I read ’the creative curve’, and one of the central points of the book is that people crave things that are like everything they have seen, and yet a bit different. Every new exposure to a thing makes you enjoy it more untill you reach a saturation point and every new exposure after that ‘point of cliche’ makes you dislike it. This happens for every person but also for groups of people. So after a while we (in aggregate) collectively crave a thing and are suddenly done with it.
This explains things like fidget spinners, (me mentioning this shows how out of touch I am with what is popular) they look like other toys to sooth yourself but are slightly different. Hmm maybe this is a bad example, because I’m looking at google trend worldwide and people are still searching for these things, there seems to be a revival in popularity after march 22 2020.
But in the USA popularity is declining:
But it is not just toys. Its also job names and hypes in the techworld. I’ve noticed that I cringe when someone mentions ‘Big Data’. Since I am in the fore front of that field I am already very familiar and seek something new. And maybe the world is too:
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For me data science is also becoming cliche, but the worldwide trend has not yet reached its peak.
Of course, a worldwide trend masks the differences per region and smoothes the curve out over a longer period. But some things are truly done and over, and we should be very glad: this is the interest in blockchain:
Though I feel bad for Nigeria, Ghana and China. It seems interest is still high there. Maybe they are still trying to get their money back from scammers?
Links, further reading
- Gannett, Allen. The Creative Curve: How to Develop the Right Idea, at the Right Time, 2018. ISBN:978-1-5247-6171-4 978-0-525-57604-4
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