During some research in the past week I realised how similar meme culture and whatever we doom scroll through is to our more traditional art forms. Memes and social media posts always come from a similar place of expressing ones self and wanting to connect as any creative act is.
To me the new "Blockbuster" is social media trends. In the same way a big movie of the summer would introduce us to the next big stars, launching them in to the A list of fame, we now live in a time where the "blockbuster" is social media trend and the influencers are our actors.
Let's take the clean girl trend for example. Floating around organically online before it was tapped into by big brands and influencers. Once the rulebook is set for a trend like clean girl, influencers begin to method act this new way of life.
In the past we've watched a movie like Rocky to learn to never give up no matter the odds, now we get inspired by watching an influencer consistently get up at 5 am to exercise. Through these trends there are still important nutritional conversations and discussions being had around them just as we would over a controversial new piece of art.
While discussing this yesterday I realised that it hyper speeds our cultural learning. In the past where a decade was led by a certain cultural belief or rebelion, it wouldn't be till the next decade that a response would come in changing the cultural narrative. Now as soon as some bloke posts a video of him getting up to run at 5 am you can instantly tell him he's a fuckwit, leaving the comments open to debate on the current trends of hard work.
It's new and unfamiliar but I'm glad to be apart of it
- Simon
