the red car theory
Have you ever noticed that whenever you buy or get interested in something, that all of sudden it seems to become super popular?
You buy a car and all of sudden, everyone is driving the same car? Okay, how about one that's a unique colour and then... Same colour everywhere?! Perhaps it's a film or TV show that you really enjoy and then suddenly everyone is talking about it? And don't even get me started on that band that I just discovered and yet everyone suddenly seems to love them...
As it turns out, there's a term for this, it's called the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon or frequency illusion.
It's funny, we're constantly told to pay attention what we pay attention to but how closely do we risk when we could fall under this illusion of frequency that may end up putting us off whatever it is we're paying attention to?
Perhaps the following sounds familiar:
"I can't start a blog, it's way too oversaturated, I'll get no viewers and nobody will care".
"The art world is oversaturated, all I see is people talking about how being an artist is so great, but there's too much competition."
Perhaps you're right, or perhaps you've fallen into the trap of frequency illusion, if that's the case, what are you going to do to fight against it?
My recommendation?
Just fucking start.