We’re so boring. Both you and I—we have no individuality. We’re stuck in an endless cycle of nostalgia, remaking the same movies in three different fonts, extending TV shows for 21 seasons, and bringing back old clothing lines and calling them “vintage.”
Hollister’s new vintage line has been hyped up on TikTok immensely. But is it really new, or is it just old ideas and styles recycled from the 2000s because we can’t come up with anything original?
Everyone is so hyperaware of others’ lives through social media that we constantly overthink our own decisions because we spend so much time judging the decisions of others. This causes us to feel embarrassed about pursuing anything that we like. We overthink everything on a huge scale, down to whether the shade of our jeans matches our top. While that might be a valid concern, your reason for doing it should be to satisfy yourself and your personal style—not to play into what’s trending on TikTok. This hyperawareness is slowly killing our creativity and ability to express ourselves.
As a generation with access to so many tools and the opportunity to connect with others around the world, our goal should be to uplift those around us instead of putting them down. Our decision to constantly judge and criticize one another is killing creativity, preventing unique ideas from forming. Yet, whenever somebody posts a unique outfit, a different type of music, or anything that doesn’t align with today’s standards of “trendy,” people start judging almost immediately.
For many of us, the words “clean girl” fit our lifestyle. We slick our hair back and wear little gold hoops, but then we’re called basic. For those who don’t play into these trends and embrace their own style, they’re made fun of. I can’t remember the last time I saw someone online embrace their individuality without being hated on for it. By doing that, we’re fostering an endless cycle of embarrassment and killing creativity.
Our generation is creating a legacy for ourselves where we’re known for having literally nothing new. Think about it for a minute—what’s something new and iconic that you can name? There’s been no new iconic music, so we continue to listen to old Drake throwbacks.
Day by day, we are losing our creativity. It’s easy to blame our lack of originality on new digital tools like artificial intelligence, but we also have to acknowledge that this is an issue fully in our control. It’s up to us to embrace our styles, creativity and unique thought processes without letting external tools or people limit us.
However, we fail to realize that while recycling these old trends, we are killing our originality, the very thing that could take us from boring to iconic. Simply copying trends from earlier decades isn’t enough. We must start trying new things and sticking with what we like, even if it’s not what our friends or people online approve of.
By allowing this to continue, we’re taking away our freedom to embrace our unique styles, basic or not, and we’re left with no individuality. When future generations look back on us and our accomplishments, they won’t remember much, considering we’ve left them with nothing to remember.
