a year can someone buy you a box with fluffy socks and a new themed mug before you take a step back and realise your house is flooded with the things.

Bu Zhong science and technology expert believes the reason we feel the need to amerce ourselves into these trends is because we spend so much time on social media that these things, we are seeing aren’t just “nice to have” but we find ourselves viewing them as a need. When we can live without all these things and if we didn’t spend as much time on social media, we probably would only view them as something “nice to have”.

A psychology student from the Northeastern University Basma Gomaa also conducted research into social media trends and says it’s not all bad “trends and popular culture are not inherently bad or unhealthy for society. Rather, they can create a sense of “tribalism” or a herd, which gives people a sense of unity or harmony with each other”. This can be an extremely positive outlook on social media trends and completely true, growing up in school etc there was always “cool” people and “uncool” people, and everyone felt they fell into either one category or the other (despite this concept of being “cool” being so unnecessary). But a trend can eliminate this with everyone all following the same trends to an extent it allows people a sense of togetherness.

Gomaa also puts it into a simple analogy of getting ready to go out with a group of friends “naturally you will pick out pieces in your closet that are considered “in” or trendy to be cohesive”. The process of liking and following a trend can massively help simplify these kinds of activities as your main getting ready criteria is to dress to a certain trend it does help, but certain trends can’t suit everybody, nor does everybody want to adhere to following these trends. Inevitably we can’t all dress the same and follow the same trends we simply just don’t all like the same things and that is a great thing.

Psychologs magazine also proposes the idea that we follow these social media trends because we gain a better response on social media for doing so. It’s not nice to think we subconsciously follow trends, so we get more likes and interactions. But at the end of the day, we’re all guilty of it. Finding ourselves posting to a certain theme or posing for a photo in a certain pose and place wearing certain things. We can’t help it we’re all humans who want to feel liked, are they necessarily even people we know. No. But there’s never any harm in seeking out some appreciation every now and then.

The Psychlogs magazine also observes that “the human brain is wired to seek novelty”, having a time capsule wardrobe and staying consistent with the things you know, and love is all well and good but as Psychologs points out “seeing something new triggers reward pathways in our head”. We all get excited by new things. It’s fun, when you see endless TikTok’s and other social media posts all promoting one product ‘which is going to drastically improve your life’ it’s hard to say no after watching the 50th video telling you that. They really do get you with all these posts when you see someone of similar age and life as you with the product and it’s making their so life better, you’re going to get jealous and want it for yourself it’s just the way we are.

I’ve spoken to a key reader of the magazine 19-year-old Alyssia Williams who told me that she feels that trends “are a must have” to fit in and her daily life is influenced by it. As being part of such an influential demographic she felt if she didn’t have certain things she’d feel left out, a key example of this was the use of MacBook’s at university are they necessarily a good laptop? No. Do most of us want or own one. Yes. We can’t help ourselves indulging into trends and there’s no shame in admitting that we want to feel like we are fitting in. Overall, she found herself buying things she “liked” but after deeper consideration realised, she didn’t actually like it but found it being a trend made her feel she had to like it. TikTok is the worst for it the short clips of people in their best trendiest clothes makes it feel like a ‘norm’ but in reality, we can’t all play up to the trends all the time and have to stick to what we truly like.

So, whilst it seems like following all these trends is a negative and we could all do without spending the money on all the new trends. It’s not a bad thing and it’s certainly not something that is ever going to change or at least not for a very long time. The issue only comes into play when people turn things like ‘girl dinner’ into something toxic unnecessarily. Or when people lose all sense of originality and authenticity to trying to follow trends and that being the only thing they are focusing on anymore. We’re all guilty of spending too much time on social media. Let’s all just try that little bit harder to not let it take over our lives more than it already is.