2014 was the year of a lot of stupid shit and near the top of the list was "Normcore," a fashion trend focused on dressing "normal" for irony's sake. But it didn't come about organically like some other trends do. The inception of Normcore is actually much trickier than you think, according to The Guardian. Our story starts back in 2010 with a few college friends working for marketing agencies, slogging through PowerPoint reports of trend forecasts looking to predict the future. After a while, they published some of their own trend reports, notably this one, which features a chapter titled "Normcore."

The whole thing was a spoof on the group's work, going through all those bogus, esoteric presentations and published as a part of K-Hole, their own little trend predictions agency. They gained enough attention to be invited to galleries to exhibitions and present on generational differences. Then, there was Fiona Duncan's chronicling of the trend back in February, which sparked an annoying amount of backlash and discussion, grabbed the attention of fashion editors and the term blew up.

Within a month, magazines, websites and companies were co-opting the term even though it never really meant anything. The folks of K-Hole received hundreds of requests in the following months and all of a sudden the word was a runner-up to "vape" as word of the year. More than anything it showed how we, the media, react to a new trend. Says K-hole co-founder Greg Fong, "But the other thing this all taught me is that the media is incredibly thirsty. For anything."

Thirsty we are.