#PopularityTurnedWrong: The Downside of Overexposure
In today’s digital age, the rapid spread of information and trends has made it easier than ever for something to go from a niche interest to a mainstream phenomenon in the blink of an eye. While this can lead to increased visibility and success for the originators of the trend, it can also attract the wrong kind of attention and ultimately lead to the downfall of what was once a good thing.
In this article, we’ll explore the pitfalls of popularity and how it can lead to the wrong people co-opting and degrading a once beloved trend or idea. From social media crazes to viral products, we’ll take a closer look at the negative impacts of overexposure and offer insight into how to combat the negative effects.
##The Rise and Fall of Online Virality 📈📉
The internet has a way of turning something small and niche into a worldwide phenomenon overnight. This rapid rise to fame can be exhilarating for content creators and entrepreneurs, but it can also attract unwanted attention and lead to the dilution of the original concept. Some examples of this phenomenon include:
1. The “Ice Bucket Challenge” – While initially started as a way to raise money and awareness for ALS research, it quickly became a watered-down social media trend with many participants missing the point of the original cause.
2. The Fidget Spinner Craze – What started as a therapeutic tool for individuals with ADHD and autism exploded into a fad with little regard for its original purpose, ultimately leading to its decline in popularity.
3. Influencer Marketing – The rise of social media influencers has led to a saturation of sponsored content and a lack of authenticity in the influencer community.
##When Popularity Attracts the Wrong Crowd 👥
As something becomes more popular, it naturally attracts a wider and more diverse audience. While this can be a positive thing, it can also lead to the wrong people taking interest in the trend and ultimately changing its nature for the worse. Some of the negative impacts of attracting the wrong crowd include:
– Misrepresentation and Misappropriation: When a trend or cultural practice becomes popular in mainstream culture, it often loses its original cultural and historical context. This can lead to misrepresentation and cultural appropriation, which can be harmful and offensive to the communities from which these ideas originated.
– Overexposure and Dilution: The more popular something becomes, the more diluted and overexposed it can become. This can lead to a loss of its original charm and authenticity, ultimately driving away the dedicated audience that was initially drawn to it.
– Monetization and Commercialization: When something becomes popular, it often attracts the attention of marketers and companies looking to capitalize on its success. This can lead to the commercialization and exploitation of the trend, ultimately detracting from its original value and purpose.
##Navigating the Downsides of Popularity 💡
While the downside of overexposure and attracting the wrong crowd may seem daunting, there are strategies that content creators and trendsetters can employ to mitigate these negative effects. Some ways to navigate the downsides of popularity include:
1. Authenticity and Transparency: Maintaining authenticity and transparency in your content and messaging can help to preserve the original intention and integrity of your work.
2. Community Engagement: Building and engaging a dedicated community around your trend or idea can help to preserve its authenticity and avoid dilution by a wider, less invested audience.
3. Education and Advocacy: Educating your audience and advocating for the original purpose and values of your trend can help to combat misappropriation and misrepresentation.
4. Selective Partnerships: Being strategic and selective in the partnerships and collaborations you pursue can help to preserve the integrity and authenticity of your work.
In conclusion, while the allure of popularity can be enticing, it’s important to be mindful of the potential downsides of overexposure. By staying true to your original intentions, engaging a dedicated community, and being selective in your partnerships, you can navigate the negative impacts of popularity and maintain the integrity of your trend or idea. By doing so, you can ensure that it remains a positive and enriching experience for those who were initially drawn to it.
Social media
The internet.
Literally everything commercial or political.
Social media: started with connecting friends, ended with influencers hawking laxatives. What a journey
Hiking, camping, etc. Ever since the pandemic started, it’s been insanely crowded.
Twitter
The Mermaid Parade on Coney Island.
Dating apps
AirBnB. It used to be a way for people to cheaply stay in someone’s room for a few bucks. Now it’s giant corporations vacuuming up every property in an area.
Burning man
Popular songs used by everyone for every TikTok and Insta reel .
Gaming
The internet. Always has reached the wrong people but got far far worse once everyone could access the internet through a phone. People say social media ruined the internet but I think phones are the biggest culprit.
Travel. Instagram has completely changed the character of a lot of travel destinations and attracted people who, were it not for the likes, would be completely uninterested in the destination.
Travelling
Review writing. Used to be a good metric for how things are, and people used to focus on certain reviewers who had similar interests. Now that everyone and their brother is encouraged to share their shitty opinion and write reviews for everything, it’s hard to tell how anything is unless you experience it for yourself.
The incel community. Started by a woman as a inviting community for people who couldn’t get laid into what the fuck it is today
Twitter. Can’t tell you the last time I saw a Tweet from one of my actual friends. It’s mostly corporations and ads now
Self checkout in stores.
Very convenient if you have a couple of items.
When it started, it made the lines shorter.
Today it doubles the wait in the lines.
Goth/punk/counterculture
Craigslist.
Thrifting
The secret meat menu at fast food restaurants. If you wanted a triple but didn’t want to pay that much, secret meat menu, they could ring you up for a single, plus two 4 ounce meats. We had that cheat for years at Wendy’s, McDonald’s. Corporate finally found out and changed the menu. Most McDonald’s restaurants have eleminated meat from their a la carte menu button. And most Wendy’s have jacked up the prices sky high on their meat menu. But it was pretty cool for those years we could do it.
Therapy, or at least the language of therapy. Toxic people have coopted it so that they can control other people.
Netflix.
It was a place for people who wanted to watch good movies that were hard to find at their local video store – for cheap. Not to sound elitist, but the late 90s, very early 2000s, the clientele were people who were really into quality movies and an upscale crowd. It was a distribution network for great content.
Now, you’re paying a lot for Adam Sandler, light Korean torture porn, and 17 different cake shows. Now it’s a hackneyed movie/TV studio.
Social media. Back when fb was only open to college students it was awesome.
Quora, used to be a place where actual experts like scientists answer interesting questions now it’s just bad teenage relationship advice.
OnlyFans at first was a good way to just support lesser-known porn creators who would give away content for the subscription price and have small enough fanbases to interact.
Now it’s become so massive that it’s detrimental on both ends. The models are overworked if they have large amounts of followers and for the fans, all the models realized they can just switch to a PPV model while still charging subscription fees.
your favorite indie band going mainstream, and you can’t help but feel a bit nostalgic for the good ol’ days when it was just you and a few others who truly appreciated it.
Technically, involuntary celibacy was a term coined by a lesbian to talk about her experiences. It is very different now…
Everything. Nothing is safe anymore.
This is the result of memeification and short form content.
Amazon. At least to me, the quick delivery is the only saving grace they still have.
Nowadays search is borderline useless, there’s cheap Chinese crap everywhere and the reviews are 95% bots or bought. I prefer eBay unless I need something very quickly that can’t be bought in store.
Thrift stores. They use to be the place to go for people who are low on income. Then it became “Trendy”, and the prices went up, now it’s like any other clothing store.
College education
It is NOT meant to be direct job training, sports training, or a venue for drinking. Plato founded the Academy in 387 BC in Athens as a place where young people could gather to ponder the great questions. The other great institutions we think of today (Oxford, Yale, MIT) built around this original inspiration. It was meant to collect promising young people and let them ponder the PHILOSOPHY of all fields for a year or two and a SPECIFIC field for a year or two.
Now it’s just another crappy business. The wrong people go, for the wrong reasons, leave with crippling debt, and a bitterness to education. We were meant to cultivate philosophers, not administrative assistants. Woe is us.