When Niche Goes Mainstream
At the beginning of this month, I attended FEST (FWB’s annual gathering). FEST is one of the most special places in all of crypto, where people who dream about the future of the internet gather for a summer camp experience that encourages creative freedom and expression through art, technology, music, and connection. I cannot accurately capture the essence of FEST in words, but suffice it to say it was a place that encouraged inspiration and deep thinking.
As part of FEST, I listened in to a conversation about brat summer and the implications of Charli XCX becoming wildly popular amongst a very specific crowd of influencers, followed by the explosion of Charli into the mainstream (as evidenced by its connection to stalwart boomer show Good Morning America, among other things). There was a (correct) argument made that brat still wasn’t as mainstream as an artist like Morgan Wallen, and that the folks in Chattanooga were firmly uninterested in the trappings of having a slightly chaotic, hot girl from New York summer, but brat has played a role in this summer’s cultural phenomena that is worth examining.
This got me thinking about when niche goes mainstream. Brat summer is a playbook for New York city girls, from featuring Gabriette to the retro branding and design of the cover that is a total nod to 90s babies. Paraphrasing here, but Ruby Thelot mentioned that it is essentially “a playbook for how to be a New York City cool girl.” The playbook went nuts with the advent of the Apple dance, listening parties, and the ubiquitous green to a point where it no longer felt true to its original essence — it went mainstream! Below is an exploration of that effect in the form of diagrams because visual learning is a lot more fun.
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When niche starts, it’s very much about an in group and an out group. The in group are the ones sharing and caring about the specific trend and building a culture around it, while the out group doesn’t notice, care, or relate.
When niche goes mainstream, suddenly the out group (mainstream) takes interest. This divides the out group into two factions: one that is interested in being in the in group, and another that is, still, after being informed, completely uninterested in participating in the in group for one reason or another.
This causes division with the in group. Are the newcomers welcome, or do they make what was once a niche interest and inside code so popular that it becomes less appealing, less of a marker of coolness? The in group then further divides, with some focusing on inclusion and sharing the original intent of the niche content as far and wide as possible, and others eschewing the newcomers as fake (and becoming the most dreaded being of all: a hipster).
This is a pattern we see over and over with trends, and is not revolutionary or uncommon. What intrigues me about this is how it relates to the staying power of trends. Obviously, trends have been coming and going for all of history (I almost said human, but then I remembered that orca whales had a brief trend of wearing dead salmon hats to look cool in front of their friends and decided this also applies to the animal kingdom).
Maybe if it is possible to dissect the cycle length of the above timeline between in groups and out groups, it would be more possible to understand the staying power of trends. For example, if niche goes mainstream too fast, does it also burn out more quickly, or does the crowd building inclusivity gain momentum and give the trend staying power? If it moves too slowly, does the mainstream group ever get large enough to attract the interest of the out groups who have clearly not bought into the trend?
In a world where our attention is short and it seems like trend spans are even shorter, understanding where to build momentum in the pattern above could be a great marketing tactic to unlock the appropriate amount of staying power in the cultural conversation. I honestly think there’s a lot more to think about with the pattern of niche going mainstream and the genesis of trends, but this is merely one blog. And, as my life coach says, I’m a verbal processor and very used to leaving with more questions than answers. If anyone wants to chat and nerd out on marketing tactics for the cool kids and normies, please lmk!
The views and opinions expressed in this blog are solely my own and do not represent the views or opinions of the Stellar Development Foundation.
