Two fundamental ingredients are required for a trend to take flight: a measurable following and a name. In other words, to qualify a trend’s existence, one must be able to identify it through adoption by a critical mass and a descriptive label of some sort.
Furthermore, youth trends are uniquely intertwined with cultural movements. While this is nothing new (ever heard of the hippies?), today’s cultural climate - thanks largely to the impact of technology - facilitates memes that can be as fleeting as they are complex. Not unlike a social Long Tail, today’s young people can select from a veritable smorgasboard of ‘of-the-moment’ cultural movements with a greater expanse of corresponding sub-movements, anti-movements and even revival-movements than ever before. Yesterday’s Emo is today’s Hipster but only until infiltrating the mainstream. On the other hand, Fameballs and Fanboys only seem to thrive in large numbers.
Threebillion did a great job articulating this “circle of life”:
What is more fascinating is when someone gives the trend a name. Once named, the trend turns into a stereotype and it dies a natural (if sometimes painful) death.
Though despite often having the shelf life of a dairy product, these types of cultural movements should not be mistaken for fads. In fact, we think their very proliferation, evolution and digital cultivation is the trend.
And so, with new movements/memes/trends/fads sprouting up faster than ever before, perhaps the best way to look at labeling them is to realize that the nametag is essentially a double-edged sword: it will give them credence (as Hipsterunoff is attempting with the ‘ALT’ movement), while signaling their ultimate demise. After all, in the great trend game, loss of street cred is loss of life.
