From viral dance challenges to fashion crazes, social media is the platform that turns a simple idea into a global sensation within hours.
Trends fade away as quickly as they come into the spotlight – and somewhere along the way we even see repackaged style choices we once brushed aside. Y2K fashion has made a comeback among Gen Z in the last few years and low-rise jeans are now the new cool once again. In beauty, a simple French manicure has been renamed ‘Vanilla French Nails’, or the infamous ‘Latte Make-up’ which is just a fancy name for using neutral tones. The latest victim of this repackaging is the ‘Blueberry milk nails’.
In early June, Dua Lipa shared a photo of herself sporting a light blue manicure. Sabrina Carpenter and Sofia Richie Grainge posted shots of themselves wearing similar nail colours, and now blueberry milk nails are the “summer’s most wanted manicure”. But if you look closely, blueberry milk nails are simply just light blue nails, and nothing too innovative.
Critics are pointing out the absurdity of the trend, as well as social media’s penchant for overcomplicating the simplest of things. Some also attribute this phenomenon to the rapidly-growing beauty industry, where new trends evolve in seconds – but for the most part, social media’s culture of overcomplication adds to it.
As trends continue to spread like wildfire, the quest for more likes, shares and followers often drives people to overdo and overthink – and some think the beauty lies in simplicity. Over the last few years, this overcomplication seems to have reached its peak – every single choice we make is now labelled as different ‘-aesthetics’ or ‘-cores’. But many think that this tendency to categorise everything has taken away our individuality.
This phenomenon goes beyond nails too, and when it seeps into other fashion trends, especially clothes is when it becomes concerning. This acceleration of micro-trends has one major problem at its core – overconsumption. The trend cycle is now incredibly short, leaving your wardrobe feeling outdated within a year or even less. This rapid change not only affects your fashion choices but also leads to a massive amount of discarded clothes piling up in landfills. And it’s a natural human tendency to give in to trends, as research proves – because it saves us the effort of deciding what to buy. But it’s also slowly contributing to our own demise.
