anything goes with emma chamberlain - there is a culture shift coming (part 3: trends)

Episode Date: May 19, 2022

hey guys, i have two things to tell you: i have a swollen eyeball, and also, this is the last episode of our three part series on culture. today we’re talking about trends and trend cycles- and how they’re changing. once again, i don’t know, you guys, i don’t know if anything i am saying today makes sense, but hopefully one thing did. anyway, i think that the trend cycle is no longer working in the way that it once did and i think that it actually might be a good thing. we’ll see. love you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, I woke up this morning with a raging eye infection and I've actually never had one before or at least not in my teen and adult life. I've never had one. Let me tell you, it's very unpleasant. Like this shit hurts, okay. My right eyeball. And in fact, the whole right side of my face is just throbbing.

It hurts so bad. I bring this up so that when you're sitting at home today, or sitting wherever you're sitting today, listening to this episode, maybe you're in the car, maybe you're at work, maybe you're at school. When you're sitting and listening to this podcast today, just imagine me with an extremely swollen right eyeball. Don't imagine me just sitting all cute in my bed, you know, looking normal.

Imagine me with a very swollen right eyeball. I just wanted to paint that picture for you all. Now we can begin the episode. In today's episode, we are doing our third installment, and our final installment, of a three-part series that I've done about this culture shift that I've been feeling coming. Slash happening. In the first two episodes I touched on social media and then I touched on celebrity culture, slash celebrities. And in today's episode I'm touching on trends. Trends, meaning what's poppin' off. I'm so sorry. I regret saying it, but I'm gonna leave it in

because it's good for you guys to know that sometimes I'm cringe. You know, like we need to be realistic here. I usually like when I'm recording my podcast and I say something cringe, I just tell my editor to cut it, but I've decided that I'm recording my podcast and I say something cringe, I just tell my editor to cut it, but I've decided that I'm done with that. I'm gonna start leaving in me being cringe

so that we can all lower our expectations about my coolness. Okay, so I'm gonna start leaving in my cringe stuff. So yeah, as I said, trends are what's popping off, okay? No, the actual definition of a trend, specifically in culture, is a specific look or expression that is spread across a population at a specific time and place. A trend is considered a more...

What the fuck is that word? trend is considered a more... What the fuck is that word? Ephemeral. Sorry, I'm googling what that word means because I don't know what that word is. Oh, even Google doesn't know. Okay, so see that's a sign. Ephemeral. Ephemeral.

Okay. A trend is considered a more ephemeral look. Ephemeral meaning, lasting for a very short time, not defined by the seasons when collections are released by the fashion industry. So trends are something that are strictly dictated by the people and what they're into at a given moment. And I feel like in the past, you know, throughout history, trends have seemed very distinct.

When you look at the 60s, for example, you might think of the sort of hippie trend, if you will. That's like a very generic example, but I mean, it was a real thing that happened. Or maybe if you look at the 70s, you might think of the disco trend. And if you think of the 80s, you might think of the neon colors and geometric shapes.

Like for every decade leading up to now, there's been very distinct trends happening with clothing, most obviously, but also with other things. Throughout history, there's been trend cycles with food as well with appearance, hair, makeup, home decor, cars. Like, there's been trends with everything. with appearance, hair, makeup, home decor, cars, like there's been trends with everything. It's not just with clothing, it's not just with fashion. If you think about every decade up until now,

you could probably point out the different trends that were happening during that time pretty easily. And those trends were pretty distinct. Or if you didn't know about what trends were going on during a certain decade, you could Google it and look at images and find very distinct aesthetics happening, right? Like you could find very distinct trends happening, whereas you look at today and I don't know what the biggest trends of today are.

I couldn't point out one specific trend of the 2020s. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's so much going on. There's so many different trends happening at once. And there have already been so many trends come and go throughout the 2020s that I couldn't pinpoint one specific thing. I mean, don't get me wrong. There are some micro trends that have happened that I would say are distinct, micro trends that have happened that I would say are distinct, but they've come and gone so quickly that I have a hard time believing that they're going to make their stamp in history like the way that trends used to back in the day.

Before we go any further, I'm going to explain the life cycle of a trend, okay? It starts out with an introduction to the people. Okay. Something can't become a trend if it's never introduced to the general public. So usually this introduction will come from a celebrity or somebody who's influential, right? They'll do something, they'll wear something, they'll post about something. That's step one. Step two is that consumers, us, look at that one thing and are like, oh, I kind of like that. Like, I want that.

So then we all go out and we buy it. The third stage is that this trend peaks. It hits its peak. The amount of people that are going to buy it hits its peak. The amount of people that are gonna buy it have bought it. Like, it's reached its point where it's the most popular that it's ever gonna be for this time, right? Then inevitably, because so many people have it,

stage four is that it starts to decline and people no longer think it's cool, they're no longer excited about it because they either bought it and ended up getting bored of it and just like getting rid of it or they never really quite understood the trend and they never quite liked the trend

so they never participated and they're continuing to not participate as the trend declines and they're actually excited to participate as the trend declines, and they're actually excited to see it go. And then stage five is that whatever this trend is becomes completely rejected. People don't like it. It becomes very uncool to have this thing

because it's already run through its life cycle. And if you have it, or you're participating in it, at this point, you are now out of fashion and you are late and that's the trend cycle. Now, in history, trend cycles, I believe, used to be more distinct and more long-lasting because this trend life cycle took a lot longer to happen.

Let me explain. Prior to the internet age, prior to the social media age, a trend would be introduced to the public probably by some sort of media, maybe it was a magazine, maybe it was something on TV, maybe it was a radio station, whatever. Something would be introduced to the public. And then slowly but surely, consumers would hear about it. But people used to consume media a lot less. They used to listen to the radio a lot less.

They used to watch TV a lot less. They used to look at magazines less than they, because it was less accessible. Whereas when you're on your phone, you can open up your phone and look at Instagram. You can look at Twitter, you can look at TikTok, you can go and read articles, you can go and look at magazines. Like you can look at anything at any given time very easily.

Whereas before that, there was exposure to media sources, but people were participating in them far less because they weren't on their phones. They didn't have their phones to check up on what's going on when they're in the line at the supermarket or when they're waiting at the doctor's office or when they're lying in bed. Like, there was less

ease in participating in the media, I guess. So the growth of a trend from the consumers after the point of the introduction took a little bit longer because things didn't move as fast because people weren't consuming media as frequently. Back in the day though, the life cycle was still the same. It would still hit its peak and it would still decline and it would still be out of fashion. The whole life cycle was the same. The only difference was it just took a lot longer to happen.

As I just explained, the introduction took longer. The growth took a lot longer. Hitting its peak took a lot longer. The decline happened slower and it fully phased out after a longer period of time. This simply being because word just used to spread a lot slower. Whereas now that we have social media and we have our phones and we're texting each other all the time and we're talking about stuff all the time and we're seeing so much more content,

especially with TikTok, the process of a trend has just continually sped up more and more until now where I feel like we've reached a point that the trend cycle happened so fast that I don't know what's going to happen. It can't go any faster. So what's going to happen? The trend cycle nowadays is like somebody, it could be anybody, post about something on

TikTok. That TikTok goes viral. A bunch of people order it, possibly within less than a week, everybody gets the product within maybe two weeks. It hits its peak within probably two weeks. And then by the end of the month, it's out of fashion. Like, that is how quickly trends happen now. Whereas before, it was over the span of months and possibly even years. I think one interesting point was that back in the day,

trends kind of had to be decided by celebrities and things like that. Celebrities were the only people that were highly visible by the people. And so what the celebrities were doing used to very heavily dictate the trends and pretty much solely dictate the trends. A kid sitting next to you in math class couldn't start a trend because they didn't have the reach to start a trend.

They could maybe start a trend throughout your school. They could start like a micro trend, but they couldn't start a worldwide trend. Pretty much the only people who could do that prior to now were celebrities. Whereas now, anyone, any trend can go viral. It doesn't need to stem from a celebrity. Anybody who has a phone can now start a trend, right? And this

means that there's millions more chance of a trend starting because you might be scrolling through your Explorer page on Instagram or your TikTok for you page and see some random person that you don't know that is not necessarily a celebrity doing something that you think is cool. And you might like the photo, you might like the TikTok, and you might start doing that yourself. Well, the chance of somebody else stumbling upon the same photo and doing the same thing is highly likely because the circulation of content on the internet is so vast and wide that things can just go viral

so quickly. And the algorithm knows too. Like that's another thing that I think feeds the trend cycle, is that the algorithm knows when something's gaining traction. So then it'll start to push it to more people that the algorithm believes we'll find interest in a certain thing. So that's why shit can spread so quickly without it stemming from a celebrity. It does not need to stem from a celebrity anymore. And that makes the whole process so much less controlled.

Back in the day, it was all controlled by the media, by like the radio stations, the TV shows, the magazines. It was all based on that, whereas now, the root inspiration of a trend is virtually impossible to trace sometimes. For a long time, the trend cycle was really fast. You know, it was like, you see something, you like it, you think about buying it, maybe a month later, you end up caving and you buy it,

and then like six months later, it's stale. And that's pretty quick. But now, I feel like we're at a point where it's so fast that by the time you buy something it's already stale. I'm going to use the example of this one dress. It was like this one green dress that went viral on TikTok. I don't know if you know what dress I'm talking about, but it doesn't really matter because

it's more serving as a symbol rather than, you know, you don't need to know the context of the dress to understand what I'm saying here. There was a screen dress and it's a very cute dress, right? It's very cute, fair enough. It went viral on TikTok because everybody was buying it, a lot of celebrities were wearing it, and then a lot of people on TikTok started buying it and unboxing it. And that's when it really, really went viral. And then a bunch of people bought this dress. And then by the time it came in the mail, everybody on TikTok was already talking about how this

dress was stale. And that this dress is like not the thing anymore. And this whole thing happened in under a month, the dress blowing up and then the dress just dying down and becoming out of fashion completely. The whole process happened so quickly that by the time majority of people actually got the dress, it was no longer cool to wear it and then they were like, what do I do? I think another reason why the trend cycles happen so fast now is because of how quickly things can be shipped as well. Because it used to be that it took some time for things to be shipped to your home. If you saw something in a magazine or somewhere, TV, radio, whatever, you saw something or heard about something that you wanted to buy, it wasn't like, radio, whatever. You saw something or heard about something that you wanted to buy.

It wasn't like, oh, I'm just gonna whip out my phone and Google it and then find it and then order it. It wasn't like that. It was like, oh, I need to go to the mall and I need to try to find it. Maybe it's sold out. Bummer, I'm gonna have to wait until next week when they restock.

Or it was like, oh, I need to mail in an ordering slip so that I can order this product through the mail. There was no ordering online before. Ordering online has sped up the trend cycle, single-handedly, probably by 50%. No, maybe even more. I don't know, I'm not good at stats. I didn't take statistics in high school. But it's definitely sped the whole process up. Because not only can you now order things

from pretty much anywhere, as long as you have your phone on you, but also things come so quickly. You can get something to your house in sometimes as fast as 12 hours if you order within the ordering window. Like, I've been checking out on websites and see a little bar pop up that says, order within the next three hours and you'll receive by tomorrow

morning. Like, that's insane. You know, like, that speed is insane. And so that's another reason why these trend cycles are just moving quicker and quicker, is that like, you can just get stuff so fast. Listen, here's the thing. All of this to say, everything feels stale now. Everything, every trend feels stale now. It almost feels like nothing feels new. Nothing feels exciting. I remember when I was growing up and a new trend would pop up, it would feel so new, so fresh, so exciting. I remember when I was growing up and a new trend would pop up. It would feel so new, so fresh, so exciting. And I would get this feeling that I just needed this one thing. And recently I feel like that feeling has gone completely away. Material items

have lost their allure for me personally. And I think it's probably happening to a lot of other people too, because I think a lot of people are starting to realize that number one, it's only gonna last for maybe a month whatever this trend is. And number two, there's only so many inventions of trends that can happen before innovation runs out. Do you know what I'm saying? Like, I don't feel like there's been any new trends recently that have felt innovative to me.

I haven't seen anything pop up where I'm like, ooh, this is new and fresh. Everything either feels like it's trying too hard to be a trend, or it feels like it's just a revival of a trend that's already happened. And that can either be really corny, or it can be cute, but not that exciting, because it doesn't feel new at all. I don't know, I just don't feel like anything feels new and fresh. I started feeling this probably a just don't feel like anything feels new and fresh.

I started feeling this probably a year ago, this feeling of staleness, and just absolute discouragement about self-expression as a whole. I really hit this point as an individual like a year ago where I was like, I don't even wanna participate in the trend cycles of anything anymore, because everything just feels boring and stale.

I especially felt this with like my appearance. So that being like clothing and hair and makeup, like I especially felt it there, because for my whole life, I've always loved participating in the trend cycle, whether it's following the trend cycle or it's completely rejecting the trend cycle. I've always loved the fact that it's there. And it's always fascinated me and excited me. And whether it's like trying to start a new trend within my smaller community, or it was following a trend that I saw

and enjoying it that way. Like I've just always loved that part of our culture. And about a year ago, I was like, I hate it now. I don't wanna be a part of it at all. I don't wanna try to start a new trend and I also don't want to be a part of it at all. I don't want to try to start a new trend and I also don't want to participate in the existing trends. Like, I just don't care anymore.

Like, I hate all of it. And I honestly had this moment where I was like, I kind of want to be like a minimalist when it comes to the overall style and expression of my life. Like, I wanted to get rid of everything I owned and just own like a pair of red converse, a pair of dog martens, two pairs of leave eyes and a bunch of different white t-shirts,

maybe a long sleeve, maybe a short sleeve, and then maybe a tank top, and then maybe like one gray hoodie. Like, I was like, that's all I want. I don't wanna wear anything else. I don't care about self-expression anymore. It's so oversaturated, it's so boring. If you're on trend, then you can expect to be not cool

in about a month, and if you're not following the trend, and you're trying to start a new trend, good luck, because trying to do something that hasn't already been a trend within the past two years is like virtually impossible because everything has come and gone so rapidly that almost every trend that's ever existed, it feels has happened within the span of two years. I don't know if that's dramatic or just like me feeling that way, but it almost felt impossible to do anything right. It felt impossible to be cool in a way, like to feel unique at all, because it felt like everything had already been done. It was like

impossible to do anything new or to part to his bed in a trend in a way that felt exciting. It just was weird. It was just weird. It was like everything felt stale. But then more recently, I've started to feel excited about self-expression again, about wearing clothes that are, you know, a little bit unique, not just wearing a uniform every day. That's like jeans and a t-shirt and blah, blah, blah. Like I've started to feel excited about expressing myself again, doing my makeup in unique ways. I recently bleached my hair and chopped it short, like whatever.

I like, I've been excited about that whole world of it all, you know, the whole self expression world of it all. I think where it came from was, I got to this point where I actually stopped paying attention to the trend cycles altogether. And instead, I started making decisions based on nothing but what I like, okay? So instead of going shopping with trends in mind,

like I used to, I used to go shopping and I used to make aesthetic decisions, if you will, based on what the trend was. So if I like the trend, I would participate in the trend. I would buy the things that went along with that trend. And if I didn't like the trend, then I would do the complete opposite and I would reject it completely and go 180 degrees and try to like do something completely the opposite of the trend, then I would do the complete opposite and I would reject it completely and go 180 degrees

and try to like do something completely the opposite of the trend. But I always had the trend in mind. Whereas now, I have completely shut out what the trends are. I have just stopped looking altogether. And so when I go shopping or when I decide to get a haircut or whenever I'm making some sort of decision with my self expression, I'm going strictly based off what I like, just what I like.

That's it. I'm not thinking about anything else. I don't even know what's trendy right now. Like if somebody were to ask me like, Emma, what's trendy right now, I actually don't know what's trendy right now. Pretty much don't know what's trendy right now. Pretty much everything and nothing all at the same time. So I'm making decisions based off of my own personal taste that I've developed over the course of my life.

And I'm trying to choose things that I feel like I'm gonna like for a long time. A really fun way to do this is to buy vintage because when you go into a vintage store, there's no trend racks. There's no bias of like, you know, what the trend is right now. What you find at a vintage store could be a trend from fucking 70 years ago. You know what I mean? And then you might buy something else that was a trend 20 years ago.

And then you might buy something that was never really a trend. It's just fucking weird. Like you find a little bit of everything. And I think when you take trends from the past and you mix and match them, only then are you really truly doing your own thing and listen this is not to say that there's anything wrong with following trends I I followed trends many times in my life I'm probably following trends without even realizing it right now but because trends have lost their distinction and have lost their excitement in order for Self-expression to be exciting again. It has to just come from the heart

Whatever you're doing just has to come from the heart. It can't come from this desire to fit in because Unfortunately the desire to fit in is Rarely going to be met anymore If you want to fit in nowadays you have to move so fast anymore. If you want to fit in nowadays, you have to move so fast that it's virtually impossible. So in order to be excited about expressing yourself, I think you have to go and kind of do your own thing. You have to just base your choices on what excites you. And that's it. Because I really think that the distinct trends that we once experienced in history are over.

I don't think that the trend cycle can last much longer. I think that the way that it occurs is going to change a lot. I think that the trend cycle that we discussed earlier is never going to fully go away. But I think that it's going to be less powerful than it once was. Because I think people are going to start to realize that it's just impossible to keep up. And so instead of trying to keep up, I think that we're going to see that instead of there being 10 big trends of a decade, there are going to be hundreds of trends every decade. And I think this is actually really cool

because I think that this is going to force people to be a little bit more thoughtful about the trends that they follow. I think that instead of hopping on to every single trend that comes out, people are going to be a little bit more picky and a little bit more choosy about what trends that they decide to follow, which will result in a lot more diversity in what clothes people are wearing, what types of foods people are eating, the ways that people are doing

their makeup, the ways that people are doing their hair, there's going to just end up being so many more different micro trends, because when the whole world decides to follow one trend, it just gets stale too quickly. I think people are going to start making decisions more thoughtfully, because I think that we got to a point where everybody was just trying to follow trends so rapidly that they were just ordering cheap, badly made pieces of clothing and hair products and this and that just so that they could follow the trend in time and could afford it because the other thing is if you want to follow the trend cycle, it's expensive unless you're buying cheaply-made shitty stuff, right? So it's like, I think a lot of people right now are left with a bunch of cheaply-made shitty

stuff in their closet that's now out of fashion. And I think everyone's kind of waking up, like, wait a minute, this is not fun. This is not going to work. We can't do this. I hope to see people wait longer before they decide to follow a trend. And when they do, go and try to find it in a thrift store, go and try to find an evented store, order, you know, a high quality version of whatever this trend is, something that's going to last you for 10 years. And buy something that is less of a trend and

is more just something that excites you and that you might even wear for years to come. You know, I think that this is a really exciting opportunity for us all to feel a little bit more individual again, maybe, because it's not as easy to be cool and in style as it once was. It almost feels like what's cool and in style. Nowadays is doing something different. Like the only time I see an outfit or a hairstyle and I'm like, damn, that's really cool. Is if it's something that's uniquely that person

and the way that they're doing it, the way that they're rocking it is like completely them. That's the only time I ever see someone and I'm like, that's badass. And that's the only time I feel cool is when I kind of mix and match stuff from various different decades and whatever and make it my own, that's the only time I ever feel.

Like I'm expressing myself properly and it's exciting to me. I don't know you guys. I don't know if anything that I just said made sense, but I think that the trend cycle is no longer working in the way that it once was. And I think that this is a really exciting opportunity for all of us to kind of go our own way because it's never been more appreciated to go your own way because in all honesty like

That's the most sustainable option is to do your own thing because if you're doing your own thing That'll never get old and if you're like, you know what fuck all. I don't even want to participate in any form of like self expression when it comes to you know, my appearance or whatever. I just want to like, exist. I don't really want to deal with this. Then ditch the whole thing all together. That's another thing that I think a lot of people are probably going to end up doing. They're just going to be like, you know what?

I just want to pick out a daily uniform. Same pair of jeans, same pair of shoes, same, you know, type of shirt, same type of jacket every day. I'm just going to wear the same thing every day. And I don't even want to try to like go outside of the box or follow the trend or do anything. I don't want to participate in that thing at all. I just want to do my own thing and do it every day and just ignore it ignore the whole Thing altogether then great

But I think that that's the only way At this point I think you either have to create a uniform for yourself that you wear every single day or You take the trends that you like from today you take the trends that you like from today, you take the trends that you like from years past, and you combine it into your own funky thing that you love, that's the only way to fully stand out nowadays because following the trends is just not gonna do it. You just can't keep, nobody can keep up anymore. And maybe at some point,

there just won't even be trends at all. Maybe at a certain point, all the trend cycles will die. And instead of there being these distinct trends, it's just gonna become a thing where it's like, your bucket of styles to choose from is everything that's ever happened. Every single trend that's ever happened, every single type of,

every single piece of clothing that's ever been created. Instead of it being like, oh, this isn't cool anymore, it's like, no, nothing is really cool or not cool anymore. It's all just in this big melting pot of everything that's ever been worn and created. That's the bucket to choose from

because there's been so many trends and because it's sped up to a life cycle that's so fast and short, that now there's no such thing as one individual piece being cool or not cool anymore. Everything's just in a neutral position and the way that you mix and match everything determines whether or not it's cool based on just how you rock it. Maybe it's going to become something like that where it's like, I don't know, I don't know. Anyway, you guys, this was my third and final

episode about the culture shift that's happening. If you haven't listened to the first two episodes, go check them out. First one is about social media. Second one is about celebrity culture. Go check it out if you want. First one is about social media, second one is about celebrity culture. Go check it out if you want. This little three-part series has been very fun for me. I hope that you guys enjoyed it. If you did, let me know, tweet at me, send me a DM on Instagram.

The Instagram is at anything goes, and the Twitter is at AG podcast. Follow anything goes on any platform that you stream podcasts, leave a review if you feel like it, check out my coffee company, chamrolinecoffee.com. I'm unfortunately in a hotel right now and I don't have any of my own coffee left. It's seriously bumping me out. I might have to order some to my hotel. Is that extra? Maybe.

Might do it anyway. Anyway, thank you guys for listening and hanging out. I love and appreciate all of you so much. And we'll talk in the next episode. Love ya.