Social media trends are kind of like being in a rowboat on the ocean in the middle of a hurricane. Theres a whole bunch of people doing the same thing at one time, then there is a lull for a brief period where people are actually normal for a while, then some quack decides it’s cool to do something and the whole world jumps on the bandwagon. It’s a lot like when we were in elementary school and our teacher would catch us doing something that our best friend put us up to, and they would ask us if our friend told us to jump off a bridge would we do it? Theres a pile of folks out there on the world wide web that apparently couldn’t pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel because there sure isn’t a lot of creativity going on with some of these trends.
I was in college at the peak era of the sorority girl picture pose. You know the one where a group of girls would pose for a picture and they all had to squat down like they were doing a limbo competition for the camera? Most of us have being posing for group photos since we were in preschool, tall people in the back, height challenged individuals in the front. Not rocket science, well at least not for people who don’t say things like “sisters before misters” and “Oh my gosh totally.” Hold a camera in front of a group of sorority girls circa 2012 and all of a sudden, the photographer must lay in the grass because they are all squatting down seeing who can get the lowest in the picture. Thankfully that trend appears to be fading away.
We fellers aren’t innocent with these trends either. Apparently, the gym became a recording studio for filming instead of a place for working out and exercising. I don’t understand the fascination for lifting weights in front of a camera then hollering things like “Yeah baby” and “Lets go!”. We get it, you are a big strong caveman who lifted something heavy. Good job, now go help your girlfriend open a jar of pickles as a reward. It’s perfectly ok to go to the gym, work out, shower and go home without making a full-length feature film while other folks there are trying to do the same.
One thing that used to be all the rage on social media was hashtags. Someone used to say some phrase about their life and then add fifty hashtags behind it because it’s the cool thing to do. Most of the time these posts were made in an attempt to make someone jealous for some reason or another. The most classic ones I could think of were when a couple would break up and the feminine part of this equation would post a selfie of themself in front of a public bathroom mirror in some outfit that they were going to go out on the town in for the night. They’d be doing the sorority girl squat while pushing their lips out to look like Donald Duck just had Botox, then post something like “Taking on the town solo! #strong #independent #He don’t know what he lost #Brave #Anything for attention. All her girlfriends would comment and tell her things like “Oh you got this girl!” “You’re better off without him!” Real uplifting crap from girls who were making similar posts of their own from other public bathroom mirrors. It’s odd how we never saw posts from the same people later in the night after they had drowned their sorrows with fruity cocktails and their mascara looked like racing stripes down their face, they lost a shoe and were asked to leave IHOP for singing karaoke on top of the table at 3 in the morning.
Social media is a great networking tool. Let’s just remember that the internet is forever! What you post today might come back to haunt you later. That’s all for this time, keep tabs on your side of the barbed wire and God Bless.