Nonsense Sells

Blueberry-milk nails. Hot rodent boyfriend. Tomato-girl summer. What do these things have in common? Absolutely nothing. They are all utterly meaningless. That and, within the last year, each one has become a micro-trend, a niche and short-lived yet pervasive fad that sweeps the Internet.

At this point, they are better described as “vibe trends,” ephemeral word clouds seemingly chosen at random that briefly dictate thousands of people’s identities until the next one comes along.

What it all boils down to is marketing. Sometimes it’s obvious that a marketing scheme is responsible for a vibe trend. See: Brat, the Charli XCX album that created a party-girl aesthetic to promote songs.

Other times, the vibe trend seems to have a more grassroots origin. See: demure, which started as a TikTok video of a woman explaining how to look appropriate at work—“considerate, approachable, mindful.” Repeating her advice quickly became a social-media trend about flirtatious modesty. Shortly after, people’s in-boxes were flooded with brand e-mails that had “demure” in the subject line.

Oftentimes, it’s a real chicken-or-the-egg situation, which might not matter to anyone if it weren’t for the fact that even politics rides these viral-marketing waves. See: the Harris campaign’s embrace of Brat.

Phrases like “tomato-girl summer” (which is meant to evoke a summer-on-the-Italian-coast vibe) are tethered, usually via an influencer, to a particular look. Once tethered, the phrase ascends to full-on vibe-trend status when consumers opt in to buying fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products to emulate the look.

Tomato-girl summer led to a 644 percent increase in searches for linen pants on Depop, according to Vogue Business. Light-blue nails in themselves are insignificant, but label them “blueberry-milk nails” and everyone will want to eat their own fingers.

Obviously you can’t buy a hot rodent boyfriend, but if you could have during the hot-rodent-boyfriend trend, maybe you would have. If there were a rat-girlfriend trend, I’d be absolutely thriving right now. But miracles like that don’t happen for women, or at least not for rat women.

Tomato-girl summer led to a 644 percent increase in searches for linen pants on Depop, according to Vogue Business.

No influencer has been able to capitalize on these vibe trends better than Hailey Rhode Bieber, inventor of “glazed donut skin,” “cinnamon cookie butter hair,” and “strawberry girl summer,” the Instagram caption heard round the world. Her post, a carousel of summery pictures from August 2023, preceded the launch of strawberry-hued beauty products from her skin-care company, Rhode. They sold out immediately.

Everyone wanted to be a strawberry girl, but what does “strawberry girl” mean, exactly? If you were to ask someone who spends their time making mood boards, they might tell you that a strawberry girl is innocent and sweet but also sexy. A strawberry girl is wife material, daughter material, and girlfriend material. But she is not mistress material or single-girl material.

Not to worry, though. There have been multiple trends to encompass the mistress vibe, such as “succubus chic,” which has since splintered off into multiple makeup trends, including, most prominently, “cherry cola lips,” which consists of using a brown-toned dark lip liner with a red lipstick or gloss.

In the span of maybe four months, we saw “mob wife,” “ballet core,” “rockstar girlfriend,” and “tradwife.” There was also the “office siren” aesthetic, which attempted to synthesize the sterility of the office with the mythological seductiveness of the siren. In practice, it was the equivalent of dressing up like a sexy secretary for Halloween, but on a normal day in February.

If there were a rat-girlfriend trend, I’d be absolutely thriving right now.

“Vanilla girl” was described by Vogue as someone who “wears white chunky sweaters, always has freshly shampooed (and most likely blond) hair, and mini Ugg boots. She is rigorous about her hair and skin care routine, always looks dewy, and wears her hair slicked back.”

“Coconut girl” is apparently “vanilla girl” if she went surfing. Beauty trends in the last year alone have included looks such as “cold girl,” “tired girl,” “latte skin,” “pomegranate makeup,” and “messy French girl.” I could go on. And on. And on.

It has become clear that there is nothing in this world too far-fetched to become a vibe. The vibes are out of control. Anything can become a vibe. Even “zero vibes” could soon be a vibe trend, as long as you market it correctly, maybe by tweeting “get yourself a normal non-vibe girlfriend” with a photo of an incredibly normal person doing absolutely nothing. Or maybe it needs something vaguely erotic or edible to really catch fire. “Apple-juice non-vibe nymph” perhaps?

I have done a great public service and created a chart, so that you, too, with minimal effort, can brainwash an entire generation into reducing themselves into a vibe. I suppose you could call me a vibe-trend accelerationist. Let’s get this over with.

All you have to do is add any one word from the Edible/Erotic column, one from the Aesthetic column, and one from the Noun column and you’ve got yourself a viral-marketing campaign, or scheme. If the label you come up with doesn’t seem to make sense, don’t worry! Sense has no place in this world. In fact, the less sense something makes, the better.

Here’s an example: pastry-boy summer. It makes no sense. But if you think about it using your absolute last brain cell, pastry-boy summer is clearly a summer for the kind of guy who doesn’t lift weights every day but still has a good body, the kind of guy who gets a coffee and walks on the West Side Highway no matter what temperature it is outside. His hair is probably the color of a croissant, he has fun anywhere he goes, and he loves wearing vintage T-shirts, even if they’re a little stained.

Have at it!

Cazzie David is a Columnist at AIR MAIL and the author of No One Asked for This, a collection of essays about social media and millennials