Trendsspeaking topic
The algorithm keeps proposing a new aesthetic: 'coquette' this month, 'mob wife' the next. Do we choose our aesthetics, or does the feed tell us who to be?
— algorithm and micro-trend cycle discourse
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
- If AI took over your profession tomorrow, what would you do instead?
- Do we find a city, a cafe, a vacation 'authentic' because of what it really is, or because it matches what we saw on Instagram? As tourists hunting authenticity, are we the ones destroying it?
- Scrolling through a dozen subscription services and failing to pick anything to watch: is choice paralysis a new kind of poverty in the age of abundance?
- Is nostalgia a refuge or an escape? Does a generation that constantly longs for the past keep wanting to go back to 'the good old days' because it never learned to live in the present?
- Aesthetics are no longer personal but sellable: brands convert a subculture into product the moment they spot it. Does commercialization kill an aesthetic, or was it born to be sold all along?