Welcome to Impact Studio Drop #11, your deep dive into the new, interesting and occasionally unexpected ways to do cool stuff with creators. 

TV and magazines were once key trend drivers, dictating what’s hot and what’s not. Today, however, social reigns supreme. From the cover of Vogue to covering the FYP, one TikTok can sell out a dress and one dance post has the world dressed in green, miming breaking apples…  At the heart of these trends - starting, fuelling and sustaining the conversation, are creators' trusted voices, who audiences turn to for recommendations. 

Creators, however, do more than just sell out dresses, they can be powerful agents of cultural change. By engaging with their communities, creators play a pivotal role in shaping societal attitudes and behaviours. They initiate conversations, challenge preconceptions, and inspire new ways of thinking. Whether it's transforming attitudes towards second-hand goods or promoting healthier lifestyle choices, creators leverage their platforms to foster significant shifts in how we view and engage with the world around us. Through their authentic connections and persuasive storytelling, they are driving cultural evolution and redefining what is considered mainstream and acceptable in society.

Second-hand resale is a perfect distillation of one of these shifts, fuelled not only by societal considerations for the environment - incited by sustainability and ethical issues around fast fashion - but by changes to the narrative. As children, we rolled our eyes at the mere thought of hand-me-downs, but creators have helped shift attitudes by cultivating and fuelling changes in language. Second-hand, something once considered unfashionable, has been reframed as pre-loved, a positive spin of the exact same concept. Platforms like Depop, Vinted, Hurr and By Rotation have become hugely popular places to go for the latest fashion finds, and on social, creators like saint.thrifty (Sophie) are showing audiences how you can be more savvy with your fashion choices and still be bang on trend. She shares inspiration for vintage shopping, and how new pieces can elevate your wardrobe at a fraction of the price, with less environmental impact. By framing charity shopping as thrifting unique vintage pieces, creators are not just normalising and destigmatising second-hand shopping, but glamorising it and making it covetable through a shift in language. It’s not second-hand, it’s preloved.

And it’s not just second-hand items that are becoming mainstream and overcoming negative stigma. As a result of the cost of living crisis, and a desire to be more fashion savvy, more people are looking to get their own piece of luxury, on an economy budget. Cue one of the most popular social trends of the 2020s… dupe culture. Again, creators have helped to destigmatise the notion of replicas, creating full shoppable store-fronts with their favourite designer dupes, showing how to style them and giving reviews on their latest finds. It’s now a flex to tell your friends how your new “Van Cleef” bracelet only cost you £10, or your newest bag was a fraction of the RRP. Creators drive hype around dupe products by integrating them into their content and tapping into trends that their audiences are already engaging with. By creators opening up these conversations, dupes are not seen as a thing of shame, but something that is cool and trendy. They have changed the language around ‘fakes’ from being inherently negative, to rebranding them as desirable ‘dupes’. 

These shifts in attitude and perception extend beyond fashion and products and into broader social behaviours. Culturally a lot of socialising has typically included alcohol consumption - pints at the pub, after-work drinks, dining out, going to events, festivals and clubs. For a long time, society has perceived drinking as fun and sobriety as boring. But creators are helping to shift this narrative, and introducing their audiences to new ways that you can have a fun social life, sober. From hosting Dry Discos to starting NoLo drink brands, creators like Steph Elswood and Millie Gooch are showing the sober-curious how they can still have fun, without the hangxiety. Founder of Sobergirlsociety, a community built for the sober and sober curious, Millie encourages meet-ups and different activities to bring together like-minded people. Through SoberGirlSociety and her content series ‘Wholesome Fun’ (a series dedicated to having fun sober), she is helping to invoke a cultural shift around sober life, showing audiences that there are people like you who are open to having fun without the alcohol. Creators joining conversations on TikTok about the NoLo lifestyle are normalising and destigmatising the more negative perceptions around sobriety and instead encouraging the sober curious to give it a try by reducing the anxiety around being left out, anti-social and ‘boring’.

Each of these examples demonstrates a range of cultural shifts that creators have helped to instigate and fuel. These trends and changes are not borne out of social - but fuelled by conversations on the platform that extend offline. Creators shift perceptions by facilitating conversations, encouraging a change in language, and authentically connecting with their trusting communities by showing them the new and the on-trend, pointing them in the direction of the next best thing, which in turn changes cultural narratives and perceptions. To not only tap into culture but to help shape it, brands should harness the power of creators, especially those brands whose product or offerings aligns with re-emerging trends or changes in behaviour.

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