Off-trend is not out-dated. Off-trend is a conscious decision to dismiss what is fashionable.
Forbes.com reported in February that Facebook lost approximately 500,000 daily users in the last three months of 2021.
I’ve never had a Facebook page. Never. I’m not suggesting that Facebook is a fad – but it is possible to live without it. ‘How can you stay in touch with people, especially those who are far away?’ My friends defend their attachment. ‘I just call them or text them or eventually make time to see them’, I answer. You might argue that Facebook is no longer a trend, it’s just normal.
I’ve made choices during my life to eschew certain trends or fads (as I saw them) and I’m pretty sure I’ve not suffered as a result. Except maybe at a Quiz Night where I can’t answer those questions about certain songs or movies or historical crazes.
Maybe I can’t be part of the whole conversation – but I can create my own. And in any case, I’m surrounded by people who are interested in more than just the latest thing. Yes, I don’t know the top 10 songs, or wear what everyone is wearing, or carry what everyone is carrying, or use words and terms that are of the moment or watch everything on the box everyone is talking about . Does that make me old? Out of touch? Fade into the background? Insignificant?
I bumped into a friend of a friend recently, she asked me for my number and was delighted and slightly surprised when I pulled out a piece of paper from my bag and wrote it down (instead of sending it straight to her phone). She was so taken by my gesture, that she took a photo of the scrap of paper and asked whether she could send it to her friends (removing my identity of course) to show them how I had exchanged my number with her. Off-trend. Old-fashioned. Perhaps, I’m just post-trend instead of off-trend.
Off-trend is not about trail-blazing or replacing something with a cooler version. It’s about not leaping at shadows. It’s about stopping rather than pursuing. It’s about looking around rather than over your shoulder. The speed at which fashion moves is faster than it’s ever been. Keeping up requires a lack of commitment and/or a short attention span and some of us don’t want to live that way. More of us don’t want to live that way. Off-trend is now becoming on-trend as we examine our lives with magnifying glasses and apply new perspectives.
My problem is now that off-trend is becoming on-trend, I might have to abandon it.
letterassembly.com 