Whenever performance is measured relative to a comparison group, there is pressure to conform. Do not express opinions that deviate too far from the norm. Submit your research to peer review. Wear the clothes and appreciate the music that people of your age group wear and like. If you do not, you may well be wrong – there is certainly some wisdom in crowds. Even if you are right, the crowd is where your friends are.

What is worth studying, or worth hearing, is subject to objective criteria independent of current fashion. But what is cool, or valuable, is determined only by the views of others. So markets are subject to the vagaries of fashion even more than scholarship and popular opinion, which are subject to it more than enough.