By Raegan Densmore
There is a reason why things become fads or trends. Because they have something about them that is enjoyed by society. When someone mentions their favourite song, and it happens to be a band’s most popular, why do people act surprised or even scoff at them? It is the band’s most popular for a reason. Personally, I spend a lot of time on social media, and a trend that I have noticed among people is that they hate when things become a trend. “I was gatekeeping this song”, “I used to like this until it became popular”. The desperation of people who need to hold on to some sort of uniqueness is intriguing, hence why I did a questionnaire for my sociology class about trends.

First off, there is a difference between fads and trends, trends are popular for a while. A.I is a popular trend at the moment and it constantly spreads throughout mass media. Fads are short-lived ‘trends’. They are popular for a bit, but they vanish quickly. An example of this includes the fidget-spinner. The spinning toy every kid wanted back in 2017. Whether it be fads or trends, there are a variety of people who turn up their noses, not realizing the plethora of trends they participate in themselves.
One of the questions I asked in my questionnaire was “how do you feel when something you enjoy becomes a trend”. Unsurprisingly, I got a lot of answers saying that they get annoyed or frustrated, or they feel negative about it in some way. I was keeping track of certain age groups that filled out my questionnaire. The negative reactions were mostly from teenagers or younger people. This makes sense, as teenagers, we are at the age where we are actively trying to find out who we are, what makes us us, and how we should live our lives from now on. Erik Erikson called this stage of live ‘Identity vs. Confusion’. This is where teenagers work at refining themselves, test roles, and try to form their single identity, and there can even be confusion about who they really are. Teenagers enjoy fitting in, they also crave uniqueness, this is due to the forming of their identity.
Older generations tend to not care as much about trends. 68.8% of people said they sometimes find themselves participating in trends, and 27.1% of people said they don’t participate in trends. While “sometimes" is a reasonable answer, the 27.1% that answered no had to participate in multiple trends to answer that question. Those trends are using social media, the internet, and technology. 98.9% of people said they have a phone, which shows that having a phone is a trend. While there are adults out there that despise when things become a trend, it is more often that they just don’t realize how many trends they are actually participating in.
Fads and trends are everywhere. They are anything that is popular. Many people enjoy them and strive to fit in society, there are also people who despise trends, every song or artist that gets famous, every person that becomes famous etc. These things will always get negative reactions. However, if the need to drop something as soon as it gets popular, or the desire to turn away from trends becomes stronger and stronger throughout society, does this not make this concept a trend within itself? Is the need to stand out actually the way for people to fit in?
Comentarii