It feels like everywhere I look, the world is fading into the same shade of gray. Logos keep getting stripped down until they’re nothing but flat shapes and one lonely color. Designers swear it is modern, clean, timeless and digital-friendly, but sometimes it feels more like everything is slowly blending into one giant monochromatic blur. Even cars have joined the movement: black, white and silver on repeat. You rarely see a bright fire-truck red car anymore unless it’s an old model car that somehow survived the beige takeover.
It’s strange, though, that while our physical world seems to be slipping into silence, the digital world is doing the opposite.
Every time I open TikTok, it's like my phone throws a party without a warning. Neon filters, bold edits, chaotic transitions and every color in the Crayola box flashing across my screen like they're competing for my attention. Instagram stories have gradients, stickers and sparkles. Like literal sparkles. Social media refuses to whisper; it screams. And yet the world around me whispers more and more every year. In real life, everything is going monochromatic; online, everything is going bold, bright and festive.
At first, I thought maybe people just got boring, or maybe we all collectively decided that color was too risky, too loud, too much. But when you pay attention, it’s deeper than that. Life feels overwhelming for a lot of people, with constant notifications, deadlines, news, pressure to be productive, and an always-on digital life. So minimalism became the aesthetic we ran to when we needed quiet. Neutral colors look peaceful. Simple shapes feel calm. Beige walls say, “I’m trying to have my life together.” A monochromatic logo feels clean and easy in a world that is anything but.
But here is where it gets interesting. Even though minimalism is all around us, creativity did not disappear. It just shifted to a different space. All the wild, expressive, colorful energy moved into places where people feel freer to experiment: into apps, digital art, edits, memes, videos and the almost endless scroll of content online. It’s like creativity said, “Okay, if the real world wants to calm down, I’ll just go play somewhere else.”
And because of that, we’re watching the world move in completely different directions. One world wants to be quiet, while the other wants noise. The physical world is turning the volume down while the digital one is cranking it all the way up. That doesn't mean we’re losing color or personality; it just means we’re being selective about where we put it.
So no, I don't think we're heading towards some dull, colorless society where everything exists in black, white and gray. If anything, we’re learning to balance how much visual noise we can handle. We choose simplicity for our environments because our brains already feel overstimulated. But online? That’s where people feel bold, expressive, free and unfiltered, so they turn the saturation up to 100%.
If you really think about it, before we had all this advanced technology, people had to express themselves in the physical world. Your outfit, your car color, your hairstyle, that was your personality on display. That’s why different decades had such strong identities, like the bright disco era or the bold funky ‘90s. Color was loud because life gave you fewer places to show who you were. And those colors weren’t just about style; they carried culture, individuality and texture. When people dressed boldly or decorated their lives with bold patterns, they were showing pieces of who they were and where they came from. So now, when everything shifts toward neutrals, it can feel like some of the cultural richness and diversity get muted, too. But everything changed once the digital world took over. Our generation grew up texting, snapping, filming and posting, so online spaces became the new place where we show our true selves. Social media is where color, personality and individuality get to go wild now. People say we are antisocial, but honestly, we’re just social in a different way, online instead of in person.
Creativity isn’t disappearing, it’s transitioning. It’s learning how to adapt in a world that swings between stillness and overstimulation. We’re not losing color, we’re choosing when to use it. Creativity is still alive and loud, just wiser about where it wants to show up.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.