Trendsspeaking topic
Do we love a product's quality, or the story it lets us carry? Would the same sweater make us just as happy without the brand name?
— video essay topic
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- Do we find something 'authentic' because it truly is sincere, or because it was marketed to feel authentic to us? If authenticity can be bought, is it still authenticity?
- An influencer's comment section holds thousands of people who feel lonely, all at once. Is that shared loneliness a kind of solidarity, or an illusion where everyone stares at a screen into the same void?
- Why is making close friends as an adult so hard? Is the core of the loneliness epidemic not romantic relationships, but dying friendships?
- Quiet quitting: is mentally checking out of a job without actually leaving it laziness, or a silent strike against burnout?
- Maybe the problem isn't being alone, it's that we forgot how to be at peace alone. In the age of constant connection, is being able to exist by yourself, needing no one, a disorder or a lost skill?