Brat VS Demure?

Are you having a brat or a demure summer? We want to talk about the lifecycle of a trend this week. 

Not very mindful of us to start without explaining what’s going on! If you’ve been online the last few months, you’ll have noticed everyone was having a brat summer - brat being the title of Charli xcx’s album, which has now turned into a lifestyle and aesthetic. The album promotes being hedonistic and living your authentic life by drinking whatever you want (and we’re not just talking about water) and feeling free. Think - gritty 90s/00s, smudgy black eyeliner and wearing underwear as outerwear.

We were convinced we wanted to be in the business of having a brat summer partying and living our best lives until the hangover finally wore off and Jools Lebron came on the scene a few short weeks ago… 

“You see how I come to work? Very demure, very mindful” has been played over and over on a loop in our office, Jools’ catchphrase suddenly shaking us out of our brat stupor. The trend, sparked by the use of the word “demure,” became the internet’s newest beast, which happens to be the polar opposite of a brat summer. 

Instead of living “our life von dutch” we sobered up, put our sunglasses away and got ready to embrace our demure and mindful side. The main idea behind this trend is being considerate of the people around us, and being mindful of how you present yourself to others. So instead of our brat summer of partying without a care in the world, it became time to flip sides and become self-aware of our actions and how they affect others. VERY mindful! 

This made us think about the lifecycle of a trend and how we can swing from one to the other seemingly overnight. One minute we’re partying 365 and learning the apple dance (another Charli trend), and the next we’re slating green cut creases and being very mindful. So how do we go from one to the other? 

As we know, the definition of a trend is a video that has been widely disseminated, so is it just luck? How do we, the people, decide what’s good or not? It’s a cumulative effect; you get sent a video, you then send it onto to two people, and those two people send it onto x amount and so on and so forth. So it's based on recommendations and how many times we get sent something, but that's a bit too simplistic. Let's not forget we are also creatures of habit, we see how many likes and comments a video has and that plays into our subconscious - we are more likely to like, comment and share a video that has a good amount of likes already. 

There’s also the very good point of the “corporate ick” which is when big brands take on the viral trends we know and love they immediately become over by our standards, it’s no longer seen as fun and light-hearted. This is a good lesson to learn, not every trend needs to be jumped on, keep it relevant and light - avoid giving your audience the ick!

So it seems we move seamlessly from one trend to another these days, the lifecycle of a trend doesn’t seem to be overly long, they can switch up daily depending on the trend and platform. But the longevity and legacy can last long after the trends are seemingly over.

As trends are essentially chosen by us the people, it’s nice to see that a virtually unknown creator Jools can achieve the same notoriety and virality as a long-standing artist like Charli, which again is the beauty of the people choosing the trends. "We made the right person famous", "get the bag sis", are common phrases on Lebron's videos, and the support is only growing, all thanks to a trend! 

Trends VS memes?

We love memes, you love memes, the internet loves memes. And this love means that they persist years after they were created, and even after the downfall of Vine (RIP), vines are still quoted. So why do memes have longevity over internet social media trends?

The inner cynic in us want to say its because we’re overloaded with video content these days and we consume everything so quickly so trends move quicker to keep up with our appetites. Whereas memes tended to be static images with plain text overlaid, a quick Tweet or Facebook post were the height of sophistication back in the day, but they're still popular today, whereas TikTok trends aren't afforded the same status.

TikToks have been described as "music-first memes" where trending audios are the key rather than the text. So with this new classification and the bank of videos under each sound, means that in theory people move on quicker as they are targeted by clever algorithms showing them the same audio with different creators, causing the interest to wane quicker. 

So, some food for thought this week: Have you had a brat or demure summer? Both or neither? Do you miss Vine? We definitely do…