Social Media is Killing the Individual
Lindsey Botkin | April 18, 2024
Bows. Pomegranates as a metaphor for cannibalism. Lana Del Rey. Coquette core. The Barbie Movie. Noah Kahn. The Eras Tour. “Girl dinner.” Eclectic grandpa. Heatless curls. Sephora-nine-year-olds. Colleen Hoover. Old Money Aesthetic. These are just a few of the micro-trends that flood our feed today.
Social media is killing our individualism.
Chances are, you have heard of one or more of the abovementioned things as you lay in bed scrolling before catching a few hours of sleep. Maybe you donned bows in your hair in December and January before they became as ubiquitous as the millennial mustache. Maybe you referred to all of your meals as “girl dinner” for some time.
Each of these things is a micro-trend — some aesthetic or “-core” that repackages items, looks, ideas and other things that we are already consuming in a bite-sized and easily likable fashion. These trends and music artists have become a simplified way for us to showcase 'who we are' to the world, overshadowing the complexity of the individuals behind the screens.
One of the more dominant trends of 2023 was “girlhood.”
Many have said that this trend was sparked by Taylor Swift's “The Eras Tour” and was prolonged by the release of “Barbie” in late July. However, we have seen these trends carried throughout the year with things like “girl-math,” “girl-dinner” and “Barbiecore,” which captivated audiences.
These trends not only reinforce gender stereotypes but also do so under the guise of 'reclaiming' girlhood. This act of “taking back” girlhood is an idea that marketing companies have sold to us this year, causing us to consume not only more media but also more material goods associated with these trends.
As we immerse ourselves in these trends, we often perceive them as intimately relatable rather than recognizing them as marketing aimed at specific audiences.
Am I saying that each video you watch on TikTok for five seconds is part of a big marketing scheme to get you to buy ribbons from craft stores? No, I’m saying these trends are shaped by narratives that guide us to define ourselves through material culture and consumption.
Initially, apps like Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok were designed for connection and sharing, but their evolution has shifted toward consumerism and curated identities. Summarized nicely in the 2020 Netflix hit “The Social Dilemma,” this documentary illustrates not only how the algorithm works, but also how it has learned to trap us into the pattern of thinking that has created the “micro-trend.”
With our attention spans shortened and our brains addicted to the dopamine that the scroll has conditioned us to long for, we are not only consuming media at a rate that is considered unhealthy by psychologists, but we are also literally buying into these trends; the more time we spend on the apps, the more ads we can consume, and the more of our time we are spending if you think in the context of the capitalistic society that we live in. Of course, that is the way that the algorithm works. It slowly feeds us the things that it thinks we will like based on what we interact with and what other people who match our demographic or are in our community also have engaged with.
According to Buffer, this is done by monitoring how long we look at an image, what we like, what we comment on and what we save. Social media has grown exponentially over the past few years, and with new platforms evolving to learn our likes and dislikes, it seems that they know our personalities and what trends we are most likely interested in — or fall victim to — before we even do.
This creates a huge problem.
If these platforms only make money when we sell our time to them, they will make their platform as addictive as possible to get as much of our time as possible. As demonstrated in “The Social Dilemma,” many individuals who initially worked on the design of some of the most popular apps have come forward with concerns about this exact thing.
Falling prey to these micro-trends has created a culture where users lose their individuality to what these platforms sell.
By following these trends, perfecting different looks and memorizing facts about what certain groups like or dislike, these apps have effectively trained us to consume information at high rates and move on quickly as soon as something better comes along. This has given a new meaning to the phrase “in one ear and out the other.”
As Generation Z, we have had access to these platforms and devices through our adolescence, and because of this, a large portion of our personalities are based on the content we have consumed. We have learned to associate our identity with “aesthetics” and material items rather than interests, experience and more.
Of course, social media is not all bad.
Niche groups have connected globally and found members who like similar things. This has allowed us to form communities regardless of distance or accessibility.
Living in a fast-paced and stressful environment perpetuated by the constant need to consume content, it can be easy to give into micro-trends. As you scroll through your feed or compose your next Instagram post, remember: you are more than a concept shaped by the products you consume.