At Mercer County Community College, the price of keeping up with social trends is shifting. For Marcos Junior Zayas, a second-year theater major, the memory of trend-chasing starts on the playground.
“If you had Silly Bandz, you was the coolest kid in kindergarten,” Zayas recalled with a laugh. “You had the light-up Skechers and the Spider-Man sneakers. You’re the coolest kid in school.”
But as Zayas has grown, the “cool factor” has moved from the playground to a digital feed. The viral items are no longer rubber bands or fidget spinners, but a $50 water bottle or a viral designer charm.
“It depends on how great the promotion is and what everybody likes,” Zayas said. “Social media is always the first place… whatever catches the eye.”
At Mercer, this hyper-accelerated cycle of consumption has become a campus-wide habit. According to a recent survey of 40 students by The College VOICE, nearly half of the student body admits forgetting a trend within a single month of its peak.
According to the survey, 73% of students credit TikTok and 53% credit Instagram for encouraging them to buy these fleeting must-haves.
This speed of forgetting trends is a modern phenomenon. Edward Avery-Natale, a sociology Professor at Mercer, said that while the “teenager” emerged as a consumer group in the 1950s, trends back then were gated by word-of-mouth and a few TV channels.
“Trends then had to spread slower… producing longer-lasting trends,” Avery-Natale explained. Today, that speed has shifted. “TikTok itself is such a fast medium,” he said. “What[ever] I saw yesterday, I’m going to see another trend tomorrow.”
According to the same VOICE survey, 68% of students remember old trends like fidget spinners, but modern trends vanish in weeks. “By the time you’ve saved up for the sweatshirt, the trend might be nearing its end,” Avery-Natale said. “Whereas if the trend is different every other month, then that’s hundreds of dollars a year, right? That really adds up.”
The trend cycle creates a divide between those chasing the latest trends and those footing the bill.
Celia Carvente, a parent of both a Mercer student and a 9-year-old, views this cycle as social pressure. “Young people buy things mostly for what social media and friends sell them,” she said. “They just want to have what everyone else has.” (Translated from Spanish).
Avery Natale points to the sociological concept of “cultural capital” to explain this trend-based consumerism. He describes trends as signaling devices, saying, “If you want to be one of the ‘cool kids,’ you need to gain access to the resource that displays that capital.”
However, he warns that today’s marketing is “insidious.” Because students follow influencers daily, they develop a “parasocial” feeling that they are friends. “When your favorite YouTuber is wearing a brand, it feels like your friend is doing it,” Avery-Natale said. “It’s more powerful than a TV ad because you don’t notice you’re being sold something.”
For students at a community college, this cycle has a high cost. Eri Stenger, a second-year Education major, points out that microtrends often ignore the financial reality of those on a budget. “People who are struggling to eat are not going to be like, ‘I need a Labubu right now,’” Stenger said.
As the campus moves through the year, the excitement of the new trends is starting to clash with the reality of students’ budgets. For many at Mercer, the pressure of owning a viral item is losing out to a more practical concern: financial stability.
Marcos Zayas agrees, valuing substance over hype. “It’s gotta be something that’s gonna make my life worthwhile,” Zayas said. “Man, I’ll probably get a better apartment, a better house. […] Something beneficial, something that’s going to benefit me through life.”
While the next viral symbol is already loading on a student’s feed, the consensus at Mercer is shifting towards caution. “I would think that a majority of these students… are probably going to be happier in the long run, not buying into every little trend,” Avery-Natale concludes.
“Save. Don’t spend that money,” Zayas adds as a final warning. “If I could get all that back, I would have saved it.”
All photos by Linnea Rameil
