We’ve all seen them and we might have even taken part in a few. Social media trends come and go at a scary speed. Some are good and some are just plain bad. We’re going to have a look at the bad and see if you agree!
(Be aware I’m probably going to sound like a grumpy old man throughout this blog post, complaining about social media trends, but embrace the grumpy man inside and you may even have a nostalgic sigh of anger with me as you read).
Bit Strips
A recent social media trend that has been making the rounds. A little cartoon strip you can create and customise to have you and your friends as the characters in. It sounds like a fun idea in concept and some of those created are genuinely funny and creative, but it quickly gets tiring when your time line is taken over by them, cartooning someone’s every move.
Facebook Poking
Ahh, a classic. The dreaded Facebook Poke. The poke started around the time Facebook began to take off, a simple little message lets you know you’ve been poked and who by. So why is it so bad?
To be honest it’s just annoying. In the same way as being poked by someone in the street would be. A celebratory cheer went up in Facebook land when the poke feature was finally removed last year and rightly so!
Facebook Game Invites
I’ve seen this die down more recently which I’m sure you’re all very thankful for. Logging onto Facebook to see you have a new notification, only for it to be a game invite request can be very frustrating, especially when you receive the same request over and over again. A quick Google search for Facebook game requests brings up many memes depicting anger, so thankfully I’m not alone!
Share this or have bad luck forever!
What started off as spam emails sent on mass to every friend in your email contact list has moved onto the social media scene. The dreaded, “pass onto 15 people or you’ll have bad luck” message has turned into the “Tag 15 people in this message or you’ll have bad luck”. In reality they are quite harmless, but what makes them so bad is that there’s always that thought in the back of your head that thinks, “What if I actually do get back luck from not doing what it says”. The stress of it all!
Tagging friends in images to win prizes
It’s a pretty simple concept, users are encouraged to tag friends into a picture detailing a prize draw for a company. The more friends you tag, the more chances you supposedly have to win the prize. Lots of people end up checking out your company through being tagged and everyone is happy… not. Turns out people really don’t like being tagged in these types of competitions. So much so that Facebook deletes the post or even suspends your account if you’re caught hosting one of these competitions.
Hopefully I haven’t completely ruined one of these social media trends for you and obviously they can be fun and harmless, but it’s the grumps like me that rant away at them!
By Content Assistant – Sean Haydock – @bseanty
