It’s kinda chic to let people do the trend

Legal researcher and digital content creator Padmakshi Sharma. Pic/Instagram/@padmakshi.sh

I like the Kinda Chic trend. It is a carousel format where people present a quirky or intentionally unconventional choice as if it's quietly stylish or sophisticated. They're redefining what counts as "chic." For example, mine said, "Kinda chic to be 44, and have no kids" and "Kinda chic to be one of India's OG podcasters".

I thought I was chic. I was amazing. I was so accomplished. But then I saw Padmakshi Sharma's post. Padmakshi's bio says, "digital marginalia". When I Googled what marginalia truly means, it said, "Notes, comments, drawings, or decorations written in the blank spaces at the edge of a page in a book, manuscript, or document". Okay.

So Padmakshi, who has 93k followers and gives her view on all things pop and Internet culture, says the Kinda Chic (no hate to people who did it, she warns) trend is "what happens when we apply the logic of industrial capitalism to culture". WHAT? For the ones in the back, she explains, "In 1940, Adorno and Horkheimer developed the idea of culture industry.

German philosophers and sociologists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer. Pic/Wikimedia Commons

Basically they said that mass media and popular culture function like an industry because they turn art and entertainment into standardised commodities. Like a factory would produce 10,000 identical chairs instead of 10,000 unique ones because the former was cheaper, Adorno believed that similar economic pressures applied to culture resulted in pseudo individualisation." She feels that while it feels like you are making an individual choice, it's in a structure that's consumable. She also says that "right now the cultural product to be sold and standardised is the ‘self'," and that basically it's impossible to monetise and still be authentic.

I did some research into these Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer characters. They were German philosophers who said that "mass-produced culture gives standardised products small differences so consumers experience them as personal choices. You feel you're choosing your thing, but the structure within which you're choosing has already been decided for you". They are basically saying mass culture pretends to reward individuality, while producing the same stuff.

That argument goes on to make the Kinda Chic trend - where we thought we were all sharing inspiring and aspirational things about ourselves - as just a trend that the Internet duped us into creating. It's like Miranda Priestly telling Andrea that she may think she is exempt from the fashion industry, but her cerulean sweater bought from some tacky departmental store was actually chosen by the people in the fashion industry. So there you go!

Padmakshi is right, of course. But that's how social media works. Like her, there are many more pop culture intellectuals who inform, educate, and dissect all the things we consume and make viral on social media. All use big words, all cite long-gone German intellectuals, and some have degrees in philosophy, some in sociology, and some have even written books. They all feel they are individual and unique, but they all have certain sameness. See what I did there?

But it's okay. Like a row of furniture shops at Panchkuian Road in New Delhi, or the electronic shops at Lamington Road in Mumbai, social media will also have a lot of different people doing the same thing. Sometimes, like a dance trend, it may feel repetitive. Sometimes, like the Kinda Chic trend, it's hopeful.

Why I liked the Kinda Chic trend was because in a world where we often forget all the things we have achieved, and all the times we have transmuted pain into art, it's a nice way to celebrate ourselves. It's a nice way to remind ourselves of our own life, that we are living with such grace. And though the structure may be same, the lives being shared were so different. The Kinda Chic ladies showed us how they have broken rules, and got over odds, powered by grit alone. And some just had fun with it, and that was great to see. We need more fun in our lives.

Some trends, especially the positive ones, are ones that don't need dissecting. They need to be celebrated. But who am I to say anything? After all, I am also a social media commentator, and you can ignore me as well.

See you next week.

Ranting and raving about all that's trending on social media, Aastha Atray Banan is an author, creator, podcaster, and the Editor of your favourite weekend read, Sunday mid-day. She posts at @aasthaatray on Instagram.
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The views expressed in this column are the individual's and don't represent those of the paper.