Trendy Online Content - Creative Theft or Inspired Work?
Introduction
Trends permeate all aspects of our lives, and perhaps it’s no more obvious than in our culture. Everything from fashion, and music to internet memes and philosophy. In our day-to-day, we are affected by trends whether we like it or not and it doesn’t matter what subculture we move about in - trends are everywhere and even in our closed communities ways of thinking and expressing follow the stream of the movement. Trends are a natural part of human social culture, it’s a spreading of ideas that expand beyond the individual’s reach and it affects several other aspects of human life. Trends in music dictate not only what songs are played on the radio but also what music is used in movies, video games and so forth. Trends dictate what type of art, science and philosophy receives monetary funding and the necessary momentum to change the cultural landscape. Whatever the collective human consciousness shines its spotlight of attention on receives the necessities to fulfil and manifest those ideas. Because of the trends in philosophy and ideology, we’ve seen the rise and fall of empires, we’ve seen revolutions and the course of human history has been changed because of it. Today we’re going to be looking at the microcosm of it and not the macrocosm.
Trends in culture and artistic content affecting us on a smaller level, involving both creators and consumers - we’re also going to be asking the question of where the line is drawn between following trends and artistic theft. Can we follow trends without plagiarising or is all trend-following inherently plagiarism? What effect does following trends have on our creative minds and will the digital algorithms dictating our workflow be the death of originality?
Copying and following trends becomes plagiarism when all your creativity involves following what’s popular. When you’re too tired to do any actual work and your laziness only allows you to copy the homework of somebody else. When all you do is the same as others because you see their success and think “I can do that as well” then you’re a content thief. There’s a lot of artistic and cultural vultures out there and a lot of them live well off the decaying works of art. There’s nothing wrong with being inspired and sometimes people take trends and create something new out of them, it’s very possible to tell when a person is inspired and creates something trendy out of their own will or if they just mindlessly do it because everyone else is doing it. You can tell when somebody rides a wave because they love it or if they’re desperately trying to get approval.
Riding the Waves
Trends come and go and some people find a great deal of success riding the waves of trends. To find success in our digital landscape one has to be willing to make great sacrifices for the algorithm - an eldritch being that feasts on trends and analytics. Art has been corrupted and perverted by the need to appeal to everyone on a platform and to hit the right hashtags, the right topic and to religiously keep up to date with the latest in the zeitgeist. It doesn’t matter what kind of content you create - whether it’s art, music, videos or anything else and it doesn’t matter on what platform it is either, if you wish for it to succeed it seems your only way is to follow trends. That’s what everyone keeps telling you - just use these tricks and ride the waves of popularity and in no time you will be discovered and your work cherished.
A constant need to stay on top of the trends and to stay up-to-date with the latest can be not only soul-crushing but lead to serious burnout, hindering creative and personal progress altogether for a long while. Another problem that we can run into if we only seek to follow others and attach ourselves to new trends is that we lose sight of ourselves and our work, we become mute mimics who lose their voices and can only imitate. Our creative muscles decay and we lose any ounce of personality and creativity we have, and more importantly, we can lose the joy of art and self-expression.
If you only create for the joy of others you’ll neglect your own needs and it will make you miserable. You should create art because you enjoy it and because it’s what you want to do, you shouldn’t make a song or write a text with the thought that others have to like it or that it has to appeal to the algorithm so that others will experience it. If your art is powerful enough to move others it will reach the people it needs to reach, what is yours will never be missed. Stay true to your work and yourself and don’t let others dictate the work you do - you can’t work to appeal to others, and you can’t work to try and follow or predict trends, people don’t know what they want and you can only do your best and what you love and hope it reaches the right audience. Protect your creativity and originality, your worth as an individual isn’t determined by your likability and mass appeal.
Chasing trends and popularity will drain your willpower and energy completely, but if something you love and enjoy is trending then don’t stop doing it just because of that. Seize the moment and ride that wave, but don’t drown trying to catch every single wave that comes your way.
The Creeping Death of Creativity
We become listless and lazy when we are preoccupied with quick success and immediate gain. We impatiently try to take shortcuts and in our efforts to have as much as possible while doing as little as possible our muscles and minds deteriorate and decay. What we see everywhere and every day is people losing their originality, because originality is risky and doesn’t pay off immediately. Culture is becoming more and more homogenous because of our global connection and all over the world people are doing the same as others but in their own tongue. Where the line between inspiration and plagiarism is drawn I can’t answer for you, but everywhere we look we can see that originality is pushed aside for trendy content.
This isn’t to say that originality doesn’t exist or that it doesn’t thrive, some out there still make it work and will always do, and a lot of these people become trendsetters. People who do their work consciously and with love will always succeed in some way, and these people can’t be stopped. However we see everyday original creatives lose touch with themselves as they chase trends, people always want steady growth, both in followers and money and if their charts are not always improving and going up they fall into despair. So to maintain the unrealistic uprise they might have had initially - they try desperately to appeal to more and more people, and in doing so lose touch with themselves and their original audience. Following trends and appealing to the mainstream is always more profitable, but it can seriously devalue the art itself; not because more people like it, but because it becomes disingenuous or false through the desire to appeal to others. Or in some cases, it just becomes devoid of the creativity and passion that made it so loved to begin with. This happens to all kinds of creatives and even cultural critics.
Reviewers and analysts look at the trends and review the same regurgitating opinions over and over. Of course, being a contrarian and saying the opposite of everyone else doesn’t automatically make you a good critic or analyst. But it’s always easier to not have to analyse through your own eyes and just repeat what somebody else said. If a new work starts trending then people are quick to praise it and call it out for its good quality, despite few taking the time to digest it and make up their own opinion of it. After all, why should they?
It’s often more profitable and far easier to just follow the masses and agree with everyone else. There’s no need to think or view critically anything in life if you just go along with the opinion of everyone else. There isn’t anything wrong with liking something that others like - you don’t have to be a hipster and only like the obscure and unpopular, but it’s important to reflect on why you like something and to make up your mind. The reason for this is because if you don’t make up your own mind somebody else will do it for you. To have some autonomy and choice in your life you need to be able to think for yourself, and to not be taken advantage of you need to practice these skills. The ability to analyse and to think creatively are both damaged by just following trends, they both require you to do your work and they are like muscles you need to work for to maintain.
It might be difficult and even unprofitable, but if you do your work diligently I promise you that it will be a lot more rewarding for a variety of reasons. One of them is the satisfaction that comes with personal growth and improvement of your skills, skills that are only improved through hard work. Being true to yourself gives you a greater respect for yourself and it will improve your intrinsic self-value and self-perception, if you don’t feel confident in yourself and your work then you will feel bad, and if you’re only validated externally then when the trends go against you will crumble. However, as hard as it may be, building up your character will stand the test of time and it will weather any storm. Face the discomfort and the hardships of having to do the creative work and stay true to yourself and your belief - the rewards are much greater, even if it may take longer for them to arrive.
Staying Ahead of the Curve
It is complicated to stay ahead of the curve and to predict and set new trends. It’s not something you can recreate artificially, despite the attempts that have been made to do so. We’re still trying to figure out if there is some sort of formula to this and if such an equation could be discovered it would change the cultural landscape forever. Corporations spend a lot of money and time trying to stay ahead of the curve, applying every trick in the book to manipulate and control the market in their favour. There’s no easy way to tell what people are going to like and not like, and this changes rapidly. If your goal is to follow trends and to achieve your 5 minutes of fame the best you can do is not to stay ahead of the curve but to always be ready to make that jump as soon as the wave starts forming. Being an early adopter is the best way to go about it.
Trendsetters themselves don’t care about adopting a subculture in its infancy or artificially creating a trend. They’re just themselves and they do what they do with love and they would and will continue to do what they do whether it appeals to the masses or not. Because people don’t know what they want and what they like, it’s not the job of an artist to figure that out - the work of an artist is to be true to themselves, and the world. To do their work with love and admiration towards creation itself, approaching it with lightness and joy but also with a severity as if their life depended on it.
Don’t chase fads and temporary fame, glory or money - everything you stand to gain you stand to lose as easily. If you work hard and long for something it will last, but anything that comes to you overnight might leave before the next sunset. If you want to stay ahead of the curve you’re going to be true to yourself, and do what you love and not be dictated by the masses, but don’t hate on something just because it’s popular, a lot of things become popular for good reason as well and there’s no shame in enjoying something a lot of others enjoy as well - the most important thing is that you’re honest and that you like it because you like it and not for any other reason.
