TikTok trends: The death of originality.

Let’s set the scene here;

you’re sitting on your couch at home, scrolling through TikTok and seeing influencers living the dream. You want this lifestyle too. You don’t want to work your 9 to 5 at de Albert Heijn anymore. You want to make content that will attract millions of viewsand become TikTok famous. But there is just one small problem: you have no talent! And acquiring a new skill and becoming good at it takes years; But you don’t have this kind of time; you want to become famous today! What do you do?

Well you watch what people more talented than you are doing and you just copy them of course!

In the landscape of social media today, where trends come and go in the blink of an eye, there exists a growing problem: the downfall of originality. The platforms designed to connect us have become a place where just following trends is encouraged and where the need for true original content is dying down. Why make your own content or improve upon your own skills when just copying what other people are doing is way easier and most of the time even more effective than relying on your own ingenuity?

This is the problem with Tiktok, but also other social media platforms like Instagram or even YouTube. Emulating what others are doing without adding anything that would make it your own doesnt require skill in the slightest. Sometimes you can even see less effort put into the trend than the person where the trend originated from put in.

Furthermore the blatant copying of other people’s ideas, exacts a toll on the original creators, the people who actually put time effort and/or imagination into their posts. When a sea of imitations of an original product come into existence, the credit and recognition for the original creator fade away into nothingness and every copy that doesn’t acknowledge its origin further depreciates the value of creativity.

If we continue with this copy-paste culture, The incentive to explore new ideas decreases. The diversity of thoughts, unique perspectives, and ground-breaking concepts that (in my eyes) makes humanity so special will get reduced to a hivemind-like mentality where people just do what everybody else is doing.

It doesn’t have to be this way though, the solution is actually really simple; we as online communities have to start valuing creativity and originality again. People follow trends because following trends work. When we keep watching and liking the same TikTok dance done by 70 different people instead of new concepts and ideas, less and less people will be incentivised to actually create something new.

Social media can be a place where people’s ideas aren’t just copied but are used as inspiration. Where we recognise and attribute credit to the true originators As a reminder to be and share your authentic self and your original ideas and that when trends are followed, people add their own unique touch. We only have to watch, like and share.

Tags: Media Maestros