what the hell happened to personal style?
everyone online is dressing the same, and i blame compressed uniformity.
since i got laid off from a big media company on may 7, i’ve spent a little over 100 hours on instagram. at least, according to my phone. that’s not ~ a lot ~ of time. converting that hour count into days, it shakes out to approximately fourish days. not even a full workweek, but still, that’s four full days of scrolling just instagram, which isn’t something i wanted to be doing but found myself doing anyway because, well, i’m bored…and lonely. when you get laid off, you suddenly wind up with a lot of free time.
i’m sure my time on instagram is much longer than that estimation, but100 hours in roughly six weeks is still an alarming amount of time looking at an algorithmic void. i couldn’t even tell you exactly what i was scrolling in all those hours: cat videos? dancing tutorials? meme pages? exercising content somehow? idk, it has all blurred together into one blended amalgam of reels as my thumb swiped up. but if there is one thing i know for certain that i’ve scrolled through, it’s fashion content. from get ready with me’s to quick outfit checks to spring/summer wardrobe essentials, my instagram feed has been inundated with enough fashion content to host a full runway show. normally, i wouldn’t mind this. i ~ adore ~ fashion content, especially when it’s folks talking about their clothes instead of just showing off their clothes. (it hits different.)
but i’ve noticed something peculiar happening on instagram in these past six weeks, particularly in the fashion spaces i loiter in: everyone’s dressing the same. a handful of the influencers i follow are doing this thing where they recreate outfits from their fave influencers, but because their fave influencers are many of the same people - creators like moritz taylor and reece walker, youtubers such as daniel simmons and tim dessaint - all the outfits are xeroxed as if they just stepped out of the same uniqlo or something. it’s left me wondering: just what in the hell happened to personal style? i can’t say that i have an answer, but i’ve totally got a theory: compressed uniformity.
now, i’m no genius. i’m actually just a silly girl with a newsletter, but i thought of that term - compressed uniformity - while commenting on something else this month, it’s really derived from journalist kyle chayka, a new yorker staff writer and author of the book “filterworld: how algorithms flattened culture.” the nonfiction cultural sociology book came out this past january and, although i haven’t read it yet, snippets of chayka’s writing has appeared all over the internet in the past six months. while rotting my brain as i mindlessly scrolled instagram one time during those imprisoning 100 hours, attempting to avoid feeling anything because feeling anything feels bad, an interview with him on the daily show popped up on my feed. it was pretty riveting!
in the interview, duo hosts jordan klepper and ronny chieng asked chayka about his book (duh!), but more specifically, they posed questions around how social media has made things worse in the past decade or so. to chayka, the problem is that “we’re surrounded by these machines right now, which are algorithmic recommendations.” everything is dictated and sorted by technology that feeds us what we like, which makes all of us more passive consumers. meanwhile, creators have to decipher and cooperate with technology to fit social media’s mold, which homogenizes creativity. chayka even spoke about a specific coffee shop aesthetic that’s proliferated since 2015/2016. you know the one: white subway tile everywhere, reclaimed wood furniture, hanging edison bulbs, succulents in ceramic jars, plenty of vintage art, maybe a neon sign or two. (i was in a spot just like this in…midtown? the east village? brooklyn? astoria, even?) and, tbh, that’s the problem: everything and everyone looks the same because the algorithm recommends a specific kind of aesthetic for the ephemeral currency of likes and shares. and we’re conformists because we want likes and shares.
of course, inspiration is amazing. there is nothing new under the sun, no idea is original, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, nature is a tenacious recycler, etcetera etcetera. you’re probably familiar with the quotes about repetitious history. we’re all chasing each other. culture is a mitosis; everyone just copying everyone to fit in. it’s part of the process of self-discovery, for if you copy what you like, then you may trip down a rabbit hole into other things that you’ll probably like, too. but because everything is algorithmically recommended, if you copy, you’ll see more of the same. and because algorithms “know us,” we don’t have to step out of our comfort zones. stumble upon (remember that site?) some shit you don’t know or like? just swipe and, ideally, the omnipotent algorithm will spoon feed you something else that you’ll love. but there’s no creativity, no passion, no soul. it’s just cold code, mere zeroes and ones.
“when an algorithmic feed gives you something, there’s no feeling there,” chayka said. “like, there’s no creativity, there’s no enjoyment of that piece of culture. it’s just that enough data suggested to a sorting machine that you would like this bit of stuff.”
chayka ain’t wrong, and his words inspired my own compressed uniformity theory. think about those two words: compressed means to flatten or press together, while uniformity means being of the same degree or form or manner or opinion. basically, what chayka is talking about: everything has been smashed into an identical state or quality, and nowhere is this more evident than fashion content on (my) social media.
spend any time on fashion instagram and you’ll probably see the same handful of outfits: some new york dad hat, an oversized white tee, a bag of some kind, pleated wide-leg trousers (or slutty shorts since it’s summer), and adidas sambas or g.h.bass loafers. i swear, every time i swipe through my instagram feed, this specific outfit, this compressed uniformity, appears at least a dozen different times on a dozen different bodies. it’s eye-rolling. not because it’s a bad outfit - it’s really not! in fact, it’s simple and timeless - but because there’s no creativity, no passion, no soul to the analogous outfit. it’s just carbon copy after carbon copy after carbon copy like a school uniform.
what happened to personal style? what happened to graphic shirts and beat-up chucks and patterned socks? what happened to hand-me-down jewelry or friendship bracelets or that one raggedy hat you won’t get rid of because you had it since you were little? it’s all been lost in favor of compressed uniformity, the desire to fit in because, as chayka’s book title posits, algorithms have flattened our culture and our fashion. the things you like to wear don’t work for social media, for instagram; they don’t garner the engagement that the attention economy so desperately craves, insatiable as it is. it only wants what works, and for right now, this fit - which i’m just gonna call the patrick swayze steeze (from the 1989 film roadhouse) - is working.
i’ve been guilty of this, too. i love patrick swayze’s outfits in roadhouse. they‘re iconic, simple, timeless. there’s a reason why high-wasted, pleated, wide-leg trousers never go out of style: they’re a very effortless, very versatile pant that dresses up and down. but it’s still possible to take the patrick swayze steeze and add your own flourishes, your own personal style, to it. maybe instead of a white tee, you swap in a graphic one. maybe instead of the loafers, you replace them with your fave shoe at the moment (or ones that you wore when you were young, which would be vans for me). maybe you style the outfit a little differently, adding color here and accessories there that speak to your tastes. the patrick swayze steeze is, after all, a mere canvas, a starting recipe to play with. its simplicity allows you to express yourself while still looking put together.
all tea, no shade - i’m not dragging anyone for wearing the patrick swayze steeze and calling that their personal style. it makes getting dressed super easy. however, i do miss the idiosyncrasies of individuality, the little things that make you you and me me. like, i recently bought a tekken 2 tee shirt from uniqlo for $10 - one of the last few the store had before it was swapped out with a new final fantasy collab - and i love it because i both grew up playing bandai namco studios’ long-running 3d fighting game and i spend a lotta time watching tekken 8 tournaments. similarly, i serendipitously thrifted an initial d tee shirt for about $15, which is one of my fave late ‘90s action anime. with these two shirts alone, i’ve made the patrick swayze steeze my own simply by leaning into my interests and refusing to allow social media to flatten my identity.
i encourage you to do the same. to lean into your creativity, your passion, your soul and to reject compressed uniformity. it’s ok if you need the inspiration to find your style, to discover what works for your body and what you like to dress in. however, don’t end there. if you do, then you lose yourself, and there’s no one like you. so be you and dress for you, not some algorithm. the likes and shares don’t really matter anyway.
xo, 𝔢𝔩𝔩𝔢 𝔰𝔩𝔬𝔴 🖤💐
(btw, i’m taking a little instagram break for mental health reasons, but follow me on there if you wanna talk fashion, catch some vibes, or read some poetry. kkthxxbyee~~)