Social media can be great - you can have conversations with people all across the world, be exposed to new ideas, funny photos and videos, and are able to consume media in an interesting and revolutionary way. However, things get shared and turn viral in a way that seems inexplicable, and people become popular for no discernible reason, and you'd probably rather some of these weird fads and social media trends didn't clutter up your news feed. Compiled here is a list of annoying Facebook fads, as well as fads on Twitter and other social media platforms, to take a nostalgic tour of some of the weird things that captured the Internet world's attention a little too much.
Whether the simple video of a World of Warcraft raid going wrong, or a photo of a young man at Target that the entire world seemed to want to talk about, this list of social media fads that really shouldn't have gone as viral as they did will take you on a trip down memory lane. But this isn't just the fads that made you wonder what the big deal was, it's also the fads that were actually funny and interesting, but were so hopelessly beaten into the ground that they were still going on long after they were past their prime.
So take a look at this list of annoying social media fads and vote up the ones you think have been the worst offenders over time. Maybe you think there's a special place in hell for the Cinnamon Challenge, or maybe you wish you had never seen even one Harlem Shake video. The only way to let the world know is by voting below.
The Most Annoying Social Media Fads Ever,
ALS Ice Bucket Challenge
What started as a unique way to raise awareness for ALS and spur donations turned into a fad that was less about the disease and more about people dumping ice on their heads. The initial idea, as best as anyone can figure, was that someone would dump ice water over their heads, donate to ALS research, and then "challenge" someone else in the video to do the same. While many celebrities took to it, eventually regular folks just dumped ice water on their heads for YouTube clicks. The fad, thankfully, has passed.
Candy Crush Invites
Candy Crush was fun. But there was a time when everyone was sending you invites over Facebook so that they could get some extra hammers or whatever. If you weren't involved at all in the Candy Crush craze, having your notifications flooded with requests you were never going to answer because someone just did a "send all" was infuriating. (It did, however, help you to identify some people who probably shouldn't be on your friends list anymore.)
Cinnamon Challenge
This happened right as YouTube celebrities started exploding, and created actual, legitimate moneymaking social media stars like GloZell (who interviewed the President of the United States in 2014).
The challenge is simple: Eat a spoonful of cinnamon without any liquid whatsoever. Your body can't handle it. Of course, it's quite dangerous, as the cinnamon could get into your lungs and other organs, and yes, some died doing it, but boy, it sure looks hilarious when people involuntarily cough cinnamon onto their camera lens, right?
Keep Calm Memes
What started on the Internet became a shirt or poster that everyone had. Despite the fact that the original poster was used in the late 1930s as British propaganda, and despite it being rediscovered in 2000, it wasn't until the 2010s that the Internet exploded with the meme. After Threadless made a spoof of the poster and people could customize their own shirts, it spiraled out of control until it wasn't clever or funny anymore.
Gangnam Style
Psy's record-breaking video led to resulted in over 2 billion views worldwide. This naturally led to a lot of people covering it, trying to get a piece of the action. When multiple covers resulted in view counts in the tens of millions, a lot of ad money went around to a lot of social media folks. Of course, people got really sick of the song really fast.
Harlem Shake Videos
"Harlem Shake" by Baauer spawned a lot of dance videos. No really: a lot of them, with many reaching YouTube view counts into the millions. The surge of the "Shake" videos came on so strong that many videos would come out on the same day and reach equal levels of popularity. With its mix of twerking, hip-hop dance routines, and parodies all accompanied by a track with deep bass, it was all up in everyone's grill for a hot minute.
"Friday" Music Video
Some people create a music video to promote an album they worked on for over a year. Others, like Rebecca Black, get it as a birthday present. The ridiculously awful and nonsensical "Friday" music video went viral, and despite how bad it was, somehow Black still managed to become a social media star.
#CuttingForBieber
So Justin Bieber smoked some weed and, in response, his fans were all up in a tizzy. Then came 4chan. They decided to convince Beliebers that everyone in the fandom was cutting themselves until his "weed habit" ended. It's unclear how many fans actually did this, but the fad thankfully didn't last long.
Planking
This fad was all about lying down. Usually, lying down is pretty great, as that usually leads to sleeping and sleeping is wonderful. Here, however, it was just people lying down in public, or in weird places, and then getting their photo taken for some unknown reason. The Internet is weird. Even after people got injured and died because doing this, the fad continued for some time after.
YOLO
It's unclear what's more annoying - that people were using "YOLO" (You Only Live Once) in stupid situations, or that the Internet worked super hard to ruin the above Drake track that spawned the whole fad. YOLO even ended up being used as a character name on Justified.