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Modern day fashion is inconsistent. We all know it. That is in large part due to the rapid rate microtrends bloom on social media sites such as TikTok.
Microtrends develop and disappear within a blink of an eye. It’s what they’re named for.
One week, cheetah print is the hot new thing and sold out in all stores, but by the next, any and all cheetah print will be thrown in the garbage and chic polka dots are the next viral sensation.
In a new age of consumption where the line of what exists in the real world and on the internet is increasingly blurred, social media giants like TikTok and gargantuanly well-known influencers are the dictators of trends.
There’s an argument to be made that the two spheres of our new reality are distinctly separate. However, the emergence of the ‘microtrend’ is just one example of what seeps out from the internet and into our material world.
Microtrends, or fast-coming and fast-going trends, appear thanks to many sources.
Tiktok, for one, is the propagator of these swiftly-forming, rapidly-dying stylish manias.
Influencers, for another, often use their platforms to advertise and promote trending clothes, makeup products and the latest accessories. But more often than not, influencers are less masterminds and more perpetrators of these small trends.
Nevertheless, doing so, viewers are led to buy them in order to fit in with the viral fads they see around them.
Unfortunately, awful companies like Shein capitalize off of these brisk microtrends. Through cheap labor and cheap quality, Shein is the easiest way to satisfy the urges of the trendhopping customer.
But no fashion craze is ever here to stay–this vogue just heads for the door faster than usual.
For instance, the Hollister camouflage sweaters and jorts were seen everywhere around the school campus last year. This year, all we’ve got are the revivals of babydoll and off-the-shoulder tops.
All those Hollister sweaters are now stuffed in the darkest part of the closets of so many teens, if not in the landfill.
Wasting materials to create stylish clothes that will only last a month only to toss it the next is a keystone of overconsumption.
Overconsumption is one of the most present worries for the environment as piling up plastic and non-bio-degradable tees overtake landfills all over the world.
The evolution of fashion is elusive, it always has been, and it happens everyday. Microtrends, however, are formed left and right with no regard for the environment or the art of subtlety.
Microtrends do not only indicate the growing presence of social media in our everyday lives, but also what we will sacrifice to look stylish, even if we will all look the same.