Thereâs a spider in your computer. Her name is Astrid. She heard the World Wide Web needed a World Wide Spider, but she needs some help getting to each place. Can you reblog her to help her get everywhere?
does your potential future spouse think it's reasonable for their mother to be involved in your family planning? or to make comments about your body? do you? how does your future spouse feel about girls and/or boys nights? situations involving exes? cancelling trips last minute? under what circumstances do they think it's reasonable to host somebody in your home and for how long? etc.
and the goal of doing this isn't to agree one-hundred percent on every single thing. it's to understand how you both view obligations, family, friends, finances, conflict, etc. and to make sure that even if you don't have the exact same perspective, you can understand where the other person is coming from without feeling like they're a crazy person. you have to be able to come to reasonable compromises and sometimes that involves one person fully caving, and sometimes it involves the other person fully caving, and sometimes it's both of you giving a little, but you need to understand what things you both are and aren't willing to compromise on because those types of situations are going to come up in a marriage.
also, since this has turned into actual advice: you should talk through why you think what you think, even when you agree, because you might not be agreeing for the same reasons.
Another factor is that some things are more important to one person than another.
If itâs very important to your partner to limit how long houseguests stay / have vegan utensils / that the dog does not get on the couch, but you donât particularly mind either way, thatâs one situation where just going with what one person wants is appropriate. Sure, Iâll keep the dog off the couch, not because I particularly care, but because it bothers my wife. Etc
I have a particular tone of âsure honeyâ that says âthat is not the decision I would make, but clearly this matters a lot more to you than me so do what you want and Iâll deal with it.â
These are all really good points. And can definitely be used to suss out whether or not your partner will have your back. Many of the situations, assuming theyâre real, prove the partner (usually male) isnât going to be cutting the apron strings or even consider taking your side in a debate. Or is unwilling to rock the boat, even when itâs appropriate; thereâs many stories of just wanting the partner to go along with mistreatment to keep the peace, with keeping the peace being more important than actually doing anything.
And as prev notes, sometimes it really is a matter of âwho cares moreâ
Hey fun fact, Russia is allowed to exist as a country, Russians as a collective to not bear any responsibility for what their government does nor are they required to risk their life to stop it. Russians are allowed to exist as a people and a culture. Talking about them like they're some cartoonishly evil orkish people does not actually solve anything. I am tired of seeing people borderline to genuinely calling for revenge genocide against a whole people it's gross.
"Tomato girl, that girl, clean girl, coconut girl, downtown girl, it girl, soft girl, dark feminine girl, light feminine girl, ballerina girl, coquette girl, cottage core girl, vanilla girl, strawberry girl, party girl, indie sleaze girl, west village girl, east village girl, french girl, italian girl, riviera girl, mermaid girl, rockstar girlfriend, trophy wife, old money girl, new money girl, office siren, pilates girl, yoga girl, beach girl, farmerâs market girl, e-girl, cool girl, weird girl
What was once a fun way to find your niche or like-minded people has now become a part of the cyclical hell now known as the micro trend. These âaestheticsâ used to be lasting and instantly recognisable like the more foundational subcultures that came before them, but nowadays weâre really just saying shit. What do you mean you can just order a whole pre-curated style package because a TikTok slideshow told you that youâre like soooo #y2k?A âcuratedâ Y2K TikTok shop package
Now the art of personal style is dying, and we all look the same.
Punk was a response to Thatcherite Britain. Rave culture was a reaction to the Criminal Justice Act. Goth emerged from post-industrial bleakness. These subcultures had music, politics, community; you didnât buy into them, you lived them. So what on gods green earth is Tomato Girl reacting to? A slow summer and a Pinterest board? What does coquette stand for politically? What is the Guinness moustache 2 dot swap boy rebelling against? Nothing.
Weâve kept the aesthetic shell of subculture and hollowed out everything that made it mean something.
And look, letâs not get too nostalgic about it, weâre not sat here pretending there was ever some golden age where fashion was pure and untouched by money. Malcolm McLaren was selling punk from a shop on Kingâs Road before half those kids even knew what they were rebelling against. Subculture and commerce have always been in bed together; obviously, thatâs not new. The difference is the speed; people used to spend years, genuinely YEARS, developing a look.
Trying things, abandoning them, finding a silhouette that felt like theirs, wearing something until it fell apart. Now you get three weeks before the algorithm decides itâs over, and youâre already behind. Itâs not that fashion got commercialised, itâs that the commercialisation got so fast and so all-consuming that thereâs no breathing room left to develop an actual point of view before someoneâs already packaged it, sold it and moved on.80âS PUNK IMAGE: SHIRLEY BAKERS
âNow the art of personal style is dying, and we all look the same.â
Now, back to my previous list of micro niche TikTok aesthetics or whatever you want to call them. I wonder if you may have noticed a word repeating itself a wee bit. Weâre no longer women, weâre now, in fact, perpetually girls. And honestly, I donât think thatâs an accident. A girl is easier to package than a woman, easier to sell back to herself, easier to reduce to a mood board and an Amazon storefront; a girl can be a Pinterest board. But a woman, she has contradictions and weird phases and a jacket sheâs had since she was seventeen that doesnât go with anything, but sheâll never get rid of, and quite frankly, thatâs a lot harder to shift units with. The word girl implies youth, softness, the kind of smallness that makes you easy to categorise and easier to market to. Which, if youâve been paying attention, is exactly the point.
As Rayne Fisher-Quann, aka the Internet Princess, famously stated in her essay âStanding on the Shoulders of Complex Female Characters,â
âItâs become very common online for women to express their identities through an artfully curated list of things they consume or aspire to consumeâŠthe aesthetics of consumption have in turn become a conduit to make the self more easily consumable.â
These âaestheticsâ previously known as subcultures are now entirely about consumption; itâs no longer about politics and musical taste but more about buying or being perceived as someone who might buy something. For example, the quiet luxury trend was not about actually being rich and being quiet and graceful about it, but in fact, the point was more for people to think that you might be.
And although many would argue, really, thereâs no such thing as personal style - cue the cerulean blue scene from The Devil Wears Prada - thereâs no denying that across all media, people both facially and in terms of fashion are all starting to look the same, slowly moulding into one big beige lip flip slick back bunned fox eyed blob. Yet to make ourselves seem original, we declare that weâre wearing these items in a different way than the âother girlsâ.
âIâm not wearing Ugg boots in a clean girl way, Iâm wearing them in an off-duty ballerina Slavic girl winter wayâ
Okay, girl, whatever you say. Either way, youâre still following the trend, and these big corporations donât care whether your shoes are being worn in a basic way or a coquettish way because the money is still going into their pockets.
Itâs become a performance of proximity, who got there first, whoâs wearing it in the right way or the new way, who is in the know, who started the trend or really gets the trend and who is just a follower, like seriously if I had a quid for everytime I heard or even said myself âbut they just donât GET IT like I doâ I would be lying on a beach in Thailand right now.
We speak of those with basic style as less than not for political reasons, or because we want to help the less fashion inclined, but because we want to inflate our own egos, we are better than you because we chose to follow a different trend. Although you may deem it as cooler, a trend is a trend, no matter the outcome.
And itâs not just how we dress, itâs who gets to be in the room. Thereâs a Reel doing the rounds at the moment thatâs said what weâve all been thinking â stop inviting the same rotating cast of freeloading influencers to everything and bring back actual curation.
Invite the film nerds to the screenings, the fashion nerds to the shows, and the music nerds to the listening parties. Right now, weâve got people who couldnât name a single track standing front row at gigs time and again that they got into for free, and will leave before the encore to make sure they get their post up while itâs still relevant. Proximity to a scene is not the same as being part of one. But I suppose when the whole point is just to be seen there, does it even matter if you give a shit what any of it is actually about? Apparently not, babes. Open bar, free food and a branded photobooth? Guess weâll see you at the next one.
Weâve now reached what people call cultural stagnation. To paraphrase Walter Benjamin, whenever the aesthetics become politicised, then fascism is in trend, when it seems like art, beauty and fashion have hit a wall because we keep repackaging the same shit. The average person is no longer developing their aesthetic taste, and nothing feels new because we only seek algorithmic approval, so our taste is intrinsically tied to whatever gives us the most social clout. After being told what is considered to be the pinnacle of beauty, we find ourselves all trying to wear the faces of Hailey Bieber and Kylie Jenner while trying to achieve the bodies of the likes of Gracie Abrams (convincing women to dedicate all their energy to worrying about their weight is a whole other conversation). And we really do sit and complain about âeverybody looks the sameâ until somebody actually looks different, then we hit them with the âGreek gods would go to war for you/ I love your confidence!â type comment section.
âStop inviting the same rotating cast of freeloading influencers to everything and bring back actual curation.
Invite the film nerds to the screenings, the fashion nerds to the shows, and the music nerds to the listening parties. Right now, weâve got people who couldnât name a single track standing front row at gigs time and again that they got into for free, and will leave before the encore to make sure they get their post up while itâs still relevant. Proximity to a scene is not the same as being part of one. But I suppose when the whole point is just to be seen there, does it even matter if you give a shit what any of it is actually about?â
We buy bags with pre-added charms and jackets that are pre-distressed because the trend cycles go so fast, our clothing doesnât even get the chance to feel lived in, everything is a signifier and canât just be worn because itâs loved, but more to show or prove that you are someone. If she wears tabis, sheâs a ârealâ fashion girl; she goes to art galleries and posts fit check TikToks with her photographer boyfriend; if she wears Arcteryx, sheâs chill, she drinks Guinness and goes on hikes for the gram. If she wears fur coats, she loves a messy night out, smokes tabs and is let in everywhere, no questions asked, because she knows the band. If she wears Tomâs trunks, she went to private school, loves drum and bass and goes skiing on the weekends.
None of those things have to be true; we just have to believe that they could be. Itâs like weâre all desperately trying to make a point about ourselves, and really weâre all just performative asf. And duh, life itself is a performance, but weâve essentially turned getting dressed into a personality test we administer to ourselves every morning, desperately asking, are we niche enough to be interesting but still hot enough to be desired, weird enough to have taste but not so weird that nobody wants to fuck us?
And when you actually clock what these aesthetics are, they are almost entirely built around a femininity that exists to be perceived. Not felt from the inside but read from the outside, filed correctly, appreciated from a distance. Somewhere along the line, the question stopped being how do I want to feel in my clothes and became will they get it? We absorbed the male gaze so young and so completely that we now curate ourselves for it voluntarily, document it ourselves, post it ourselves, tag the brand ourselves and call it self-expression. And babes, that is not self-expression, that is free advertising.
âAre we niche enough to be interesting but still hot enough to be desired, weird enough to have taste but not so weird that nobody wants to fuck us?â
Gen Z gets blamed for this, but it makes sense when youâve grown up in an attention economy that demands you be legible at a glance. Personal style used to be the accumulation of a life: a concert tee, a dead relativeâs coat, shoes worn down on one side. Now itâs a mood board made real, assembled to be read rather than felt. Weâre not getting dressed, weâre making a case for ourselves. Weâre at a point now where when we see somebody online showcasing their beautiful individual look, we are no longer inspired to find originality for ourselves, but instead find ourselves in comment sections demanding a step-by-step tutorial on how to copy the entire look.
And before you boys get too comfortable, youâre doing it too. The Salomons hiking boy whoâs never been further than the Peaks but owns three shell jackets and needs you to know he could survive a Norwegian winter. The moustache mullet patchwork tattoo guy who keeps his keys on a carabiner, the boy who wears vintage band tees and beat-up Sambas, whoâs definitely seen Fontaines D.C. four times and will tell you that every time you play âFavouriteâ. The raw denim enthusiast in full Oni selvedge whoâs been to Japan once, visited one workshop in Kojima, and hasnât stopped talking about it since. The record store guy in a deadstock flannel and New Balance 574s who needs you to know he has the original pressing and absolutely did not find it on Discogs. The âI donât really follow fashionâ boy who somehow owns every single piece from the Uniqlo U drop and is inexplicably head to toe Margaret Howell. The skater boy who hasnât been on a board since 2019 but exclusively wears Rassvet, Fucking Awesome and one very specific Supreme drop from 2017, he got resale. The âI just threw this onâ boy in a perfectly proportioned Rick Owens leather and Lemaire trousers, who, to make it clear, did not âjust throw it onâ.
Men have spent years mocking women for being trend-followers while quietly developing their own just as rigid aesthetic uniforms. The difference is they call it âhaving tasteâ rather than following a trend, which is somehow the most on-brand thing imaginable.
There was absolutely no need for us to reduce our interests to an aesthetic, to fit people into boxes. You are a complex, contradictory, multidimensional person; you are allowed to play and explore and like multiple styles of clothes and decor all at once. Not everything has to be curated to fit into a repostable TikTok. Unless itâs a really good one, in which case send it my way."
We need to bring back calling people posers. I'm not one to encourage bullying, but when everyone is being fake and performative, we need to call that out. I'm so tired of being punished for being genuine, and never following trends- how do people even have the money to do that, when everyone's poor and struggling?
You said it, not me đ€· I was just telling my partner the other day that we should bring back the word 'poser' for this exact reason.
I do think the word poser was pushed to the brink of extinction because people abused it and were pretentious about it back in the day. Like calling a teenage girl a poser because she had a budding interest in the alt scene that she was just starting to dabble in but hadn't fully committed to yet, or calling someone a poser because they liked a couple of Green Day songs but couldn't list the entire biography of all the band members. And it was often gendered, and was rightfully criticized for that.
But there is a difference between that and what this article is talking about. There is a difference between someone curiously dabbling in a subculture vs someone hallowing out anything that gives it meaning to just profit from it (financially or socially). So I propose we bring back the word poser, but use it responsibly this time.
When 2019âs VSCO aesthetic died, 2021âs more elevated âClean Girlâ fell just as quickly as it had risen, being replaced with 2024âs even more elevated âOffice Sirenâ. Trends move at such a fast pace that itâs getting harder and harder to know whatâs in style and whatâs considered yesterdayâs news. Whether youâre interested in a trend or not, itâll surely be out of mainstream within 2 years so if you want to keep your social media following, youâll ditch the hot pinks and purples of âindie-coreâ for the pastel pinks and soft greys of âballet-coreâ. It seems like nowadays everyone is just trying to be a trendier version of the person in front of them. Two girls are wearing the same fur coats and the same blue jeans but theyâre fighting for the cuter bag for their Instagram post. And while one girl may prefer a black bag, she knows the red bag will get her more likes. So she leaves the black bag behind.
All these microtrends raise the question, is personal style dead? Not necessarily. The issue now is, if someone with a personal style becomes popular enough on social media, their style will become a new trend. Then, once their trend surely dies, theyâll lose their popularity just as quickly. When Sex and The City first premiered people were doing everything in their power to become the real-life Carrie Bradshaw--a character known for her boldness and individuality. People wanted to dress like Carrie to be liked, entirely missing the fact that her personal style is what makes her so popular. Trends are meant to help influence and add to peopleâs personal style, not take it over completely. If youâre interested in the âmob wife aestheticâ, maybe invest in buying a thrifted fur coat to add to your wardrobe, donât rob Rosaria Inzerilloâs entire wardrobe just to keep your following. Only wearing microtrends doesnât make you unfashionable, it just makes you unoriginal. Anyone can pay to be fashionable, but style is in your blood. The next time you go shopping you shouldnât buy something because itâs on the rise now, you should buy it because it speaks to you. And if you love a current microtrend, you should keep wearing it even when it falls out of mainstream fashion.
This video is really great for this topic. She identifies a few from very recent (like. Barely last year.) and why they already feel "out" in record time. The most important part being her last 3 minutes where she talks about "trends" and how to identify them and what to really stick with if you really like it.
Her big point being, "Would I still wear this if no one else was? Where did I first see this? And did I like it at first or did I change my mind after I started seeing it everywhere?"
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