What Are Polar Trends?

What are polar trends? 

Polar trends are topics or ideas that aren’t mainstream yet, but are showing clear signs of growing in popularity.

They could be anything, not literal trends. For instance, past polar trends were things like:

• The concept of AI chatbots before they became popular
• Cars when they were first invented and it wasn’t normalised to have one
• The acronym ‘lol’ before it became a widely used neologism. 

The same goes for literally every other invention, neologism, topic etc… that is widely used today. At one stage, they were a polar trend. 

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What makes something a polar trend?

The criteria for classifying a topic to be a polar trend varies from person to person, but generally speaking, a topic is classified as a polar trend when the following 2 is valid:

1. New, accelerating discussion
2. Underdeveloped coverage

New, accelerating discussion means:

• The topic is new and suddenly being discussed ALOT within a niche or mainstream community (usually starts off niche)
• People are talking about it a lot in real life
• Posts, comments, and shares are growing quickly, showing high engagement.
• People are saving, bookmarking, or sharing posts to come back to later.
• Conversations go beyond hype, focusing on practical use or experiences.

Underdeveloped Coverage means:

This means that there is a lack of expected content on Google, Youtube etc... that reflects the sudden hype and discussion you see online.

Depending on what the topic is, lack of supporting content could also mean that there is a lack of third party infrasturcture around the topic as well.

This then gives you opportunity to take advantage by doing things that may have high demand soon:

• Make videos showing how to use whatever the topic is before others do.
• Write blog articles or guides explaining the topic in detail.
• Offer services or tools that help people adopt or use the topic.
• Create tutorials, templates, or resources that make the topic easier for beginners.
• Build a community or social media page dedicated to the topic.
• Review products, apps, or services related to the topic before anyone else dominates search results.
• Launch a niche business around the topic while competition is still low.
• Capture audience attention early and establish authority so you become the “go-to” expert.

Obviously this list is just an example and cannot apply to every single thing that blows up the internet.

Examples:

Let's say it’s 2010 and smart home devices are just starting to appear. Right now, it’s a polar trend. People are talking about smart lights, smart thermostats, and connected speakers in forums and social media, but there’s barely any content online - no YouTube tutorials, few blog guides, and almost no services supporting them. This is stage 1 of the polar trend.

This gives you the chance to do things that are still low competition but will soon be in high demand:

• Make the first YouTube video showing how to set up a smart home device.
• Offer installation or setup services for smart devices before agencies start offering them.
• Write a blog ranking the best smart home devices before everyone else creates guides.

Being first to act on polar trends like this gives you the competitive advantage known as seed merit.

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Why are they important? Why should I care?

For most people, polar trends don’t really matter, but for entrepreneurs, content creators, influencers, and public figures, identifying and acting early on polar trends can make a massive difference in their growth and visibility.

Being the first or one of the first to introduce a polar trend to your platform or community results in astronomical levels of seed merit if the polar trend does actually go big in the future. 

For anyone else, I guess it would be considered to be ‘cool’ if you jumped onto a trend before anyone else, but realistically speaking, the ones who truly benefit are those who rely on algorithms for reach: creators, influencers, and entrepreneurs.