Lifestyle/Influencer Trend: #SlowLiving

In the wake of the post-COVID world, it seems as though everyone has taken a moment to pause in 2020. Whether by intentional choice or necessity, the world as we know it came to a screeching halt this spring and everything slowed down for a while. As families struggled with the new challenges of working from home, potential unemployment, homeschooling, and life restricted primarily within the four walls of our home, a relevant trend came to the forefront which had been brewing and building a following for some time.

Slow Living.

It came in with the force of a world shifted and seemed fitting given the requirements of quarantine. This new life required us to take a step back and re-evaluate our lives and the value we place on the fast speed of the world and the push towards productivity. The Slow Living trend was there, waiting for the world to catch up with it, to speed up in order... to slow down.

As families struggled with the new challenges of working from home, potential unemployment, homeschooling, and life restricted primarily within the four walls of our home, a relevant trend came to the forefront which had been brewing and building a following for some time.

According to sloww.co, the Slow Living movement began as slow food in the late 80s, early 90s. SLOW was meant as an acronym that stood for "Sustainable, Local, Organic, and Whole" foods. Over the years it has taken on a meaning of living a more intentional lifestyle which has grown in popularity in recent years as a response to the overly-stimulated mass-marketed influencer culture. It's prevalence today in combination with the COVID-19 crisis and political climate may signal the end of the "Age of the Influencer" as we know it. 

Those who embrace the slow living "lifestyle seek a more harmonious approach to life and feel a desire to return to the old ways, appreciating the little things in life, while treasuring loved ones, beauty, and the stewarding of nature."

Marked by a desire for the appreciation of the simple things in life and a more traditional lifestyle, slow living and sustainability have expanded into and relate to other adjacent trends such as the tiny home movement, minimalism, mindfulness, van life, ASMR, hygge, and homesteading trends. Supporters of this lifestyle seek a more harmonious approach to life and feel a desire to return to the old ways, appreciating the little things in life, while treasuring loved ones, beauty, and the stewarding of nature.

Supporters claim to find peace and a stronger sense of self by rejecting the modern notion of the need for hyper-connectivity and instead trade hyper-productivity with intentional living, focusing on the here and now. Rather than pine over the next IT dress or spend hours on social media scrolling through curated feeds, or going after their dream corporate job in the city, proponents of slow living would rather spend time in nature, pour themselves a cup of tea, and read a good book. For those who cannot give up their cushy corporate jobs for this seemingly old-fashioned way of life, but who also are tired of social media content pumped full of advertisements, shopping hauls, and a general sense of corporatism, there are plenty of new slow-living influencers (producing both large scale and micro-content) rising through the ranks to provide that sense of escapism which has become especially sought after as we wait for the world to reopen under quarantine.

Proponents of slow living would rather spend time in nature, pour themselves a cup of tea, and read a good book.

Youtube and Instagram are filled with short and long videos with the relevant #slowliving including simple clips akin to ASMR style sound quality, for instance, a 30-second clip pouring a cup of tea, a 1-hour repeating loop of a rainy day as viewed from a country porch, or a 3 hours long video of a cozy Christmas fireplace (similar to the fireplace apps which are seasonally popular during winter months). Other more advanced creators took the idea even further. Some of them are proponents and evangelists of the slow living movement and some of them don't self identify with it at all but simply embody the lifestyle and show it in their style of film and video content.

One of these creators includes Swedish Youtuber, Jonna Jinton (pronounced with the J as a y sound) who creates videos from her small country village farm. Her idyllic short films and vlogs feature the outdoors, nature, long recordings of ice sounds, Swedish winter "ice baths" cut from holes in the lake near her home, and her own practice of the ancient art of kulning (an almost eerily and spiritual sounding sing-song cattle calling which can only be understood after hearing it yourself). Jinton and her husband earn their income from Youtube, their online jewelry shop, and from sales of Jinton's photo prints and fine art. Jinton paints paintings she makes using pigments she grinds by hand with mortar and pestle after collecting them from the local forests, from mud on her farm, and ashes from her wood-burning stove. Her videos often include topics regarding the cycle of nature, especially including a poignant view of the seasons, as life in Sweden means brutally long dark winter nights filled with stars and aurora borealis contrasted by long bright summer days that lengthen late into the evening.

Another example is Chinese vlogger and traditional chef Li Ziqi (pronounced Lee-Zuh-Chee) who creates her own other-worldly paradise set in the Chinese countryside where she lives with her elderly grandmother. Her style takes on an almost faerie-tale like persona as she rides a horse through the snowy countryside wearing a red cape, picks cotton by hand, gathers silkworms and weaves fabric which she dyes, embroiders, and sews into garments quite literally from scratch. She cooks traditional meals prepared in traditional ways over an open fire and in a clay kiln, avoiding voice-overs or speaking or any translations, but rather she tells the story entirely by showing and doing. Her videos are colorful, beautiful, and evocative. She presents her food on lotus leaves or by candlelight on rough-hewn tables near her outdoor kitchen. She is often seen laughing and enjoying life with local villagers and her grandmother whom she has taken care of since she left her corporate job in the city. She moved back to her hometown to care for her grandmother after a severe illness several years ago. Her video content is nearly mesmerizing as evidenced by her 11.7 million subscribers on Youtube and 19 million fans on Weibo (the Chinese government-sponsored version of Youtube). 

While Jonna Jinton and Li Ziqi offer glimpses into life outside of the West, other Youtubers here in North America also took on the roles as leaders in the slow movement. One popular Youtuber includes Kaetlyn, known as Girl in Calico who also runs the blog Calico and Twine. Kaetlyn's content which has a total of 216k subscribers, also follows a seasonal mood, which tends to have an overall warm and natural theme, but can be more bright and colorful in the summer months and richer and deeper in tone in the autumn and winter. Kaetlyn's site describes her work as built on biblical principles. Her site says, "we believe it’s time to get back to the roots of a simpler and softer life. Through slow fashion, seasonal living, and simple rhythms, we strive to help others align their heart, habits, and homes with a more intentional way of life. At Calico and Twine we carry vintage, heritage and handmade goods, all sourced with a passion for the well-made and long-lasting. We encourage conscious consumerism rather than convenient consumerism, by curating a space with an emphasis on ethics, good stewardship, and working with our hands." Her filming style and overall blog content often obscures her face, showing her body only or the hands as they work, or includes close up details of sensory aspects of her daily life like baking bread, hanging the laundry, and documenting her daily cooking and eating habits. The mood is soft, relaxing and seems to find beauty in the things we would usually consider mundane.

It may seem this lifestyle is most suited for those who live a quiet country life, however fans of another Youtuber, Ahn, of Girl and the Word, would beg to disagree. Ahn grew her following from zero to 409k subscribers after only a year of video posting from her high rise apartment in Los Angeles. She posts calm, slow living content, with encouraging voice overs, bible scriptures and devotions (in a non-denominational way),"DIY projects, cooking, home decor, gardening and more." Her gardening consists of potted plants she grows on her porch. Her content often includes views of the city, calming rain and weather, and a warm tone visual with sound editing that is non-triggering and calming to the ears and eyes. A simple piano melody often plays atop her soft-spoken voice-overs as she encourages the viewer and listener to seek peace, live well, and take care of one's self. Her videos offer sweet trigger warnings to vegan viewers when she's about to show meat, and her content will even give the viewer a heads up via text on the screen if there's been a long delay between voice overs, in order to avoid jarring the viewer when she begins to speak again. The blend of minimalist city life and traditional calm living seems to have attracted her large following quickly, however she also mentions several times that her background and education in marketing played a big role in the growth of her channel. The ASMR-ish style sound and beautiful visuals are also surely key. But anyone who watches her cannot deny that part of the draw of her brand is also in the fact that she just seems like the kind of person anyone would want to be best friends with and hang out with for a chill evening at home doing DIYs, eating a home cooked meal, or watching TV. Her business channel, The Hooga Shop which she launched during quarantine, already has 11.6k followers.

For marketers and designers alike, the take-away lesson here is that sometimes less is more.

Simple is sometimes better. And in times of uncertainty, people love nostalgia and traditions.

---

If you'd like to incorporate the slow living trend into your branding, marketing, or product or would like to target this customer for your product, here are the ways that it can be utilized within your business:

- Incorporate calming and comforting native content within your marketing stories

- Develop warm tone or seasonal toned visuals emphasizing simplicity in life

- Veer away from traditional sales marketing and focus on stories that calm and connect which feature the product in a native and natural way

- Choose influencers to partner with who already naturally match with the visual of your brand

- Focus on natural elements of life, rather than loud and exciting moments. Find ways to make simple life beautiful, make the mundane lovely and magical

For product based brands or for partnering with influencers to promote products that fit this market the product should:

- Incorporate natural tones, soft and varied textures, feminine shapes for women, and masculine rustic shapes and styles for men

- Focus on the healthy aspects of life, mental health, calm, natural, and peaceful elements

- Products may have elements of sustainability within the product and/or packaging

- Product colors may range from pastel neutrals to rich gem tones and primarily colors that already exist in nature (exclude tropical bright colors and neons as these may jar the viewer away from the calm and peaceful nature they are seeking) 

---

For more information or to hire me for a deep dive trend report designed specifically for your brand, please contact me at selenamarienorris@gmail.com or inbox me here on LinkedIn. 

Have you ever considered living a slower, more traditional life? Has the pandemic forced you to slow down to appreciate the little things? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!