Timothy D. Malefyt, PhD, a marketing professor at Fordham University, explained how long lines, whether seen in person or on TikTok, act as a form of visible social validation.
Despite growing up in a world where anything can be ordered to your doorstep, young people are finding community, exclusivity and bragging rights in doing things the hard way.
It’s a marketing jackpot. Whether you encounter it in person or watch it unfold on TikTok, you’re seeing dozens of people weigh whether something is really that valuable in real time. Timothy D. Malefyt, a marketing professor at Fordham University, calls that “embodied social proof” and it naturally gives observers FOMO, the feeling that the people in line “apparently know something I don’t.”
