Related Recs

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brands have become identity

i think before tiktok or instagram there was a more homogeneous idea about what was cool bc magazines had a monopoly on the industry. now that the internet has democratized what gets to be cool there are different types of cool, which is the rise of different competing styles. but these styles aren’t really just about like “do you like low rise jeans” so much as they are “what do the low rise jeans say about you” which has caused a lot of aesthetics to be simultaneously tied to a specific identity, in turn marketing and influencing has become increasingly niche. i think that certain influencers becoming enmeshed in their aesthetics hasn’t helped either where if, for example, tara yummy recommended an eyeliner the goth girls would eat it up, but the clean girls might not care, bc that eyeliner would be contrary to not just their aesthetic, but identity. but if tara yummy was emily mariko the opposite effect would happen to both camps, if that makes sense. TLDR; niche aesthetics and microindivduality is killing mass marketing

@mdoinurmom

Feb 18, 2024

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realizing modern loneliness is partly due to encouraging, celebrating niche taste, thus decimating shared life experiences

Water cooler > niche crossover

@indianjones

Oct 13, 2024

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Earnest participation in subculture

the social internet (and rapid, inescapable commercialization thereof) makes it so that you are what you consume, not what you do, not where you go, not who you spend your time with. before if you bought the clothes or the gear without doing it or without being in community, you were a poser. if you monetized or commercialized that interest and put those incentives over expression and connection, you were a sellout. but that doesn’t exist anymore — democratization and anti-gatekeeping as both ideas and ends of an algorithm to maximize surface area for consumption have made it so that there isn’t a distinct authority on what you can attach to your identity or how you express yourself but if the extent of our agency in a democratized landscape is to only to consume more instead of producing or connecting, or to produce only to commodify ourselves for money or internet points, then maybe it’s a different kind of “being influenced by social trends rather than authentic interest” than going to a skate park, or an open mic, or a restaurant, or whatever because we heard about it somewhere and wanted to check it out, and de-centering the internet from what we see on it and how we engage with it is a way to make that healthier or more generative for ourselves, and can create beauty without immediately thinking about how to fit into a box along lines drawn by advertisers

@alaiyo

Jan 15, 2025

Top Recs from @kirbyvirgo

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IDC if you saw the blood moon

It should’ve been me

@kirbyvirgo

Mar 14, 2025

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Try applying to that one school

Yeah, the one you never thought you’d have a chance with? The one that only the rich kids can get into? Apply to it. You never know what could happen.

@kirbyvirgo

Mar 15, 2025

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Been really fixated on the troubles lately

I think the ghost of my paternal grandmother is haunting me and wants vengeance for her people.

@kirbyvirgo

Mar 23, 2025