Research

The cultural habit of imitation

I've always thought about how our culture revolves around being and doing the same things as our peers. Of course, this behavior can be found in many different cultures and communities around the world, and it's what keeps cultures and communities together and strong. But both I and many others believe that the way we are conforming to the crowd here in Qatar can be repetitive and can go overboard. because here in Qatar, everything we do is connected to being on track with following the latest norms and trends that circulate in the community. And those trends can last years and shape what a standard Qatari person would do or wear.

The ways in which the trends affect our daily life as Qataris:

The way we’re dressed.
The drink we always have.
The places we go to (and in different seasons).
The bags or accessories we wear.
Our Car brand and color.
The Type of sports that we do.
The major we choose in university.
And also the kind of smartphone and ringtone that we use.

Here are examples of some of the ongoing Trending lifestyle choices of Qataris nowadays:

Spanish latte
Flat White specialty coffee
Lusail City
Msheireb Downtown
Alhazm Shopping Mall
100 Coffee specialty coffee
Volume cafe
Karak
Burger
Hermes's Women's Accessories
LV's Women's Accessories
Blue Abaya
Grey Abaya
Place Vendome Shopping Mall
Shawarma
Cartier's Men's Accessories
Pasta

Initiating a Survey

I have decided to take a subversive approach to the current trending lifestyle choices in our culture and create an outcome that criticizes or pokes fun at this cultural habit.

Being a Qatari myself, it's obvious that I would know a lot of the trends that have been happening in recent years. But I can't just depend on my own knowledge to create a well-thought-out outcome out of this topic because I want to be precise and sure of my current information on these lifestyle trends.

So I began my investigation of Qatari society's preferences by developing a survey. And I intended to gather a wide range of information about Qatari's lifestyle choices in a number of areas. This survey was completed by Qataris and non-Qataris, and it was written in either English or Arabic.

The results of a google form survey based on twelve questions.

I then planned to choose the most repeated and distinguished answers in these six selected fields: Transportation, Food, Drink, Men's Accessories, Women's Accessories, and Sports. I chose these fields because they are more generalized for the whole Qatari community and lifestyle but also because they equally include both genders.

And from there I began working on the design part of this thesis project. Click here to check the process of making those designs.