Where would Bruce Springsteen be without his trusty blonde Telecaster? What would Annie Leibovitz do without her camera? How could Elmer Fudd hunt Bugs Bunny without his shotgun?
Whether you are a rock star, a celebrity photographer, a cartoon archenemy … or a trend hunter – you need the right weapon to get the job done. We already established that everyone is a trend hunter to some extent. But your level of success depends on the time, tenacity and tools that you bring to the table.
There’s a lot to explore if you hunt trends or cool, and it can seem a little daunting. But with enough passion and these tips, you will be on your way.
Here a few things to keep in mind:
- Without a doubt, you share your interest with someone who is already out there doing a great job exploring and covering it. Find that person.
- Understand the “refresh cycle” of your interest, and make sure you stay topical so you do not miss the latest developments.
- When establishing thought-leadership (writing a blog, producing a vlog, taking photos, collecting, reporting), complete your due diligence and cite your sources.
- Actively participate in your communities of interest – and be HUMBLE.
- Define your role with contacts.
- Prognosticate on trends and see how well you do. The longer you follow something, the better you will get.
Buzz vs. Meme vs. Cool vs. Trend
- Buzz: Just because something has buzz, it’s not necessarily a trend. In fact, “buzz” often is manufactured. Trust me. As an advertiser, it’s my job to create this manifestation around product and service offerings.
- Meme: By definition, a “meme” is an idea, behavior or cultural element that spreads from person to person. In my context, however, a meme is an Internet fad of sorts. And often it involves humor. A meme is frequently an online “quick-hit” or “one-hit-wonder.” It is frequently an image or short video clip that services as a joke. More often than not, it tends to be viral, self-replicating within the community of interest.
- Cool:In my humble opinion, cool is the highest echelon of trend hunting. Cool surpasses time and often is a base platform for becoming cyclical. Creating cool is far more difficult, because its cache is that of a personal statement or an ideal that people will accept and adopt.Cool often comes with a greater circle of influence, too. For example I think rat rods are cool. With that comes a much larger community of rockabilly culture, with endless branches of music, fashion, tattoos, and its ownlexicon.
- Trend: Trends occupy a space somewhere between cool and buzz. They’re volatile, fragile and rapidly changing. Trend hunting is also the most difficult to become good at, as buzz will die off and cool is readily accepted. Therefore spotting trends, and more importantly determining what industries, demographic and psychographic they will affect, is a journeyman’s skill you must continually hone.
Local vs. National vs. Global
To truly be a good trend hunter, you must also take on the responsibility of researching the global impression of your particular interest. If you’re a gadget trend hunter, you’ll keep a keen eye on product launches in Asian markets. If you’re into modern design, perhaps you stay on top of European design sensibilities.
Genre/Interest-Based Websites
To simply scratch the surface of trend hunting, the following links mildly center on trends and cool as a catchall. This is a good list if you want to get your feet wet and see a glimpse of the many amazing minds hunting within an endless variety of interests:
- PSFK
- Laughing Squid
- Cool Hunting
- The Cool Hunter
- The Cool Hunter (AU)
- Not Cot.org
- Not Cot.com
- Moco Loco
- Design Milk
- mashKULTURE
- Where is the Cool
- Trend Land
- The Coolist
- Oobject
- Whitezine
- Neublack
- Picocool
- Like Cool
- Design Observer
- Polkadot.it
- Trendsnow
- Freshness Mag
- Web Urbanist
- High Snobiety
- Today and Tomorrow
- Design Boom
- This is Colossal
- Ignant
- The Jail Break
- Animal New York
- Fat Lace
- Incredible Things
- Hi Fructose
- Flylyf
- The Letter
- Art Culture
- Style Frizz
- Dazed Digital
- Ink Butter
- Hype Beast
- Feed Me Cool Shit
- Stupid Dope
- Being Hunted
- Cool Material
Blogs
Most of the sites above are actually blogs, but they simply aren’t positioned as such. Here are some truly blogerrific links:
- Fly Girls
- Everyone Forever
- Neatorama
- KK
- The Trendy Girl
- If It’s Hip, It’s Here
- Josh Spear
- This Heart’s on Fire
- The Ultra Linx
- The World’s Best Ever
Trendhunter
Want the “trend hunter” title? You too can work with the self-proclaimed source:
Make it Your Own
I assume you already had the passion, and now you have the tools to be a true trend hunter. Imagine the possibilities when you bring it all together with your own perspective, vision and unique twist.
This is great, it’s almost exactly what I do. Since I’m fortunate to work at a social media platform company that develops a platform to identify influencers in any community I like to personally browse using our application to find reviews and blog posts from the top influencers. For example, the other day I looked for the highest influencers in the photography community to looks for reviews on a a few studio lights I was on the fence about purchasing.
I knew I was getting the best opinions available to the community because the social structure of the community vetted out any spam and noise that could have been manufactured and identified the people who wrote the most informational posts.
I guess you could say I used trend hunting through our application to find the best studio lights for me, haha!