Social Media & It's Trends

While creating my TikTok, I had no idea, that I would become so "addicted" to it. I create my own videos, of course and try to follow the latest trends, while growing my account for more views and followers. Sometimes, I can't keep up. Sometimes, I don't feel confident enough to do specific trends. I mean, honestly, I'm a new mom, I'm overweight and I am not well coordinated. I give props to new content creators; It may seem easy, until you are like moi, and give it a shot, then say "Eh, maybe not today."

Well, I decided to do some research. I was looking for things like how trends are started, the importance of trends, who they effect, if they can be a bad thing, and which trends are most current. There are so many questions to ask and so many answers. I wanted to learn more because quite frankly, they are what shape the new generations. I didn't grow up with a bunch of technology; I grew up with 3 channels that I could always count on to work on cable television. I grew up dealing with dial-up and not being able to use the phone, and use the internet at the same time. I grew up not having to dial the area code (first 3 numbers in a phone number), when calling someone on my home phone. I grew up with mud-pies and handmade halloween costumes, until I was 14. Didn't get my first cell phone until I was a freshman in highschool. Anyways, since I'm not a very techy person, I wanted to do some research about social media trends and how to use them properly to get noticed.

First off and most importantly, what are social trends?

The most technical definition is the study of human behavior impacting business and lifestyle. Now let's break that down. Every single trend is observed, right? Whether it be by a teenager, a 35 year old or a 68 year old, someone, somewhere is watching it. When someone watches a new trend, they're determining if it's appealing to them, funny, sexy, catchy, whatever. That's observing, studying. These trends have an impact on business and mostly everyone's lifestyle. Business use trends to help advertise their business and increase sales/clientele. TikTok started advertising through commercials, using dance trends to increase the amount of users and views for their accounts. The younger generations are using social trends to become famous, meaning their 10 second videos are going viral, therefore they are becoming recognized by the popular and smaller accounts. The middle-aged groups are using them to fit in with the newer generations. The older generations, well, all I can see them using them for is to have fun or advertise their small business/hobbies.

Social trends are started by content creators. Content creators are simply people, whether with a popular or small account, who may create new music/sound, a new dance, hobby, joke that was intended to be recorded and shared, and literally hundreds of other things. These people fairly quickly become noticed for their new trend. Trends are created by people, who may or may not have the intentions of becoming noticed. If a video goes viral, most likely the creator will gain thousands of followers, who wait for the creator's new trends. The trends themselves will reach an audience, who will continue to mimic the new trend. Then it becomes a social trend. Content creators with thousands of followers have an option on places like TikTok to get paid for simply making more videos. With starting at one million followers, a content creator can become verified, which means social media platforms have essentially declared that person famous. The person will gain a little blue checkmark next to their name on their profile. It's pretty cool, in my opinion, that someone with absolutely nothing, but a cell phone could become media famous in matter of months for just sharing 10-30 second videos.

This is probably the next most important question; What are the most current trends, based off of TikTok accounts. Basically any dance, that can be choreographed and completed in 10 seconds is a trend or will become a trend. My personal favorite, is the NSYNC challenge (#nsyncchallenge), which is the choreographed dance that the once well known 1990's boy band, NSYNC danced to their "It's Gonna Be Me" hit song. Another really great trend is the Let's Grow Challenge (#letsgrowchallenge). Personally, it's not really a challenge, but it's amazing to see people, who know nothing about one another, help one another to grow their small accounts. I mean, we see so much negativity every single day. Going on my TikTok and seeing a "friend" going live just to help not only themselves, but others with their accounts just makes me smile, it really does!

With everything good, there can be an evil, too. As unfortunate as it is, it happens. Someone starts a new trend and there are people, who ruin it by being negative about it or making something disgusting or vulgar out of it. For example, we all know about the whole "Okay, Karen" trend. As funny as it may be, some women are being attacked for just expressing their opinion, as any other Joe Schmo may do. Even people, who's names are Karen are being attacked. I see it all the time. People using social media platforms to help themselves, and others are using them for reasons that aren't appropriate to mention in this blog.

In conclusion, social media is a necessary evil. Follow those trends, or create your own. Grow your platform, thrive!