Microtrends promote overconsumption in the name of encouraging individuality
By JULIE HUANG – arts@theaggie.org
With the arrival of the holiday season comes Black Friday and other coveted end-of-year sales. In recent years, these traditional shopping events have been increasingly influenced by the rise of social media microtrends, which concern anything from clothing to wall hangings to meal choices.
Referring to accelerated trends that revolve around specific items meant to promote the stylishness of certain niches, aesthetics and attitudes, microtrends are relevant for a couple of weeks to months at most. Then, they quietly fade into obscurity, to be forgotten and replaced by the trend cycle until they are revived for another couple of weeks by yet another microtrend with similar aesthetics.
Due to their fast-paced nature, microtrends in their inception are often perceived as fresh and fun, offering widespread appeal to social media users who are searching for inspiration and an easy way to make a small change in their life. Some popular past microtrends include “tomato girl summer,” “vanilla girl aesthetic” and “indie sleaze,” which all primarily cater to the specific demographic of adolescent girls and young adult women who use social media.
The driving mechanism of these microtrends lies in how they pair certain, more accessible items with idealized imaginings of wider aesthetics and lifestyles — for example, being a “tomato girl” means feeling carefree with flushed cheeks, ideally lounging somewhere off the coast of Italy. However, if a trip to the Mediterranean is out of reach, then buying a new red blush might be a worthwhile substitute.
Microtrends thus grant people feelings of excitement and a sense of belonging to an exclusive group that is in the know, which reinforces a sense of individuality without requiring much personal effort. Picturesque visuals are presented through TikToks and other short-form content, enticing viewers to buy the associated items that will supposedly bring the vision boards on their phone screens into their real lives. The appeal of microtrends lies in their promise of bringing certain desired lifestyles into a consumer’s reality without them having to do any personal work apart from buying new things.
Many microtrends also repackage items that are otherwise plain or commonplace by giving them aesthetic names and accompanying visuals, making them newly stylish and trendy. When wearing blue nail polish can be transformed into having cutesy “blueberry nails” and doing eyeshadow in warm brown tones can be given the cozy label of “latte makeup,” it becomes clear that anything can become trend-worthy through imagination and a new rebrand.
This movement toward romanticizing everyday activities, objects and colors can be viewed positively, as it has the potential to bring a renewed sense of joy and whimsy to more mundane objects and qualities. However, over-romanticization of the mundane can also slide into a false sense of abundance. Overexposure to microtrends can lead to the belief that nothing is completely unattainable, feeding the desire to have access to everything trending on social media.
Large corporations have become increasingly aware of microtrends and their potential to encourage consumers to continually purchase mass-produced goods. Because the lifespan of a microtrend is excessively short, those who want to keep up with new trends must pay close attention to the trend cycle and purchase new items at a much faster rate than the traditional seasonal trend cycle.
Although sometimes fun and exciting, consumers may fall into a cycle of making otherwise unnecessary purchases in order to maintain their feelings of excitement, as well as the sense of exclusivity that comes from participating in the popular aesthetic that switches every month. Fueled by these different factors, microtrends now support overconsumption, under the guise of promoting inspirational aesthetics that serve social media users and enrich their personal lives.
Brands like Urban Outfitters, Zara and H&M often reference current microtrends in their marketing, which appear on the banners of online storefronts and subject lines of promotional emails, all to direct their popularity toward the prospect of profit. This utilization of microtrends in marketing reveals the relationship between the aesthetics found on social media and the mass production of goods for sale, where the latter takes direction from the former in order to assess what consumers will purchase.
However, the short lifespan of microtrends ensures that the fast fashion items made to fill demand will undeniably become waste in a matter of weeks. As microtrends rise rapidly in popularity and then fall just as quickly, the items that are produced to sell alongside those microtrends become popular and then obsolete just as quickly as the trends they originate from.
Thus, the fleeting nature of microtrends and the ensuing mass production of cheaply made goods promote unsustainable practices that lead to excessive amounts of waste, filling landfills that pollute the environment. In continually keeping up with microtrends without considering the limits of consumption, individuals ignore their impact on the environment and send the message that sustainability is less of a priority than the short-term pleasure gained from short-term trends.
Microtrends are unsustainable on a personal and emotional level as well. Although they seem to promise enjoyment and excitement at first, the transient nature of microtrends and the constant replacement of each trend with something new makes it hard to maintain the personal feelings of connection that require repeated use and time to develop.
Instead of engaging with trends that consist of making purchases in order to participate, there are alternatives that can encourage the exploration of new activities without spending money. Some microtrends, such as those involving food and meal prep, can transform necessary daily tasks into a new experience, while others, such as silent walking, highlight new experiences as a possibility for making small positive changes.
While social media engagement and mass production of cheaply manufactured goods grow increasingly intertwined, yielding disastrous effects on the environment, finding and engaging with trends that do not require spending money can be a crucial way to combat the negative effects of microtrends.
Written by: Julie Huang — arts@theaggie.org
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by individual writers belong to the writers alone and do not necessarily indicate the views and opinions held by The California Aggie.
