It seems like every day, there is a new hack or trend going viral. But there’s one problem — the concept already exists. It’s given a new, buzzword-filled name and rebranded into something palatable for social media. It plays into this idea that everything that people do has to follow a trend, and it is starting to make people upset.
A recent TikTok that partially falls into this category is life being “kinda chic.” The trend takes aspects of daily life — hobbies, routines, and ideas —and labels them as “kinda chic.” The trend is full of people’s normal lives and introduces the mindset that anything some does can be seen as chic, and seeing one’s own life from a different perspective.
The trend took a negative turn, however, when people crashed out over a video from a user on TikTok, who has since deleted her video. The controversial video was captioned “turns out toast is kinda chic. It depicted her slicing a loaf of bread and making a breakfast toast over soft music. While the video in itself seemed well-intentioned and in line with their content as a food creator that focuses on making aesthetically-pleasing cooking videos, there were many users who saw this video as the latest example of this need to make everything a trend, and they are making their thoughts known.
After the video was first uploaded, some TikTok users voiced their agreement that making toast is chic, and romanticizing the simple parts of your day is a way of looking at life positively. One food content creator posted their own video captioned “I totally agree,” and comments were defending her, saying “Women cannot do anything these days without people hating.” But other videos flooded with comments complaining about the “over-trendification” of everyday life.
Those who disagreed with the concept of the video complained that that life should not be dictated by what is seen as trending on social media, with one user posting a video caption with “Genuinely, we have lost the plot.” The majority of users are not actually upset at the idea of toast, but rather the seemingly inescapable notion that everything needs to be social media acceptable in order to be enjoyed, expressing this with some sarcastic comments such as “Toast?? Never heard of that before, must be niche,” and even “chic chic chic niche niche niche swag swag swag” throughout TikTok.
This is part of a larger conversation that has been going on for a while on some parts of TikTok, where people feel the need to separate daily life from what you see on screen and to stop comparing themselves to curated videos that feel a little staged. It is criticism against uniformity, of everyone wanting to imitate each other to the point where some see a loss of personal identity being replaced with an adherence to trends so vigorous that you lose your uniqueness. This is, however, a very extreme take on social media as a whole. There is nothing wrong with following a trend and admiring someone’s lifestyle, but there has to be a limit to what exactly needs to be a trend and what can just stay as toast.