{"id":5031,"date":"2026-05-04T06:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/social-media-ruined-my-style-and-everyone-elses\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T06:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:49:16","slug":"social-media-ruined-my-style-and-everyone-elses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2026\/05\/04\/social-media-ruined-my-style-and-everyone-elses\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media ruined my style (and everyone else\u2019s)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Imagine you refresh your home page on literally any social media app. Immediately you\u2019re bombarded by another influx of hundreds of videos telling you how to live. How to dress. How to do your makeup. How to act, how to talk, how to follow a specific aesthetic. Buzzwords are thrown around \u2014 <em>classy, chic, cool girl<\/em> \u2014 but none of them truly mean anything at all. I am not the first person to fall into this trap, and I know I certainly won\u2019t be the last.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>I was in my early teenage years when I began cultivating a personal style. I was unashamed of my ridiculous fashion sense \u2014 cutting apart old clothes to turn them into something new, weird color combinations in my clothing choices, skinny jeans and often badly done makeup to top it all off (exaggerated eyeliner really had its moment in my life). At 15, I had just shaved my head for a pediatric cancer charity, which left me feeling like an unpainted canvas. This experience, the \u201cweird phase\u201d of my childhood, is what taught me how to express myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Throughout the entirety of my middling years, there was one key thing: I didn\u2019t stick to just one style. I loved casual streetwear as well as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sumissura.com\/en-us\/blog\/dark-academia-style\">dark academia<\/a>\u201d outfits. I liked doing colorful, glittery makeup while wearing what is described as \u201cgrunge.\u201d My personality didn\u2019t stagnate, so how could my style?<\/p>\n<p>A TikTok comment section would beg to differ. One of the most curious parts was the way people discussed personal style, as if it was the first thing people judged about you. Videos proclaimed that you must \u201cdress how you want to be perceived,\u201d and that burrowed its way into my mind. This is the first time I felt insecure about my clothes \u2014 how did people view me based on what I wore? The honest answer: They probably thought I was a major dork.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>Instead of building my personal style based on what I liked, I began to focus on how people would see me. Something else I quickly learned: You can\u2019t be two things at the same time. People, including myself, felt that to have a cohesive, definitive style, they had to pick one thing, one \u201caesthetic.\u201d I tried to be a \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sumissura.com\/en-us\/blog\/clean-girl-aesthetic\">clean girl<\/a>,\u201d leaving behind color for more neutral tones. Then, I had a long \u201cdark academia\u201d phase, feeling like purchasing something out of the realm of browns and plaid would be a crime.<\/p>\n<p>Trying on these aesthetics was easy. If you found someone who was perceived the way you wanted to be perceived, you could have all of their clothes in the click of a few buttons. Celebrities shared their skin care and makeup routines and we hit purchase without a second thought. Whether or not these products would work for our unique skin type was irrelevant. Aesthetics have been commodified in a similar way; I was lured into the metaphorical trap. The accessibility that the internet provides means that we spend less time thinking about our purchases and whether we truly like what we are buying. Instead, we ask ourselves: <em>Will other people like what I\u2019m buying?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity is-style-dots\"\/>\n<p>I always thought the phrase \u201cbe yourself\u201d was so stupid. Obviously, you\u2019re being yourself, who else could you be? With the rise of TikTok aesthetics, I\u2019ve realized that in actuality, we all are desperate to be absolutely anyone else. The boxes have been created. Go choose one.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For the cost of a few hundred dollars and an obscenely high screentime, you have had the pleasure of saying goodbye to your individuality.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When my shopping cart began to look the same as everyone else\u2019s, I realized an aesthetic isn\u2019t distinctive if we all dress the same. For the past few years, I have incrementally increased the social media restrictions on my phone. I still enjoy these apps and use them for inspiration in various ways. However, I will not allow them to define the way I live my life. <\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>I began to go to the store without an \u201caesthetic\u201d in mind, instead buying what feels right, what\u2019s practical, what I find fun. I started wearing colors again and didn\u2019t care when I wasn\u2019t wearing what was trending at the time. I focused on longevity and filling my closet with pieces that will stay with me. I also let myself grow into my body type, picking items that worked for me rather than trying to fit into an already existing archetype (at 5-feet tall, I don\u2019t always have many options). Without the noise of social media, trends lost their meaning. Sometimes, I\u2019m tempted to make a purchase. Then I see the giant bag of scrunchies I bought when they were popular in 2020 still sitting at the bottom of my closet, collecting dust. They remind me that maybe I should consider whether this trend will still be cute in a month.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t to say that the online fashion space doesn\u2019t have its merits. People post their outfits and I learn how to turn seemingly simple clothes into full, cohesive outfits. I develop my likes and dislikes without having to spend money on the clothes themselves. And, by taking inspiration from people, I discovered that accessorizing is my favorite part of it all. But I can do all of this without losing myself.<\/p>\n<p>A few weeks ago, my friend came to visit me. Though we grew up together, our styles have always been different. She hadn\u2019t brought perfume with her on the trip and asked to borrow one of mine for the day. I gestured toward the collection of bottles on my dresser, telling her to help herself. Slightly embarrassed, I added that I thought she wouldn\u2019t like all of my perfumes. She looked at me and said, \u201cThey\u2019re your perfumes. Why would I need to like them?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>People often refer to dressing up as \u201ccustomizing your character,\u201d a phrase which I find absolutely adorable. I\u2019d like to remember the significance of the word \u201ccustom\u201d and how ridiculous it would be if millions of people tried so hard to be different that they all actually ended up exactly the same. I\u2019ve said goodbye to my individuality far too many times; this time, I think I\u2019d like to hold onto it.<\/p>\n<p><em>Books Beat Editor Archisha Pathak can be reached at <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.michigandaily.com\/arts\/b-side\/say-goodbye-to-your-individuality\/mailto:archpath@umich.edu\"><em>archpath@umich.edu<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-3    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Imagine you refresh your home page on literally any social media app. Immediately you\u2019re bombarded by another influx of hundreds of videos telling you how to live. How to dress. How to do your makeup. How to act, how to talk, how to follow a specific aesthetic. Buzzwords are thrown around \u2014 classy, chic, cool [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[4617,1509,2701,1508,829],"class_list":{"0":"post-5031","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-elses","9":"tag-media","10":"tag-ruined","11":"tag-social","12":"tag-style"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5033,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5031\/revisions\/5033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}