A First-Hand Perspective: Interviewing Viral Trend Participants

January 22, 2017 by scottriley Leave a Comment

Hello and welcome back to ‘End The Trend’, the blog about damaging social media viral trends and their effects. Today we’ve got something new in the form of a video interview in which two participants of potentially harmful online trends explain why they took part and what happened. The video is just down below.

I hope you enjoyed the video, and I also hope that it may influence somebody likely to take part in a harmful trend in the future. Thank you once again for visiting ‘End The Trend’, I hope to see you here again soon.

Boredom is a Pain in The… Thumb? – 2017 and Viral Trends

January 19, 2017 by scottriley Leave a Comment

Hello and welcome back to ‘End The Trend’, the blog about viral internet stupidity and how best to avoid taking part in it. That being said, the trend I’m focusing on today is certainly not a hard one to avoid, but more on that later. Today I’m going to be writing about the first major viral trend I’ve come across in 2017, and something tells me that the internet didn’t go for the obligatory ‘New Year New Me’ twitter post this time around. We’re also going to be thinking about 2017 and what the year ahead will bring in terms of viral trends. Will we witness online success that benefits us on a worldwide scale? Or will we be subjected to just another bloated dose of unwelcome social media stupidity and brainlessness. I know which of these I’d put my money on.

Alright let’s get into this. Teenagers and young adults have been breaking their thumb ligaments, photographing it and sharing it online. I’m now going to take a step back so you can think about this for a second.

*A number of seconds pass.*

Okay now you’ve had a moment, let’s get the discussion going. The trend appears to be most lively on Twitter, with a number of users following the routine of seeing the trend, taking part in it, and then sharing the results, often back to people who took part in it previously. As if witnessing it wasn’t enough, these morons had to try it for themselves didn’t they? One even tweeted another saying something along the lines of: “you just made me break my hand”. Now tell me if I’m missing the point here, but I saw the tweets, the photos, and the diagram of how holding your thumb in a particular way and flicking your wrist forward supposedly causes this damage… So where’s my broken ligament? I saw the trend, therefore I must have followed it, they made me follow it, right?

Wrong.

If there’s one thing to take from this, it’s that if people are hurting themselves by doing something, it will probably hurt you too as like it or not, you are an ordinary mortal human being, and not the T 1000 from ‘Terminator 2’. I’m not even sure if he possess thumb ligaments… But I digress. In addition to this and on a more serious note, no one online is making you do anything at all. You can come and go as you like when online and experience as much or as little as suits you, with no obligation of witnessing or taking part in any of these trends.

Now let’s take a look at 2017 and speculate how it might turn out. After seeing this thumb trend, my hopes for a more productive year in terms of online trends were swiftly dashed. However, I’ve also encountered reports if the ‘Mannequin Challenge’ being put to good use, as a way to promote the fight against sexual assault. This is a solid way to take a somewhat pointless trend and use it for something beneficial, especially since it is already so widely known and participated in. Maybe this is what 2017 will bring: A new age of viral trends but with a beneficial goal, such as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, which funded a scientific breakthrough in research. If useless shit spreads so easily online, can we not simply replace the useless shit with more of the good shit and then spread the good shit instead?

As always, thank you very much for reading, please share this post with people you think may enjoy it if possible.

Clown Epidemic: A Reflection

Greetings all, and welcome to the first of many posts on this site. Since this blog’s aim is to discuss internet trends in terms of the level of social, mental and physical harm they can potentially cause, it seems fitting to cover arguably the most prominent trend this year: The ‘Creepy Clown Attacks’. Although it seems that this trend died out in November, I feel that it deserves a recap, just because of how ridiculous it was.

The entire ordeal began in South Carolina during August, highlighted by a number of intensely worrying reports of people dressed as clowns luring children into forests according to the US’s Time Magazine. What seems most shocking to me is people appear to be far less focused on these reports, despite the dark and frightening actions they describe. Thankfully, luring children into the woods did not seem to become part of the main trend, and people became more focused on the clowns themselves, at which point the word spread, and in a flash, morons across both America and the UK sprung to their feet with the intention of using this new spread of ‘creepy clown sighting’ panic for their own thrills. I strongly question the morality of those who get kicks out of scaring strangers at 2AM and being associated with forest-dwelling child snatchers, but maybe I’m the weird one.

If you’re anything like me, when you hear a term like ‘Creepy clown attack’, you are likely to feel concern for the victim, the person who isn’t roaming the streets dressed as a clown. However, throughout September and October, a number of videos surfaced on Facebook and Twitter, showing the opposite of what you might expect. People were chasing and attacking clowns! You could certainly argue that many of these clowns had it coming, after all they very likely knew what they were getting into when they opted to don the outfit and stalk strangers in the dark. ‘FacebookViral’ uploaded an example of what is likely a person with prior knowledge of the recent clown drama, trying to scare an individual at night.

is the phone ringing? No, my phone is not ringing

Now I certainly won’t disagree with the notion that if you go out looking for a fight, you’ll likely find one, and i find it hard to feel any amount of sympathy for those who use the recent clown-panic to haunt others. However, we should all feel sympathetic for the actual clown community, as it has been viciously tainted by this current clown situation. BBC News published an interview with a working professional clown, who discusses the impact of the ‘Creepy Clown Attacks/Sightings’ on those who depend on the positive representation of clowns to earn a living. ‘Fudgie the clown’ explained “I am not getting the phone calls. And it’s not only me. My clown friends too. I’m checking with them: ‘is the phone ringing? No, my phone is not ringing’.”

I think I speak for many when I say that a craze so ridiculous as this should not result in unemployment. If hardworking individuals are losing their jobs and livelihoods as a result of such pointlessness, they are being socially and societally harmed. Fortunately, the clown trend faded away in November, possibly due to the realisation that Halloween had come and gone. Despite this, the ‘Creepy Clowns’ are an excellent example of just how easily dares, jokes and trends spread through the internet can get immensely out of hand. Let’s show our brightly dressed, wig wearing friends some respect.