Out: Gender Essentialism as Feminism
“Masculine energy,” “being in touch with your divine feminine,” “girl math,” and all of the surrounding nonsense is just sexism being repackaged and rebranded. While many people find it empowering to embrace their womanhood via traditional femininity, the presentation of taking on a traditional role or hyper-feminine appearance as somehow subversive is an exercise in futility. While many men demean femininity, devoting oneself to a feminine ideal is not sticking it to the patriarchy. Femininity may be belittled, but it is still the desirable norm. Regardless of one’s intentions or internal motivation, the outward presentation of feminine beauty still pacifies and gratifies the male gaze. The complication about how to proceed with feminism and how to approach the notion of empowerment in a patriarchal structure is too complex for this paragraph. All I can confidently say is furthering gender division, perpetuating the idea that men and women are inherently different — even in the service of momentarily uplifting women — still feels like a regressive ideology.
In: Mediocre Art
Politically, environmentally and socially, the world is in a pretty tumultuous and troubled period. To cope with the overwhelming weight of tragedy and the insanity of trying to remain calm, many people need an outlet to express themselves and seek catharsis. Hopefully, this instinct, in combination with the growing recognition of artificial intelligence’s pitfalls, will spur people to create. Art doesn’t need AI gloss, practiced professionalism or anything near perfection. All this work has to be is authentic. Maybe that means it’s corny or mediocre, but there’s a place for creation nonetheless.
Out: Brandy Melville
There’s no denying, Brandy Melville is good at what they do. Unfortunately, all they really do is produce cutesy basics for thin women. There will probably always be a place for that, but the era of Brandy Melville as an arbiter of taste is over. Tides began to turn against Brandy after a recent documentary shone light on the company’s discriminatory and fatphobic hiring practices, the horrific impacts of the fast fashion industry, and the dubious labor practices employed by the company. The fantasy of thin, white Californian bliss the company sells is getting tired. Looking at their clothes feels like chewing on Wonder Bread. It’s 2025; let’s get more interesting.
In: Home Cooking
Out of necessity, the pandemic led to a rise in home cooking, trying new recipes, owning a sourdough starter, and the Bon Appetit test kitchen taking the world by storm. But as soon as restrictions lifted, the desire to get outside, back into restaurants, and away from our quarantine hobbies took over. However, increased restaurant prices and a higher cost of living — in addition to some distance from the pandemic — will bring home cooking back to the forefront in the new year. This isn’t to say home cooking hasn’t always been present; it’s a staple of many people’s lives. To clarify its place on the ‘In’ List’: crafting meals at home will move from early 2020s necessity to hobby in 2025.
Out: Video Essays
Video essays are to the 2020s what podcasts were to the 2010s — a new art form for information and entertainment, taking over the internet and burrowing themselves into people’s daily routines. However, as of late, it feels the market has become oversaturated. A lot of content feels repetitive and more concerned with internet discourse than the realities of everyday life. Everyone is thoughtful and articulate as they speak into the void. It’s an echo chamber. Video essays can still be a great method for teaching, learning and platforming people who otherwise may not have a voice in traditional media, but at a certain point, one needs to expand their media consumption habits. A great transitional point is listening to the works quoted in beloved video essays and then reading those books.
In: Scarves for Fashion (Not Just Function)
Scarves are a winter necessity, but the rise of accessorizing and genuine 2000s fashion, not just a Shein-ified Y2K, will keep them on our minds and around our necks further into the new year. A light or skinny scarf is perfect for spring: it can add fun colors, interesting patterns and unique flair to any look.
Out: Rage Bait Content
Relishing and creating content purely based around the cringe or problematic nature of a piece of art is overdone. It mostly serves to platform and draw attention to the media that’s being critiqued. Rage bait is low-hanging fruit. There’s a whole industry of critiquing cringe books and movies and music, but none of those people are offering alternatives or making art they feel proud of to balance out the ridicule. The best example of this is Colleen Hoover content. Colleen Hoover writes silly books with outlandish sentences, but making a video making fun of that doesn’t show you’re so much smarter than her. You still read her book. Grow up.
In: Reading for Pleasure
This doesn’t mean embracing pure fluff all day everyday. Challenging and substantive literature is also a part of a balanced media consumption diet. However, picking up a book rather than one’s phone is becoming increasingly necessary. Don’t torture yourself with a book you don’t like, you’ll always pick your phone over that. But getting back into silly books, maybe revisiting a childhood favorite as a break from the cacophony and attention-span-ruining nature of the internet, could be quite enjoyable.
Out: Plumping Lip Gloss
Firstly, it hurts! Secondly, there’s been a shift away from lip filler in the past few years, and movement away from plumping gloss seems like the next logical wave of that trend. Beauty doesn’t need to be homogenized. This feels especially relevant in the Kardashian era, where traditional features from people of color have been co-opted by mainstream white culture, leading to a standard of beauty composed of traditional features from a variety of ethnicities. Features that women of color have long been demeaned and brutalized for are now being praised on white women. However, the ideal is still whiteness — maybe a more racially ambiguous whiteness, but whiteness nonetheless. Chemical hair straightening, skin bleaching, and cosmetic procedures continue to harm women of color around the world, while the beauty industry continues to pick and choose which features they’ll profit from this year. As America embraces conservatism, beauty standards reflect as such. Ariana Grande has stopped her excessive tanning, the Kardashians are getting their filler and BBLs removed, undoing their cornrows and dying their hair blonde. The beauty ideal shifts in accordance with the social and political climate, and thus shaping one’s beauty routine, view of self worth, and even physical facial structure around those standards is a Sisyphean task. The uniqueness of one’s features can often be the most captivating thing about them. It’s time to embrace the beauty of individuality in 2025.
In: Wool
It's long-lasting, super warm and natural. Yes, it can be more expensive than synthetic fibers, but many brands are hiking up the prices on that, too. STOP PRETENDING PLASTIC IS GOOD FOR THE EARTH BECAUSE YOU CALL IT VEGAN. Vegan leather is plastic and so are acrylic sweaters. Thrift wool — it’ll last a long time, and lanolin (which is in real wool) has natural waterproofing properties, it’s cozier, and it's chic!
Out: Personal Taste as a Sign of Morality
It’s true that media one consumes can be indicative of personal beliefs. Consumption isn’t a neutral act. Yet, the representation of what someone likes as the deepest look into who they are or their beliefs is a foolish instinct. It leads to people justifying everything they like as the most morally pure creation in the world and positioning something they have a personal distaste for as problematic. Media and its creators still require critique, but consumption isn’t the purest expression of morality.
In: Following Your Heart Rather Than Trends
Okay, fine! The hypocrisy of a trend critique on an “ins and outs” list is clearly ironic to me. However, one can be aware of the flow of trends — the way individual action and perspective is shaped by cultural context — without letting it control them. Especially with the rapidity of the trend cycle and the fracturing of monoculture via the internet, trends are constantly appearing and shifting. While trends can be a force for good by introducing people to new styles or inspiring them to rediscover a hobby or look they already liked, a life lived in pursuit of the next best thing will be both wasteful and unfulfilling.
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