I’m sorry, but why is every girl on the internet suddenly using the word niche? Niche book collection, niche music playlist, niche hobby, niche clothing. At this point, I genuinely wonder if people think saying the word niche is, itself, niche…
But I don’t actually think this is about the word. I think the word is just a symptom of something more exhausting: everyone is trying so hard to be perceived as different.
Somewhere along the way, we stopped simply liking things and started wanting to be seen as the kind of person who likes certain things. It is no longer enough to have a favorite restaurant, a favorite book, a favorite perfume, or a hobby you enjoy. Now it has to say something about you. It has to feel obscure enough to make you interesting, curated enough to make you desirable, and specific enough to separate you from everyone else. How ridiculous!
The funny part is that in our collective attempt to become more unique, we all started sounding exactly the same. Everyone is chasing the same “cool girl” vocabulary, the same understated aesthetic, the same niche references, the same desire to seem like they discovered something before everyone else did.
As someone who creates content online, you realize very quickly that almost everything has already been done. Every post has been posted. Every trend has been recycled. Every “original” idea probably came from something someone saw, saved, forgot about, and accidentally reimagined six months later. That does not mean creativity is dead. It means we need to stop confusing originality with complete novelty.
The goal is not to be the first person to ever like something. The goal is to know why you like it.
That is where taste comes from. Not from liking something no one else has heard of, but from developing your own point of view. You are allowed to like popular things. You are allowed to love the viral Louise Carmen journal (same), the indie underground band, the restaurant everyone posts about, the book on every bedside table. Liking something that other people like does not make you basic. It makes you human.
The internet has made us terrified of being ordinary, but ordinary is not the same as empty. Most of life is shared. Most feelings are universal. Most of us want some version of the same things: to be loved, to be seen, to feel beautiful, to feel interesting, to feel like our lives mean something.
Stop asking, “How do I become more niche?”
Ask yourself, “What do I actually like when no one is watching?”
Because that is the part no algorithm can give you. That is the part AI cannot generate. That is the part that makes your life feel like yours.
You do not need to become a more obscure, more curated, more digestible version of yourself to be interesting. You do not need to collect increasingly specific references to prove you have taste. You do not need to perform individuality for strangers on the internet.
You can just be a person. A real one.
And honestly, that might be the rarest thing left.
