A trendspotter is someone who watches for new things starting — new fashions, new habits, new ways a situation is going — and points them out, usually before most people have noticed. The word contains 'spot' in the sense of 'catch sight of', so the job is noticing, not creating. This is the difference students most need: a trendsetter starts the fashion, a trendspotter sees it coming. For many people it is a real job. Clothing companies, food companies and advertising agencies pay trendspotters to walk around cities, read social media, and report what young people are wearing, eating and saying, so the company can make it and sell it. The word is also used loosely and half-jokingly about any friend who always knows what is about to be popular. It belongs to business and journalism rather than to careful academic writing, and you will meet the hyphenated 'trend-spotter' just as often.

潮流觀察者、趨勢觀察員（幫品牌看風向、預測下一波流行的人）