Hot Takes #16: Algorithms Eroded Personal Style
TikTok feeds, Instagram grids and Pinterest boards are flattening personal style
Algorithms might streamline our lives here and there. But this finite set of instructions is policing individuality, eroding personal style one predictive suggestion at a time as we dress in mundane monotony.
Hot Takes is my bullet point thoughts on fashion's hottest issues. These posts get to the heart of why people are talking about what they’re talking about, what this means and where this could go next.
Think: what direction is fashion heading in? What’s new, innovative and exciting? What's going on in fashion that's really pissing people off?
Hot Takes ties fashion topics to a wider cultural and social context, digging into the often more significant meaning behind things.
So sit back, relax and let's get into it. Here’s Hot Takes #16.
Let’s set the scene.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how algorithms have affected personal style.
Take, for instance, the latest style or 'core' popping up on your For You feed. Was it yellow Onitsuka Tigers with a tartan skirt and Sandy Liang bows? Or was it a football shirt with baggy jeans, a slicked-back bun and Timberlands?
Or maybe it was a hot ticket item of the moment that everybody and their mothers seemed to have which means you had to have it too. For this, I am guilty — I own three of those Uniqlo nylon crossbody bags and I love them.
But I know it's not just me, the nature of fashion-fuelled algorithms means we’re all witnessing the same macro and micro-trends regurgitate at a pace no normal human being can keep up with.
Algorithms have transformed the way we shop.
TikTok, with its infinite algorithmically generated For You page, Instagram, with its suggested content and sponsored ads, and Pinterest, with its endless iterations of styles we've seen before, shows just how active social media is in curating and dictating personal style to the masses.
And for better or worse, this is the way the fashion landscape seems to be headed.
Screen time outfits prompt aesthetic ruts
“You can tell someone’s screen time from their outfit,” writer and fashion commentator Alexandra Hildreth tells Vogue Business. Hildreth has a point.
Fashion is playing a game of curation vs content, and that's all thanks to the algorithmic gods who dictate what shows up on our feeds.
It also has a little something to do with who we follow, whether that's a brand or a creator, and the level of screen time we spend interacting with them.
That's why aesthetics, cores, trending styles or whatever you want to call it, all end up looking a bit samey.
TikTok creator @mustbemargiela says it best when she describes how "when someone genuinely dresses in a unique way on this app, they're hated and the disposition towards their content is always rancid".
She goes on to explain how it is popular style that wins over personal style, and I’d bet money on that being the reason why we find ourselves in the algorithmic induced aesthetic rut we’re currently trapped in.
Hyperconsumist culture leads to overinflated demand
In the grand scheme of things, what begins as us flirting with certain trends, styles and aesthetics online has created a hyperconsumerist entanglement where algorithms play matchmaker.
They feed us ads of stuff we think we like without ever giving us a chance to figure it out for ourselves.
Algorithms push product. They have become a mirror that reflects back at us trends tailored to our quirks, digital dalliances and scrolling habits.
These trends, born from ideas and conceived from histories that never actually existed as they came from, you guessed it, algorithms, have created a culture of over-inflated demand.
Ideas are resold and repackaged in a carousel of perpetual reinvention which we buy into day in day out.
Because of this, we continue to purchase stuff we don't need and create never-ending wish lists, feeding into the personal style echo chamber where more equals better.
My two cents.
The days of a singular mainstream trend dictating our wardrobe choices are over.
Now, we navigate a vast ocean of curated styles, neatly arranged on TikTok feeds, Pinterest boards and Instagram grids.
What constitutes as 'good' personal style is everything everywhere all at once and it's cringe-inducing if you ask me.
Social media has flattened sartorial judgement with the likes of Tomato Girl, Coastal Grandma and Cottagecore spilling out from vacuum-sealed style bubbles into the greater collective consciousness.
Spending so much time online gives us a case of FOMO and we jump on these trends before considering whether or not we actually like them.
It's time for us to be wolves instead of sheep. And it's time for us to step away from the screens and think about what clothing we like and feel good in — and fuck what everyone else thinks.
Or as TikTok creator @jaredesg put it: "You ain't gotta be a clean girl one day and a mob wife the next. You can be all of that all at once without having to define yourself as an aesthetic."
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