The “airport tray aesthetic” has taken off on TikTok, Instagram and Pinterest as people share artfully arranged shots of their sunglasses, shoes, toiletries and reading material inside the regulation polypropylene dishes.
Don’t expect crumpled plastic bags stuffed with toothpaste and Pepto-Bismol. This is aspirational travel, where your 35mm film camera nestles between your vintage loafers and your first-edition copy of “On the Road.”
I suppose this was the next frontier to be explored when people got bored with photographing and posting their meals. No doubt these are the same folks who are getting in on the fridgescaping craze.
I blame the whole “influencer” culture pushing would-be stars to seek out ever more outre ways to get attention. Or maybe just the latest incarnation with pretentious gits with too much time on their hands.
You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But attention-seeking idiots we will always have with us, especially when they can extract money from people dim enough to finance them.
Speaking of pretentious gits, another quote from the article. At least this “influencer” isn’t holding up the checkpoint line.
A lot of the most delightfully organized boxes don’t involve a trip to the airport at all.
In one of the most popular TikTok videos on the “airportaesthetic” hashtag, with 1.8 million views, Chicago-based content creator Piper Taich gives a tutorial explaining that her airport security tub was purchased on Amazon and her boarding pass was edited on Photoshop.
She then curates her travel-themed selections to her heart’s content.
“If you’re asking what the point of this is, the point is that it’s fun and that it’s art,” she says. “It’s a really fun way to express my love of fashion and thrifting and artistic direction.”
Also, if i never have to come across the word “curate” outside of a museum context again, it will be too soon.
I think influencer culture just means there are these faster trends, and which may be more niche. The most exotic ones will still make headlines, while most kids don’t care about it.
That is the trend of Late gen Z/Gen alpha slang. The very wild stuff is not used that much. And when it is, it’s often a joke, and not how they usually talk.
I think a lot of these trends are also kinda jokes–in that they aren’t taken very seriously. It’s just something to do for this week on Tik Tok. It’s more like the local trends you might have noticed when going to school.
Another one:
Packing the kids lunch box with WAY too much food for a second grader. Foods they won’t touch, any way. In way too many containers. In a lunch box that needs its own back pack.
Nope.
My grand kids school doesn’t allow lunch boxes. They recommend a sack or ziplock. One sandwich. One fruit or snack size mini cookies. No drink. They have to buy milk or juice at the lunch room.
In Montreal a few days ago a new, high status, high end mall just opened and was featured on the news. One clip showed two “influencers” preening themselves and tweaking their makeup etc. It was quite absurd (by my standards anyway).
All of the promise of the Internet in giving access to the wealth of human knowledge at our fingertips, and yet the result is basically amplifying the most insouciant, frivolous, and idiotic behaviors that barely evolved primates can muster. And we’re training generative artificial intelligence systems using all of this crap, so just imagine how well they will ‘optimize’ for it.
The former don’t surprise me in the least. it’s the sheer volume of the latter that continues to amaze me. And more than that, the advanced ages involved.
We have all been teens. And we all know how teens “rebel” by all dressing alike as long as it’s different from their parents’ dress. Same with music, etc. We’ll all be non-conformists together by conforming to each other.
Teens are developing their sense of both self, and sense of the herd and their comfort zone within it. Some are uber-conformers, some are more comfortable nearer the fringe, but each of us muddles through finding our comfy (or at least least-uncomfortable) spot within that milling herd.
About the time we figure that out we’re ready to go out into the world, the hot-house of age-specific conformism called “school” falls away, and we’re launched into adulthood. For better or for worse.
So far so ordinary and so eternal.
It has certainly been remarked ad nauseum both in the outer world and here on the Dope that it seems modern young people want their adolescence to extend much farther into their life, even into their 30s.
I wonder if there’s a connection. That the widespread desire to emulate “influencers” is the audience having that same sense of a teen trying to find their niche in the class herd. It’s a form of extended puppydom. There’s a magic word for that but I’m drawing a blank, am out of time, and need to hit [send].
A creator confidential has a serious announcement or topic they must discuss while putting on their face. Miss Outraged is spitting nails while rubbing in a liquid serum then taking out her spongy puff blending and contouring face makeup, curling the eyelashes, pursing the lips gah! Get me out of here. I don’t get those reels at all. I’m not interested in anyone’s makeup routine or do I wish to be a voyeur in your boudoir.
Yeah, I think it’s kind of stupid, too, but in the greater scheme of things there have been far more harmful fads, like eating Tide pods. At this point in my life I see the latest iteration of stuff I think is nuts, shrug my shoulders, and move on to the things I like that other people think are crazy.
I agree with you, with a minor exception. But in general, yes, social media is largely responsible for amplifying and promulgating our chronic idiocracy. I don’t know what the exact definition of an “influencer” is but it sounds like a modern-day carnival barker who’s taken to Xitter and TikTok instead of yelling. Most of the “trends” you mention are genuinely idiotic.
My one small objection is that if by “photographing and posting their meals” you were referring to airline meals, since we were talking about airport stuff here, I’m willing to cut them some slack. A lot of effort is put into making airline meals tasty and attractive – especially in business class and first class – under very challenging conditions. Because of the way the meal has to be packaged, the results are often creative and quite pretty. There are websites that host many such images with commentary, sorted by airline, that are actually a useful guide to the quality of food on different airlines and routes. Best of all, this has nothing to do with “influencers” or social media, just ordinary folk sharing their experiences.
I did a lot of Yelp reviews etc, once upon a time, and one hotel did give me a room upgrade based upon that. But that was the extent of my “influencer” powers.
Me, too. For some reason, I don’t like looking at videos, except, of course, when my daughter shares the adorable things my grandkids do. If I do go to YouTube, it’s to find something specific - I have no interest in random viewing. Then again, I’m an old grouch…
A new trend I’ve seen is refrigerator scaping. People are decorating the inside of their fridges. They place fruit in beautiful, fancy bowls, they place knick-knacks around food items, a green pepper will be set atop a candle stick, carrots with their green stems/leaves still intact will be placed in a Victorian vase. It is so bizzarro.
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They place fruit in beautiful, fancy bowls, they place knick-knacks around food items, a green pepper will be set atop a candle stick, carrots with their green stems/leaves still intact will be placed in a Victorian vase. It is so bizzarro.