People are social beings, so whatever we say about the absolute independence of our judgments, it cannot be 100% true. After all, we are always influenced by other people, events in the outside world and, of course, various trends.
As they say, big trends are seen from a distance – and what once looked cool and stylish, after a few decades, may seem silly and ridiculous. For example, now I can’t look at some ’00s photos of myself wearing a mullet without a facepalm. But I was on trend at the time! [darn] it, it turns out that there are and have been so many stupid, ridiculous and just dangerous trends in the world that netizens now recall and reasonably criticize.
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Some of the trends that you will see in this collection were associated with people’s religious beliefs, while some, many decades or even centuries ago, were supposed to emphasize social status. Well, some just appeared literally out of the blue, because some celebrities acted in one way or another, and then numerous followers picked up the idea. But what exactly unites all these trends is that probably none of the people who followed them at that moment thought they were acting really stupid.
Overusing terms like gaslighting, bipolar, or narcissist to where they’ve lost meaning. Someone disagreeing with you isn’t gaslighting, having a change of mood isn’t bipolar, and your ex may have been a d**k but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a narcissist. As someone who’s autistic I also don’t like the similar trend of people self diagnosing. There’s nothing wrong with looking up symptoms for mental disorders, learning difficulties, etc if you go to your doctor. But lot’s of people don’t, they simply decide they have all these problems.
Gallon Smashing ‘prank’ where a person would purposely drop gallons of milk in a grocery store while making it look like an accident, leaving a huge mess for some poor supermarket employee to clean up.
“History knows many ridiculous traditions. More precisely, those that today we consider ridiculous, many years ago, were considered completely logical and appropriate,” says Valery Bolgan, a historian and journalist, editor-in-chief of the Intent news agency from Ukraine, to whom Bored Panda reached out for a comment. “No, many ‘challenges’ and flash mobs of our time or of the last decades intend to show their own absurdity – but this is already the specificity of the postmodern nature of modern culture.”
“By the way, another trend that runs through the millennia of human history is the tendency to idealize the past and believe that it used to be better in the ‘good old days’. After all, one of the first records about what a decline in morals had taken place and how young people were inferior to previous generations applies, if I’m not mistaken, by the second millennium BC. So, it’s okay – ten to twenty years will pass, and we will remember with nostalgia, for example, ‘good old TikTok’. It is likely that this will happen,” Valery states.
there’s some good ones here but the licking stuff at the grocery store and putting it back is a top contender
People on social media posting inappropriate pictures of themselves at solemn sites to try and seem edgy. (IE: Auschwitz, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, Ground Zero in NYC, Pearl Harbor site, Vietnam War Memorial, Tsitsernakaberd Memorial complex, Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, etc)
The fire challenge where these kids were pouring acetone on themselves then lighting themselves on fire. Apparently it was supposed to be a short burning sensation, but as you’d expect there were kids who got seriously injured from the burns, and a mom who recorded her son doing the challenge even got arrested after being reported to social services.
In any case, compared to many of the traditions that people followed centuries ago, modern trends – even dangerous ones – often look like innocent child’s play. After all, for example, when medieval townspeople deliberately slayed cats, considering them accomplices of witches – and then there was no one to exterminate the rats that carried the plague – these delusions really cost the lives of millions of people. Now just compare this, maybe, with the recent TikTok trend of people stealing toilets and stuff from schools. As they say, everything is relative…
I would say pulling pranks on random people in public. I am secretly waiting for the video of a prankster going to sleep permanently.
I don’t know if anyone has posted this already, but I recall a while ago there was something called the “knockout challenge” or “knockout game”. It basically involved a bunch of teenagers and even adults walking or running up to someone, usually on the streets, and hitting them as hard as they could in the face with a closed fist, hoping to knock them out. I just looked this up and, apparently, this kind of “game” dates back to the 1990’s. I hope this isn’t a thing anymore.
In any case, there are trends without which the history of humanity would be much better, and hardly anyone will argue with this. And now we’re definitely looking forward to you adding some comments with modern or ancient habits and traditions you also considering to be absolutely weird or ridiculous. After all, we might have missed something in this selection, so let’s help each other to refresh our memory in the comments…
If you think Tiktok trends are stupid or dangerous, people of the past were even worse. When people thought radium was good for you, there was a huge trend to put it in EVERYTHING. Face creams. Water crocks. Toothpaste. Hair products. Makeup. Chocolate. Toys. Nightlights. Watches. Spas. Impotence treatments. SUPPOSITORIES. Yes, people were sticking radioactive stuff up their a*s in the name of health. People would even paint their TEETH with it for the glow. It blows my f*****g mind as a chemist.
Burning people who followed a different religion than the current ruling class. I’m looking at you Catholic England and your burning of the heathen Protestants for daring to publish the Bible in English. And by burning, I do mean alive. I can’t think of many worse things.
I was going to go with ripping out thousands of people’s still-beating hearts as a sacrifice to the sun god, but it seems that people are interpreting this as worst *social media* trend ever.
X-Ray parties: People would get together X-Ray themselves and each other exposing themselves to huge amount of radiation. The Tape Worm Diet. People would give themselves a tapeworm to lose weight, then drink kerosene to [end] the tape worm. Both around 1900.
Lick weird stuff during COVID challenge. Let’s try and get sick. Please people have you heard of hepatitis? Typhus? Salmonella?
Ragebait. Not only is it garbage quality content, it’s done on purpose and people that interact and share only make it more popular.
Happy Slapping. Was a trend in the UK back in 2005 where you would slap a random person, hard, and video it. It usually turned into a fight if the person that got slapped reacted. I’m pretty sure it lead to a few deaths.
Using exaggerated, unnecessary terminology in day to day life Identity politics/social grouping
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