Gen-Z, the wave of manifestation, and a new app you will love.
A quick search on Instagram of the keyword ‘Manifestation’ results in 100’s of reels with the same hashtag, with the most popular ones crossing over 5B views and 20 M likes.
With celebrities like Oprah Winfrey jumping on the bandwagon, with heart-throbs like Tom Holland, seemingly having manifested their entire lives (I mean, childhood crush and a superhero role?!), it comes as no surprise why many youngsters bought into the idea of manifestation and continue to vouch for it all the way today.
And why will they not when the simple idea behind it is:
“Believe it and you will get it.”
What is manifesting, then?
With definitions ranging from:
“Believing in what you want and achieving it” to “shifting gears of your reality by switching quantum dimensions”, the internet seems to have hundreds of interpretations of it, enough to leave a beginner manifester boggled. Watering it down, manifestation is the belief that one can change his or her life by thinking about it- hard and often.
“Manifesting is using the power of your mind to change and create the reality that you experience.”
-Roxie Nafousi, author of ‘MANIFEST: 7 Steps to Living Your Best Life’
The ways of adoption of the concept is as large as the number of individuals believing in it:
this varies from individuals, who, use a tongue-in-cheek approach and simply use manifestation as a way to streamline their thoughts, focus, and energies in constructive ways to set and achieve goals; a segment, who, strongly stick by and advocate for “The Law of Attraction” and; a segment of individuals, who, strongly believe in the existence of different realities and shifting to those (the famous water technique).
This is why I think the Gen-Z now loves manifesting:
The search for the keyword ‘manifestation’ showed a 66% increase in the year 2020. Exactly during the time COVID-19 rose. There was no doubt that the world was in grief, the impaling sense of doom leaving individuals powerless and helpless.
Young individuals likely started accepting and incorporating this ‘magic idea’ into their lives at such a time. With individuals feeling a huge deal of loss of control over their own lives, with dreams and goals put on a stall for a year or so, social psychologists believe that individuals turned to ideation, creativity, and thereby, manifestation for that small push they needed in their lives.
Dreaming up grander fantasies for themselves was their escape from their current lives. And, surprisingly, this was good for their mental health.
“Getting in touch with what you want and believing you are capable of achieving it is, at its heart, really just an exercise in optimism and self-belief, and who doesn’t need that right now?”
-Marianne Eloise
Even at its most basic level of acceptance, manifestation remains beneficial. Thinking about one’s own goals, journaling about them, and giving oneself daily reminders works like a GPS — only motivates you to stay put on your path and keeps you focused despite circumstances.
Gen-Z’s most loved tool: Vision boarding
A collection of photos of the daily life of the ‘it’ girl, a collection of photos of one’s dream career as a lawyer or even better a collection of images of Harry Styles with quotes inside heart-shaped collages, Gen-Z are now using digital vision boards to manifest everything from their dream house, dream job to their ideal love-life.
Though being akin to journaling, some claim it to be far better than the act of putting thoughts on paper- not only do you reflect about what is it that you want from your life, You envision it and with images sourced from all around the internet, You create your own little ‘Digitial Dream Vault’.
And lest you feel depressed on a random Monday, you get to turn to your board for a little inspiration :)
Pinterest and its role in vision boarding:
It comes as no surprise then, that Pinterest, the Pin sharing app, has so far been the go-to app for Gen-Z to create their vision boards. Pinterest lets you pin (save) an image and create a board where you save all your images under that category.
“I put together a vision board on Pinterest after I finished school and was just starting my career. I like to use it as a long-term visualizer — something that helps me stay focused when I want to slack off or get distracted by some temporary and/or fleeting interest.” — Reddit user on vision-boarding
Landing space
“Since the very beginning, we’ve been building a community where visual inspiration, curation and connection come together.” — landing space
Landing. space is a visual platform that allows individuals to create vision boards, collages, and digital scrapbooks. The topics: Whatever you like, as many as you like.
And guess their major audience? 80% of it is young Gen-Z women, just like me!
Would only so much make you love landing or is there more?
Landing’s focus on creators:
- Landing space focuses largely on incentivizing its creators to make better and better boards and thereby make content on their page. They do this in the form of roll-on features, additional quirks, and perks to create and maintain content streaks on the platform.
- Landing maximizes its own marketing by paying its users to create content about the app on different platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, getting them more traction all the same.
- It incentivizes its creators by giving an option for individuals to buy items on the platform, by allowing back-links on the elements of the boards.
Focus on community:
I believe their trump card is this.
Landing addresses the users on its page as a “creators’ community”.
Users can share their creations with a large number of individuals on the platform. The space gives creators the opportunity to engage with other creators by liking and commenting on other users’ content.
The emotional aspect is largely the key.
With boards being made on different color themes, from those to show one’s own daily lives, boards about one’s fantasies and literal dreams (I once came across a board on aliens), to (coughs) boards on celebrity crushes, to some manifesting business growth, to some intricately etching out the details of one’s dream life, it is a de facto outcome that the creators tend to relate to others on the platform at intimate levels.
This community, being propagated by Gen-Z creators based on shared interests, passions, hopes, and fears, is what Landing has cashed on.
Wouldn’t be a surprise if Tomorrow Landing grows to stand on equal grounds with Pinterest.
P.S.- And having been a recent user of the space, the experience is nothing short of a creative’s kiss.