Quackcast 749 - Chasin' trends

This week our cast is about the folly of following fashion! It could be with clothes, hair, interior design, architecture, music, OR creation! Things like plot styles, story structure, art, lettering, fonts, jokes, twists etc, all are subject to fashions of the day. And we are driven to participate in it, not because we're fashionable creatures who want to be “in” with the latest trends, rather it's because at our core we're just simple social animals and following fashion is an instinctual way for us to fit in with our social groups and participate in the simple social hierarchies based on how closely we follow the current fashion and how cleverly we express it. It's herd behaviour.

But why is it folly? There are a few very important reasons that you shouldn't follow fashion:
1. It dates you in a really unfortunate and specific way. So you stuff is forever tied to a specific time.
2. Fashions come and then go, which means you only have a limited time before what was cool and making you fit in turns around and does the EXACT OPPOSITE.
3. You become just another part of the crowd, which is hard to stand out from, and in truth you will probably be a bad version of whatever the popular style is, which will be more obvious when the fashion moves on and no one makes allowances for you anymore because you were expressing a fashion they liked, rather you'll just be seen for what the are: a wannabe.
4. You will be driven to change things in order to keep up with fashion changes, which will be very disruptive to your work and annoying for your audience.
5. Audiences that are attracted to you because of the fashion you're expressing will also quickly leave when that's not the in thing anymore.

Slang changes all the time. The very worst and most stupid thing you can ever do is try and unironically keep up with current slang, especially if you're trying to see “cool”. Why is that? Because the people most up with the latest slang are 12 to 14 years old, do you really want to be thought of as cool to a 12 year old? Aside from that the constant changes mean that using current slang dates you more than anything and gives the opposite of your intended meaning, instead of ever being cool you will look very stupid. If you must you can use it ironically and that will save you, you can also use it historically to date your stuff to a particular time, OR you can invent your own like A Clockwork Orange, the Simpsons, or The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Now we come to the topic of “style vs fashion”. You can be stylish instead of fashionable, this means you pick styles from where and whenever you like (even current fashions), based on your passion for those things and you intelligently incorporate them into your own personal style. The difference is that you are not simply following a trend because it's the done thing, going along with it, doing your own poor version of it because you don't really understand it and it not fitting in any way with you what so ever. Style is making the best choices and picking the best examples of things that worked, while fashion is simply fitting in.

So what have been your own worst fashion mistakes? This can be in creation, clothing, hair, whatever. Did you try and jump onboard with manga style when that first became the big fashion in Western comics? I know I tried and did a terrible version of the style! Did you do the whole non-linear story thing? The alternative world thing? The superhero in the “realistic” outfit and setting thing? The “webtoon format” vertical scrolling infinite canvas thing? There are many more fads and styles… It's NOT a bad thing to do any of those as long as you're not just don't it because it's the popular thing at the time.
Also, back in the late 80s I had black/grey acid wash jeans and white high-top shoes. And I also had a pseudo mullet (long at the back with lots and hairspray and gel on the sides).

Gunwallace wasn't able to do a theme this week so instead we have a reprise of May the Rain Come, by Zimeta. It's a very beautiful piece. From Quackcast 177, 28th of July, 2014.

Topics and shownotes

Links

Featured comic:
Sheltered Lands - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/jul/14/featured-comic-sheltered-lands/

Featured music:
May the Rain Come - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/May_the_Rain_Come/ - by Zimeta, rated T.

Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
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