If you’ve watched the things you love turn into mocking memes, take a deep breath and walk away from the internet. Photo: Paul Bradbury.
Cliche, basic, normie, cringe – in 2025 you can’t be anything else.
In the post-influencer age of the internet I can guarantee that however niche you might think your interest is, there’s at least a dozen meme pages about it and no less than 10 companies dedicated to making relevant apparel.
You’re probably looking for ways to monetise it, or at least perform it well enough that footage will impress friends, family and random strangers on the internet.
I’m not exempt from this. I fell in love with Crossfit in the 2010s, then Brazilian jiujitsu (still addicted).
I’ve tried my hand at crocheting, fermenting foods and baking sourdough – not all during the pandemic lockdowns, but definitely lockdown-adjacent activities.
So cringe, I know.
Birdwatching, stargazing, book clubs, they’ve all had a moment online.
As far as I can tell the current trend cycle is leaning heavily into Pilates, Hyrox (someone please explain it to me) and gardening.
Once upon a time, long, long ago in a galaxy far away, it was possible to be something other than a cliche.
Before all the information in the world was available on a screen in your pocket, when we all had to buy our clothes at one of the same five shops in the local mall, you might have only known one guy who made his own beer.
In high school we had the cocktail guy.
In addition to a whole cupboard full of exotic liquers such as Kahlua, Midori and Malibu rum, he had several books full of cocktail recipes with detailed techniques.
He’d stocked up on shakers, blenders, glasses of all shapes and sizes and various other accoutrements.
When it came to cocktails, he was king of our small cohort.
Was he as good as a cocktail guy on TikTok with 1.5 million followers? Probably not.
I’m pretty confident if we were able to upload footage of his exploits now he’d either be ignored or bullied off the internet.
But that didn’t matter, because he wasn’t competing with the whole world, just the 50 or so people around him.
He wasn’t trying to make a career out of fancy cocktail videos, he was just trying to impress his mates (and probably some girls).
I think it’s time to bring back that late 90s/early 2000s enthusiasm.
Sure Pilates-girl memes might be having a moment online, but if it gets you moving and makes you happy who cares?
Your crochet blanket might be too wonky to start up a store on Etsy, but your nan would probably be really touched to receive such a thoughtful, handmade gift.
We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. The internet isn’t going anywhere.
We can ignore it though, and lean into the daggy, imperfect, untrendy things that bring us joy – and it’s a lot easier to do that if we accept that we’re all probably a meme to someone.
