For the past two years, the Instagram account Hot Ticket UCSB has garnered many fans and much attention from UCSB students. The Instagram consisted of pictures (sneakily taken by an anonymous account holder) of UCSB students walking past the Arbor on campus. Hot Ticket praised students for their revolutionary style, and thus being featured on it was something of a badge of honor.
I remember clicking through the account, liking the posts that gave me outfit inspo, and reposting and commenting when I would see one of my friends featured. Hot Ticket was new. Hot Ticket was cool.
I would make jokes whenever I walking past the Arbor such as, “Do you think the Hot Ticket girl is out there right now?” and I even knew people who would dress up on the days they had classes on that side of campus, hoping to be featured on their walk. Professors and instructors were also frequently featured in their cool, fresh looks. Hot Ticket pushed the UCSB student demographic to improve their style because being praised on Hot Ticket made you a celebrity for a day (I’m not kidding — being posted on Hot Ticket was a big deal).
It’s cool seeing and keeping up with the latest trends on campus. Motivating the public to push their style boundaries does not happen as the result of a single trend — Hot Ticket was more of a movement.
While the students who ran the Instagram account were always a mystery, last year they posted their final post: a farewell to Hot Ticket. There is now a question of whether the style at UCSB has gone downhill since the account holders graduated.
The presence of Hot Ticket UCSB pushed students to not only upgrade their own style but to stay on top of what was “cool” and “hip.” The interesting part about the styles that were spotlighted was that when asked about them, the wearers would talk about how they built their unique styles by going thrifting or second-hand shopping for unique items.
Not only are thrifting and second-hand shopping more environmentally friendly than consuming from major retailers, but it allows people to express themselves in a more personal and unique way than ever before.
Hot Ticket increased the hype on thrift culture, further encouraging students to make their styles more unique and more sustainable, myself included.
Chunky shoes, big headphones, oversized sweaters, knee-length denim shorts are all trends I didn’t ever think would be as popular as they are now, or honestly even ever. It wasn’t until Hot Ticket popularized these trends that now not only do I see basically everyone engaging in them around campus, but I even follow them myself!
Besides inspiring others to upgrade their personal styles, it was also exciting to see other students posted with styles very different from my own. Seeing something rock a unique look was a very special part of the community Hot Ticket was able to create.
I personally don’t think that Hot Ticket’s absence on campus is hindering UCSB student’s styles; I think it helped pave the way for the how students dress and style themselves every day.
Now when I sit in front of the Arbor, I see students walk by and remember the hold Hot Ticket had on UCSB’s student population. As I admire my classmates’ outfits, I think about how I would decide who to post if I were the Hot Ticket account holder.
While Hot Ticket is gone, it has certainly left a legacy here at UCSB. Students just like myself reminisce on how fun it was to be a fan of the account, and we continue to carry on its legacy of unique style at UCSB.