Butter yellow and the Commercialization of Hobbies

Lately, I've been interested in fashion. But when I think of fashion as a hobby, I think of two types of people. Either the fashion TikTok influencers who start every single video with “You need to buy this!” Or, I imagine maximalist fashion people who are layering every single clothing item known to man. Personally, I don’t like either. It’s because the two things I described are the extremes. I think in everything we need to find the middle way. And these extremes are something that I've been noticing lately on the internet.

I think we exacerbate so many things online. Recently, I watched a YouTube video talking about de-influencing you from buying fashion trends. The creator talked about how many of the trends we see online are impractical and are only seen on the internet. She went on to talk about how we should find things we want to adopt, for our personal style, on the streets. In real life is where we will find practical and usable fashion. I think this situation is a good example to demonstrate how everything has become so dramatic on the internet.

Butter yellow, the enemy

I have been hearing so much about butter yellow lately. Frankly, I am tired of hearing that butter yellow is a trend and to not buy it because trends are bad. It’s honestly like these people are telling this information as if we will just take it and not question it; it’s like they think we are stupid.

This really bothers me because butter yellow in fashion is seen as a bad thing. These people who are “warning” you of this dangerous fashion trend give the impression that if you wear butter yellow, you will be ridiculed on the streets for being a follower and that you have no personal style and you just copy everybody to fit in.

Which is the opposite from the truth. The thing is, if you go out and wear your butter yellow button-up shirt, nobody cares. And I think this problem in the fashion community about seeing trends as evil, is stupid. I’m tired of things seeming bad just because they are in.

I do agree that buying a piece of clothing just because it's the new trend is bad and wasteful, but saying that a color is a trend is too far. I would understand if we were talking about Brat Green, but we aren’t. Butter yellow couldn’t be a better fashion spring color. I don’t understand why these people even think butter yellow is a trend. How can a simple color be a trend? That’s like saying brown is the 2025 fall color trend. Certain seasons go with certain colors. Any pastel color will be in during the springtime. Especially yellow because it could also be used in the summer.

The lack of real hobbies

I think this butter yellow slander shows us that everybody is bored and needs to make new content. Fashion content creators needed something new to talk about, so they randomly picked the butter yellow “trend” and made it seem like it’s the next 2020 cow print trend.

People want to consume more and more. This causes creators to feel the need to create more and more, regardless of the quality. This shines the light on an even bigger problem.

“Hobbies … have become something to gawk at and commercialize,” as writer Ella Kopelman from Michigan Daily writes. Hobbies have become something that needs to be bought or consumed. Take, for example, the rise of coloring as a hobby. What was once thought of as something that anyone can do has completely changed. Now, coloring as a hobby is extremely specific. In order to fit into the coloring community, you have to have the Bobbie Goods coloring book with a pack of 100 alcohol-based markers. These are things somebody doesn't just have lying around; you have to buy these items.

Fashion plays a role with this because creators are trying to influence consumers that they need to buy a new item. There are so many of these influencers that people started to push back and de-influence other fellow fashion lovers. However, what started as an innocent deinfluencetization became yet another thing we can consume, yet this time it’s content. And this is where butter yellow comes into play. Butter yellow slander becomes just another video we could consume.

And those are my thoughts about butter yellow and the commercialization of hobbies. I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. Lately I’ve been moving away from the formal blog post structure and have just been speaking my mind on anything that piques my interest. Take care!