when shopping, do you care how popular something is?

[pcake]

My sister!

The popularity sort is useful because all the interesting stuff is at the end of the list.

true, that. i love viewing the least popular for some reason, and have found some very cool basses there.

 

[fdeck]

For something that sells only a handful of units per month, "most popular" is essentially random, unless it's manipulated.

 

[Low End Scum]

Typically only if I plan to sell it if it doesn't fit the bill quickly. If I don't, then I don't really care.

The caveat being that if I have a goal (particular sound, feel, function etc) and don't know how to achieve it then the popularity of something amongst people who are achieving what I'm looking for will have me looking into that gear more explicitly for sure.

 

[GIBrat51]

i was browsing basses on sweetwater, and as is common on a lot of sites, their sorting defaults to most popular.

i've never cared about the popularity of an item or whether it's trending, so this baffles me. today or this week's most popular item could be based on a short-term marketing campaign, a press release, a single large influencer, an article that appeared one time on CNN or in rolling stone, or the manufacturer could make a deal with a group of influencers. it has nothing to do with quality, features, value, whether audiences will find it compelling, or anything i consider when it comes to buying... well, anything. i don't buy basses, paper towels, cameras or decide what to watch based on popularity or trending.

sometimes an overall product/show rating or user reviews can be useful to me, depending on a number of factors. but even then, quality, price, features, weight (when it comes to basses, cameras and lenses), and lack of animal products or toxic chemicals (particularly in art supplies) are what i focus on. quality of customer support from a manufacturer or retailer is a huge plus.

do people actually buy things, consider buying things or watching things based on popularity or because they're trending? is there something to this beyond herd mentality that i'm completely missing? inquiring minds want to know!

If it's "something beyond herd mentality", I guess I'm missing it, too...

Unless a site specifically defines for you what "popular" means, it doesn't mean anything. You kinda touched on this in your post. It could mean most clicked-on. It could mean most purchased. It could mean most talked about online, in forums, and/or by youtube reviewers. It could mean any of those in your demographic based on data they gleaned from your IP address & cookies. It could just mean "these are popular with [company selling you things] for our own reasons."
I may be a misanthrope, but yes. People do buy things because they're trendy. That's how trends exist.
As said misanthrope, i'll say a large part of it is herd mentality. It's:
- It's FOMO
- It's thinking everyone else is buying it so it must be good.
- For musical instruments, it's wanting to sound like the current sound is, so as not to sound outdated.
- It's the same reason why people root for whatever team wins the most at any given time.
- It's the same reason hit songs are hit songs: They get played the most on the trendiest radio stations/Spotify lists/etc., so more people hear them. The more people hear them, the more of a hit the songs are. The more of a hit the songs are, the more they're played, the more people hear them, ad nauseam, until the next exciting group of hit songs comes out and the old group of hit songs now sounds uncool and "so last month"
No.*** I want what i want for the reasons i want it. I've never fit in. I've never really followed what's popular. I've always equated trendy popularity with vapid mindless herd mentality, because i'm a misanthropic judgmental jerk. But, if i need something that's unpopular i don't care. If it is popular, i don't care.

*** One could argue my aversion to do anything popular or trendy means that the popularity of a thing DOES influence my decision to buy something. An inverse influence is still an influence.

But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter because i'm an outlier. If calling something Most Popular didn't make companies more money, they wouldn't do it. But it does, for whatever reason, so they do.

There's probably an entire sub-discipline of Psychology that studies the influence of popularity on selling things.

^THIS^, more or less; particularly as regards musical stuff. I tend to just "buy" things, as opposed to "shop". Especially when it comes to basses, to fill an empty spot in my herd. I have a short, firmly defined set of criteria for any new bass; if the first one I look at fills the bill? I almost always look no further. If it doesn't, then I'll look some more. Sometimes that takes one day; sometimes, in the case of a left handed, short scale neck-thru bass? It takes 30 years... But, usually, for other stuff? I'm like most guys; I decide what I want/need, then I just... go and buy it.

 

[Gopherbassist]

I care that an item does the thing I want it to do for a price I'm willing to pay.

 

[Dan1985]

Weirdly, I am only interested in Precision Basses. Black with maple necks and ‘70s headstock logo. Because that’s what my high school band had for me 40 years ago I guess. But I looked at a Stingray that looks similar once. A cheap version.

 

[The Golden Boy]

Bumping up a zombie thread from the "similar threads" links at the bottom of a page...


I don't think anyone, especially a population who reads and posts on an Internet forum, is immune to advertising/branding/popularity.

I think of the times I swam against the current, just to be "better" than the "sheep" following the crowd... and, man, I missed out on things the first time around.

CDs. I remember everyone was getting CDs- but I was convinced of the superiority of vinyl. (and now a fairly large population seems to feel vinyl is superior to anything... and I so much don't understand that after moving to digital)

Fender/Fender-style basses. I wasn't Anti-Fender at all- I loved Telecasters and my first real electronic guitar was a Telecaster. But I did not want to have a Precision or Jazz Bass like everybody else and their mom- I loved the look and feel of Gibson basses, and thought there would be some way to make them have "that" sound. There's not. I didn't get a Fender until 1996- more than 15 years after I started playing. Gibson, Rickenbacker, Ibanez SR...

Any number of bands that were big at the time- but specifically Stone Temple Pilots- When Sex Type Thing came out I thought it was a blatant rip off of Alice In Chains; when Plush came out, not only did I think it was a Pearl Jam rip off- for the first several months I thought it WAS Pearl Jam. They were clearly just a pretend band of imitators put together by the record company to milk kids of their money. I remember being MAD at my girlfriend for wasting her money on Purple.

iPods/iTunes. I remember all the discussion around iPods and thinking how stupid it was. Not that I knew what was stupid about it- other than '*** is an iPod?' I didn't get an iPod until around 2008- a 3rd Generation Nano. A few years later my wife got me a 7th Gen iPod Classic. I absolutely loved that thing for years- and then the HD died. Within the past year or 2 I got one of the iFlash cards and replaced the 160G HD with a 256G SD card- it's freakin' awesome. All that being said- I still haven't gotten into streaming.

Then there's other stuff...

There's branded stuff that I want- simply because it's branded the way it is. Maybe it's because the company that made it is physically close to me... maybe I somehow identify with that brand... I want a Rivendell bike- technically I want an older Rivendell, as the new stuff doesn't interest me as much. The aesthetic, the stance of the company... and the (old) bikes themselves- That aligns with how I ride and want to ride my bikes. Then there's stuff like Trek- Trek is around 50 miles from my house, I love old Treks and kind of don't care about Treks after... say... 1988... But there's people that HATE Trek. It's the Borg of the bike world...

Then stuff like Patagonia... I've had and have numerous things from Patagonia over the years... everything has been pretty much exceptional. But I'm well aware of the "PataGucci" aspect of it. Some of it I got because it was awesome, some of it I got because it was Patagonia. (my new down coat- it came down to a Patagonia parka, a Patagonia down jacket or an Arc'Teryx down jacket- I got the Arc'Teryx mostly because I've never owned anything from them before.)(and to be clear- My 10 year old Patagonia parka is still fine, great actually- aside from me getting too fat for it.)

Then there's stuff like fads... In the early 1990s, Starter jackets were all the rage. Every day there was news stories about people getting jacked for their Starter jackets. In the mid 90s, the Packers finally started doing well for the first time in my memory and I was excited about it. One summer I had the money and I bought a Logo Athletic Packers jacket. Although the stories of jacket jackings had kind of calmed down, I lived right on the cusp of the hood and the Packers were hot. It was probably pretty stupid, and truth be told- that's a gaudy-ass jacket. It turns out that was the season they went to and won the Superbe Owl- it's actually a really warm jacket, but it's gaudy and the white stripes get dirty really really fast- and now- 30 years later- the elastic is pretty shot- but it's fun to dig out during football season.

 

[Zooberwerx]

I’m not a slave to fashion or trends. I buy used shirts / clothing from FB and E-bay…sports coats at the CHKD thrift store.

I was standing in front of the medical arts bldg. and some guy gave me 50 cents and half of a sandwich.

Riis

 

[pcake]

I’m not a slave to fashion or trends. I buy used shirts / clothing from FB and E-bay…sports coats at the CHKD thrift store.

I was standing in front of the medical arts bldg. and some guy gave me 50 cents and half of a sandwich.

Riis

that triggered a memory for me...

years ago, i was out walking about in torn jeans and an old t-shirt when a couple came up to me asking for spare change. i said "do i look like i have spare change?" we got to talking, and not only did they tell me which churches had free food on which days, but they offered me $5 LOL

btw, i said no thanks to the $5 as i really didn't need it.

 

[Zooberwerx]

that triggered a memory for me...

years ago, i was out walking about in torn jeans and an old t-shirt when a couple came up to me asking for spare change. i said "do i look like i have spare change?" we got to talking, and not only did they tell me which churches had free food on which days, but they offered me $5 LOL

btw, i said no thanks to the $5 as i really didn't need it.

Hmmm...I don't know about that. A fiver is a pathway to a couple 1/4 lb Big Bites and a Yoohoo.

Riis

 

[Snert]

I’m not a slave to fashion or trends. I buy used shirts / clothing from FB and E-bay…sports coats at the CHKD thrift store.

I've long purchased used clothes from thrift stores. Apart from a small number of flashier going out clothes, most of the time I look like a bum, but I live in a small beachside resort town, so I fit in well. Only the richer tourists wear fancy duds.

 

[MJ5150]

This thread reminds me of the Jim Gaffigan bit on McDonald's....
"No one admits to going to McDonald's. They sell six billion hamburgers a day. There's only 300 million people in this country. It's like, I'm not a calculus teacher, but I think everyone's lying".


-Mike

 

[turf3]

After I got older I became a minimalist and I don't care about designer products. Good and cheap.

On bass, I use a Squier Affinity P bass (so cheap you don't even get "recision") and a no-name Romanian upright. Both good instruments, but zero name cachet. I have to admit I take a naughty pleasure in showing up with my cheap gear and outplaying someone with much more expensive stuff.

I also cycle quite a bit and I enjoy riding away from one of the guys in full Lycra with the insectoid eyewear, riding my old steel framed Surly in a T shirt and sneakers, with my leather Brooks saddle WITH SPRINGS clearly visible. Especially fun on steep hills (even 30 lbs overweight and out of shape, one thing I know how to do is climb hills; most guys just stand on each pedal and wait for it to sink; there's a technique to "dancing" a bike up a stee hil

 

[Old Blastard]

I'm all in popular things. It's why I bought my Ibanez AFB200, my Fender Starcaster and the crazy popular MIJ Fender Jaguar Deluxe.

I do have a Jack Casady, so there is that.