Thinking back, what was the first “bizarre” trend that swept through our generation across the nation? Planking.
Thousands of people were doing it, and because of social media planking became an inescapable part of life. From there, other forms began to emerge until the trend finally died off (let it’s soul forever rest in peace).
But the internet wasn’t done with my mental sanity just yet, because apparently, things could only get weirder: “Grumpy Cat” took over and seemingly became the punchline to every joke, the picture of a lost monkey dressed in a jacket in Ikea almost became an artistic expression, and I could never even begin to tell you how many .GIFs I’ve seen of Lana Del Rey awkwardly spinning around in random places.
Also, lets not forget the mental destruction that was caused by rage comics and… *shudders* memes. They were funny at first, but they soon became so overused and beat into the ground that I would literally rather take an arrow to the knee than listen to the slightest murmur regarding “trolling,” or being “forever alone.”
But it seems to me that these kinds of trends have gone above and beyond they’re normal boundaries recently. At this point, I wouldn’t even bother referring to them as trends anymore, let’s be honest and call them viral diseases.
I can’t pinpoint the exact cause of these things, but when you add websites like YouTube to the equation, it’s fair to say that wanting attention is a huge factor. I mean, what other reason do you need to swallow a whole spoonful of cinnamon?
But I don’t think anything can compare to how monumental of a movement the Harlem Shake became… for two weeks. But seriously, it was inescapable. You could find any Harlem Shake video by any kind of group and for any occasion.
And now “gallon smashing,” Have you watched those videos? The first really big compilation video was super funny to watch, but can you imagine having to clean that up four or five times a day? It would suck. However, I would love to read the letters that corporate had to send to it’s branches and stores to warn them about us bored teenager’s favorite new pastime.
But my favorite thing about all of this is how fast we transition from throwing milk jugs on a supermarket floor to this weird obsession with the sudden comedic properties of sloth pictures. The complaining about sloth pictures on Twitter is almost as rampant as the people posting and laughing at them.
So taking all of those things into consideration, let me tell you what the next trend is going to be, and thats Slothing. I invented it specifically to cater to both the people who like physical trends like planking, and for the big fans of the sloth. It’s going to be huge (probably not), I can feel it.