I just saw this video by Jason K Pargin and I really liked it. It seems related to secondhandedness.
I transcribed it. This is my favourite part. The quote marks around ‘human nature’ are in his subtitles so I included them.
This is not political, this is a “human nature” thing. Most people are not satisfied to simply have the option to live their life the way they want, they also want to feel normal. They want to walk around and see that most other people have made the same choice they made. And if over time they see that their own personal preference has become less popular and even worse, is now seen as being basic or unsophisticated, they will perceive the mere existence of those other options as a criticism of them even if they’ve never heard anybody voice that criticism.
It makes me think about how wanting to be normal, to fit it, to be accepted by others, can be at cross purposes with being an independent thinker.