Small is the new big. You can find it in your grocery store (microgreens), in your bloodstream (microplastics), and, at least for me, in at least 80 percent of casual conversations with white people (microaggression). In fashion, quite paradoxically, the micro has become macro through the microtrend: a Frankenstein word used to describe hyper-specific style codes born on the internet, primarily circulated on TikTok. Microtrends are based on the allure of being niche, where the aesthetics from early-21st-century subcultures like goth, prep, and scene converge on the internet in shapeless collages. For example, tiny denim skirts adorned by multiple studded belts, layered chunky jewelry, and oversized men’s zip-up hoodies come together in #cybercore, an overly-accessorized mess that looks like a blend of Ellie Nash from season one of Degrassi: The Next Generation, mid-aughts scene, and early-aughts mall goth.

As specific as microtrends are, they become widespread group activities through their identification and naming—often with the suffix -core—in turn creating a sense of community for adherents. The term “microtrend” itself can encompass a popular item of clothing like jorts, but also an entire identity that goes along with the type of person who wears jorts, like a bloke (a tomboyish girl who wears minimal to no makeup and her hair pulled back with an oversized soccer jersey, sneakers, and small pocket-sized accessories because she’s too sporty to carry a purse). The point with the microtrend is that it cannot really be explained, but it can be easily identified using basic pattern recognition skills. Most importantly, it can be sold.

Microtrends thrive on repeatable social math. Blokecore = jorts + Adidas Sambas + sports jersey + polarized sunglasses in weird color ways. Coquette = frilly blush pink polyester lettuce hem skirt + ballet flats + matching oversized sleeve knit sweater + Blair Waldorf-esque headband. But what makes a microtrend—or, perhaps more precisely, what makes a successful follower of a microtrend—can’t be reduced to merely this plus that equals achieving the look. This superficial arithmetic hides a complex fashion algebra.

There are invisible coefficients attached to every constant that goes into a blokecore or coquette outfit. A pair of orange-tinted Oakleys aren’t just the necessary wraparounds to complete a blokecore outfit, they’re a reference to ’90s David Beckham, but also the same ones from The Florida Project (2017), but also the same ones Addison Rae just posted on her story, unironically; ribbons tied in the hair reference Brigitte Bardot, a budget attempt at Sandy Liang girliness, and your toddler ballerina uniforms that were once cringe-worthy and now “so aesthetic.” These invisible coefficients not only contextualize the -cores, but drive a “collect them all” spirit behind microtrends and the sense of belonging and understanding that keeps them iterating. Online-only stores like Strawberry Western hawk girly lace-trimmed tops named after Nabokov novels with a business model dictated by microtrends: if young people didn’t don sociopathic-sweetheart outfits and take photos of cigarettes tied with tiny pink bows (yes, I am talking about coquette) not only would the store not make money, it wouldn’t exist. When shopping registers like the pursuit of knowledge, microtrends reward: not only did you clock the niche media reference, you deserve to buy an outfit to match to let everyone know just how deep your well goes.

The blokecore or coquette math is affected by a number of bygone celebrity paparazzi shots, niche media moments, album covers, books (the list goes on)—this media represents the constantly shifting goalpost of microtrendiness, and is proliferated on TikTok. One day recreating Raven Baxter’s distinctly y2k maximalism is in, the next it’s out, and replicating Carrie Bradshaw’s credit card-maxing kooky style takes its place. Being on microtrend means you can read the references behind the styles as they shift in and out of vogue, and shift your consumption accordingly. It’s a good thing TikTok provides live shopping links for you to do so.

The weirdest part to me is that the line between influencer and normal social media user seems to have all but dissolved with microtrends. Where early YouTubers and makeup gurus once got paid deals to begin their content with “and a huge thanks to (brand name) for sponsoring this video,” companies have to do way less work when your average teenager posts hauls and live links to your online storefronts for free, no contracts, sponsorships, or gifting required. Microtrends are so successful because they treat the free promotion of brands (whether small businesses like Strawberry Western or giants like Amazon) as a key part of being part of a -core on TikTok. Being part of a -core is like making friends on the internet. The feeling of small sells big.

As social media has provided people access to one another globally on such a massive scale, it’s become a breeding ground for polarization, including in style. While spatially dispersed, self-contained microtrend universes increasingly speak only to each other. As the world gets bigger, it gets tinier still. I came to this conclusion almost immediately following New York Fashion Week when looking at street-style photographs. A lot of the “style moments” captured on the sidewalks of NYFW felt like one big microtrend circle jerk when I looked at them in quick succession, where so-called “unique” looks in all likelihood come from the cobbled-together Amazon storefronts of 14 year old girls with less than 1,000 followers. Snooki-inspired furry boots, headphones-as-headbands, that fugly haircut that’s supposed to make you look like Japanese Farrah Fawcett. It must end!

As not to risk sounding like a bitter old Gen-Z-Millennial cusp, the frustration with microtrend conformity stops here. However, the shit-talking has just begun. Looking back at fashion month, I want to get to the core of -cores. Here are four aspects of microtrend-fueled “style” that I think warrant whatever the closest social equivalent is to capital punishment (I don’t believe in penalty by the hands of the state).

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Basketball shorts as a part of an “outfit”
So you’re getting dressed, right? And you find the cute-top section of your closet, sifting through the chintzy ones you wear to the club, the cotton poplin or silky ones you wear for professional engagements, and the modest polyester ones you wear for holidays. You pick one of these, it doesn’t matter the genre. And then you decide to abandon any previously-held notion of style, social decorum, and god, and throw on a pair of basketball shorts. At this stage, you continue styling the outfit as if you just never put on any bottoms. Shoes? A tiny heel, a ballet flat, a penny loafer, that one damn pair of Frye boots. Bag? A leather hobo or teeny tiny one from Zara or a Zara-esque retailer. And guess what, it looks like shit.

Not only do basketball shorts styled as the only relaxed element of what otherwise would be a fairly formal outfit look out of place, their prominence as a “look” is one of those invisible coefficients I talked about earlier. That scene from Sex and the City where Carrie Bradshaw wears rolled up navy blue basketball shorts, a gauzy white top, and pink Manolo peep-toe mules? It became a TikTok moment. For Carrie, this is a last minute outfit she throws on because her then-ex-boyfriend Big is stalking her and she’s walking her current boyfriend Aidan’s dog, Pete, who escapes, forcing her to chase him down in the ridiculous combo of heels and athletic wear. This is a look because it’s an accident. You cannot premeditate such desperation, and the fact that a lot of people think they can is insane to me. Styling basketball shorts in such an illogical way says, “I saw that still of SATC too.” Ridiculous! (DISCLAIMER: Treat Swarstad is exempt from this critique, and is the only person in history to ever look good wearing a cotton poplin shirts with basketball shorts).

The slick back low bun—clean girl/office siren
In 2020, white girls on the internet discovered Eco Style Gel, and nothing was ever the same. I remember a video on X of a young girl in the military showing her followers how she achieves a bootcamp-friendly slickback using Eco Style, Got2B Glued hairspray, and a boar bristle brush. It felt like overnight, that was the new emergency hairstyle.

The pulled back sheen of a slicked back low bun is now a central principle of the clean girl look, a microtrend that, to me, seems based around girls who look like they’ve always just stepped out of the shower and drink water. Clean girl makeup is cream-based and meant to brighten and enhance; the look is minimal but the effort is not. Part of looking “clean girl” is pulling your hair back so people can admire how many products it looks like you didn’t use, though no one actually thinks you “woke up like this.”

I will never stop doing this hairstyle because it has been an it’s-almost-wash-day staple for Black girls internationally since the dawn of time, but clean girl, I shall never be.

 That one bubble skirt from Aritzia
This one is personal, namely because I bought a beautiful asymmetrical Hussein Chalayan black silk bubble skirt for a great price on Poshmark in 2021, and it feels like it has been taken from me. Imagine a pair of drop crotch pants but bunched up and resewn into a little skirt—that’s the bubble hem. I saw at least two people wearing this exact item in black or white silky-looking fabric at every single fashion show I went to, and I’m not entirely sure how it caught on to the masses, but I can make an educated guess.

There’s an aspect of nostalgia to microtrends, where a clothing item you remember seeing on MTV as a kid has the opportunity to become real in your very own closet. I remember the bubble skirt from a Chris Brown music video (yikes). I think it was “Yo (Excuse Me, Miss).” When I saw a somewhat elevated version of the silhouette during a very targeted online shopping spree, it was a wonderful coincidence and I happily bought my Chalayan for $25. Microtrends replicate this experience with mass-produced goods targeting nostalgia for a past that consumers might not have even lived through, but they can still feel. My conjecture is that a resurgence of British teen drama series Skins and aughts-era programs of the like is the inciting incident for the bubble skirt revival. Whether or not you remember what 2006 felt like, you can shop that nostalgia.

Those damn furry boots—scene queen revival and all of the other -coresSpecifically the Demonia CAMEL-311. This is a Bratz doll shoe but for adults. The vegan-leather, pastel-pink version of these shoes is unavoidable at NYC fashion programs, especially styled with a tiny American Apparel-adjacent tennis skirt in a matching color. Each color of this boot corresponds to a different aspect of a microtrend: the camel brown is fairycore, the black and white colorways are scene revival (my girl cigsnvalentines on TikTok found a way to style the brown ones as scene though), and the pink is Y2Kcore. Each of these -cores is effectively the same glitzy thing but associated with different colors, much like the Bratz dolls.

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I’ll end by taking a page from Washington Post fashion writer Rachel Tashjian, whose Milan Fashion Week column for the publication interrogated the idea of “the algorithm” as a scapegoat for the current state of fashion. Tashjian turned her attention to the work of power duo Miuccia Prada and Raf Simons, who currently design Prada’s womenswear. She concludes that “maybe we live in a world of tributes, reboots, remakes, and deepfakes that are really a faithful reproduction of a past that never happened.” And perhaps microtrends behave this way too, as a product of the same algorithmic grouping, tagging, and promotion that occurs on platforms like TikTok. Maybe every -core member is a faithful reproduction of one another, reproducing bygone cultural references from episodes of TV, mimicking the self that reflects culture back on itself, and so on. While I admire Tashjian’s refreshing lack of fire and brimstone in her outlook on algorithms, my critique comes from a place of deep aesthetic displeasure. I have said what I said: a lot of you need to get off TikTok and, before touching grass, buy some better fucking shoes.