Information Cascades and the Network Effect on Fashion Trends through Social Media
Recently in class, we have been discussing information cascades and the network effect. Information cascading is when many people all do the same thing in sequence when given the option to follow your own information or follow what others do. The network effect is when an increased number of people improves the value of an item. An example of these can be seen through social media and its effect on fashion trends and people’s opinions. While there are some people that strictly opinionated about certain fashion trends, there are many people who, while they may have their initial thoughts, are influenced by the opinions of others, following the idea that if everyone else is participating in a fashion trend, then perhaps they are right about it and I should reconsider my opinion.
The idea of information cascading is extremely prevalent throughout social media, especially with today’s society. With a simple click of a button, an influencer can post a picture and have followers buy items. When this happens with multiple people posting and talking about the same product, trends start to form as a large number of people start seeing multiple people raving about a product. The same goes for clothing items and fashion trends. An example of this is the corset top coming back in style. They were once popular in the 1830s but in this past year, they have been popularized yet again. With influencers posting about them, Tiktoks being made, and advertisements being advertised, people see more and more media showing people wearing them and selling them. With this information and influence comes the information cascading taking place on social media. The two online articles I found (linked below) talk about this idea of social media and the social network influencing fashion trends and ideas. The second link in particular talks about how social media allows people to absorb, deny, and/or contribute to the fashion trend ideas being put out there. Because of the large reach that social media has, it can create extremely large social networks, allowing different fashion ideas to reach broad audiences and therefore allowing fashion trends to be created more easily than before the presence of social media.
https://www.alioze.com/en/fashion-social-media-trends
https://thefashionetwork.com/how-social-media-has-changed-the-game-in-the-fashion-industry/