BY CHRISTINE AMEFIAM

Conform or Be Condemned: The High Cost of Standing Out

Cringe, that’s the word they use when you stand out too much. Weird, that’s the adjective they add to unique personalities. Iconic, that’s the word they employ when they wear your identity like a trend!

In a World of Clones, Being Different Makes You the Villain, but if you are a nice-looking villain, they will turn you into a template.

Welcome to the Age of Copy-Paste Humans. No identity, no originality, no selfhood, no distinction.

Every year, a new aesthetic appears, a new fashion trend that people rush to follow. Not long ago, everyone was obsessed with the “clean girl” aesthetic; now the shift seems to be toward bolder, more dramatic and expressive styles. Some people are even talking about bringing back grunge makeup. Will it actually happen? Probably.

The same thing happens with music. Whenever a song goes viral, everyone uses that exact song over and over again. Take TikTok as an example: if you scroll through ten videos, at least eight of them will have the same melody. The reason is simple: people want views, they want to go viral, they want popularity.

Even classical music is going through this cycle. Many people are only now discovering how relaxing it can be. If one person says that classical music pairs well with rap and the idea goes viral, suddenly everyone starts repeating the same opinion.

This pattern doesn’t apply only to fashion and music, but also to language. Words like narcissism and accountability constantly trend online. First it was narcissism: people began using the word without really understanding its meaning. If someone seems self-absorbed, they are immediately labelled a narcissist. Now the trending word is accountability. Aren’t there other ways to express the same idea? Of course there are; responsibility, for example, but it sounds less sophisticated. So people choose the word that makes them appear more intelligent. It becomes a kind of performative intellectualism.

So why not develop our own personalities instead? Having similarities with others is natural, but our differences are what make us unique, and lately, it feels like we are losing that. Sometimes it seems as if we all look the same, like the plastic Barbie dolls I used to play with when I was five: identical, polished, but lifeless.

Why do we do this? The simplest answer is that we want to be liked. We want to be loved. We want to belong and to be accepted by others. It’s not just about presenting ourselves for the male gaze anymore; it’s about being appealing to everyone, an “everybody gaze.”

Until next time,

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