Photo courtesy of Photo by Adem AY on Unsplash
Like many people my age, I often spend hours mindlessly scrolling through TikTok, as I think that some of the content on that app is fairly engaging and entertaining. However, I recently discovered a trend so bizarre and unsafe that it made me rethink my opinion of the entire culture of the app. This trend involved people who would film themselves simply chucking spears into moving cars, leading to property damage, injury and potential death. The fact that something so remarkably despicable can become so popular just goes to show that people will do anything for fame.
These cries for attention masquerading as content are really nothing new. From Evil Knievel motorcycle jumping over a canyon to Logan Paul casually filming a dead body, people have been risking life, limb and jail time for the attention of the public. The problem we’re facing now is how much of a regular occurrence these are. It feels as though every month there’s a new way in which teenagers are making fools out of themselves.
The most well-known of these trends is the infamous “devious licks” trend, involving kids stealing various objects from schools. While it’s a straight-up illegal action, this trend’s hashtag got over 235 million views, according to CNN, costing millions in stolen goods in the process.
What really perpetuates this is the sad reality that many people find this type of content entertaining. Trends such as the ice cream licking challenge or the Benadryl challenge easily garner hundreds of millions of views. These unthinkable numbers tend to coerce people into performing these stunts, throwing their self-awareness out the window to potentially achieve their 15 minutes of fame.
A reason that these trends keep coming up is that the idea of fame is so enticing that people are blinded by the fact that very real damage can be done to them. Take the infamous blackout challenge, for example. This challenge involved people, usually minors, holding their breath to the point of losing consciousness. To anyone else, it would be a careless and inept action, but to children trying to achieve fame, it was just the right move. What seemed to them as a harmless trend naturally led to tragedy, being linked to about 20 deaths of minors.
It’s especially tragic because the creators who do find success from harmful trends don’t achieve fame in the way they want. The comments on virtually all these videos are mocking and criticizing these creators – some large creators like Ray William Johnson are entirely dedicated to making fun of these kids. The kids expect to have their 15 minutes of fame, but when they get it, it’s filled with ridicule and contempt.
To be clear, I’m not criticizing the concept of viral trends. These trends, when done right, are generally harmless or even beneficial to Internet culture.
For example, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge was a net positive in raising awareness for a great cause. It gave exposure to a disease that not many people knew of. A similar thing occurred with the rise of Robbie Rotten memes, allowing his actor, Stephan Karlsén, to get enough crowdfunding for his cancer treatment. While these are trends that have had a positive outcome, most of them are more incredibly harmful like the ones we see now.
With the rise of short-form user-based content, it’s inevitable that more and more of these trends will appear. The more trends there are, the more people must do to get attention, which will lead to content with disastrous consequences. Even people who do get a brief viral hit are mocked for a day and then fade back into obscurity. So please, instead of doing the new TikTok trend, just find another way to get viewers: it might just save your life.
