I’m adding more whimsy into my life! Isn’t it kinda chic to be whimsical in your daily routine?
Here are some ways to add more whimsy into your fall season with the help of some pumpkin spice lattes and a crisp fall breeze!
If you were anywhere on Instagram, TikTok or Pinterest in the past six weeks, you would have definitely seen this viral trend exploding. Across every social media platform imaginable, the words “whimsy” and “whimsical” were popping up like wildfire. Videos with women in flowy dresses, buying flowers, and adding sprinkles into their lattes, just to make life more whimsical, more enthralling…but in a trendy way. With major content creators and celebrities also latching on, Gen Z seemed like we just could not get enough whimsy!
However, this was a few weeks ago. If I were to open my “For You Page” today, I would probably have to do some scrolling and searching to find a post in this so-called “viral” category.
So…where did all the whimsy go?
Our generation’s attention span is fleeting due to social media, and trends can shift overnight. Last week, everything was ‘whimsical’. Today, everything is ‘chic’. Tomorrow, who knows what it will be? This constant rotation of trends is what leaves us wondering which aesthetic is the true standard being advertised.
When a trend eventually dies out, what happens? Does all the hype it had once received disappear with it too?
It is a familiar cycle: internet trends, especially those targeted for women, usually enjoy six weeks of fame before being discarded for the next big thing. When content such as this is being produced, we are often creating more linguistic labels than we are descriptors. The words that appear in these posts begin to lose their meaning, eventually succumbing to nothing but a trend. Being a whimsical person is no longer about describing someone who is playful, fanciful or imaginative, but about a post you saw about adding plastic rhinestones to your coffee cup. Niche has become a label of “uniqueness”, but when everything is unique, is anything, or anybody ever really niche? The same goes for phrases like “self-care”. When everything is labeled with buzzwords, they begin to lose their true meaning and slowly become an algorithm pleasing tactic.
The lesson here isn’t about abandoning the word after it has done its viral cycle, but to reclaim the practice. Real whimsy or chicness can’t be packed into a reel that will eventually move on to its next obsession. It is about making the choice to embrace playfulness and spark your creativity once and a while. About choosing to craft your own style that brings you confidence and light into your day. Learning to chose how we use our language so that we are retaining linguistic meaning and not just feeding a algorithm will help us stay innovative and fuel real uniqueness and identity.
So, where did all the whimsy go? Nowhere. It just logged off. The internet may have found a new viral buzzword for the week, but we can work to keep whimsy off our screens and work to embrace life in its fullest.