As 8Ball’s Sean Monahan pointed out a few days ago, the “trends are dead” discourse has been beaten like a dead horse, so, naturally, I’d like to add my two cents.
As Monahan writes:
The general script goes something like this: The teens are exhausted by the trend cycle. It’s moving faster than ever. No one can keep up. Trends are dead.
Yes, algorithmic information consumption feels frenetic. Yes, the TikTok microtrends have lost their luster. But the issue with the dozens of online analyses that declare “trends are dead” is that they draw a false equivalence between microtrends on the internet and the entirety of all trends. This misses the forest for the trees.
The real trend, I’d argue, which the “trends are dead” perspective is symptomatic of, and yet also fails to identify, is that our relationship to media consumption is changing, away from fast-paced, surface-level, algorithmically-served content and towards deeper engagement with real life and longer-form media. In other words, paying attention to microtrends on the internet was the trend itself. Now it’s shifting towards something else.
And here’s another reason trends will never die: they can’t. At least not as long as status-seeking remains a fundamental part of human behavior. As W. David Marx explains in his excellent book Status and Culture, status-seeking behavior is the primary mechanism driving cultural change.
A style becomes desirable when it’s adopted by elites—those with high cultural and/or economic capital. In essence, by Cool People or Rich People. (I’d also argue that, while the cultural and economic elites were one and the same for most of history, this has diverged in recent decades and continues to do so, but this is a topic for another time). Once a style is recognized as a status symbol, others begin adopting it to signal their own status by association with the Cool and the Rich. This copycat behavior drives the style’s diffusion through mass society, from the early adopters all the way down to the laggards. Of course, though, when everyone participates in a trend, it’s no longer seen as desirable. At that point, elites move on to the next thing that will distinguish them from the mainstream, restarting the cycle.
Each trend, therefore, contains within it the seeds of its own demise. But while individual trends may die, and by definition, they must, Trends as a whole will survive, as long as status-seeking behavior persists.
That being said, it does seem that chasing microtrends is quickly becoming a low-status behavior, which is the kiss of death for any trend. It also doesn’t help that tech bros like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have become the Patron Saints of Cringe, and by association, so has the algorithmically-mediated feed. This, plus the genuine need for human connection, has been driving renewed interest in offline reality—as private members’ clubs, nature clubs, community chess events, and dinner parties illustrate—as well as deeper engagement in cultivating a sense of self—reading, writing on Substack, picking up a hobby, getting into archive fashion, and shifting towards more personalized, slower dressing. Notably, participation in all of these is harder to convey online than dressing up in the trappings of the latest look.
This is not to say that trends will no longer spread online. As long as the internet remains the primary medium for information exchange, it will also remain the dominant way to share cultural information. But even online, there seems to be more interest in trends that stem from deeper lifestyle changes. “Underconsumption core,” for example, is huge on TikTok, but is rooted in a more holistic lifestyle philosophy involving upcycling and DIY rather than purchasing new products.
This is all reflective of a broader re-evaluation of how we share our attention and consume media. We are moving away from fast, shallow consumption toward deeper engagement with both media and life. Trends are not dead. This is the new trend.
I want it to be seen as high status to rewild your garden 🙏