Social media can be great: you can have conversations with people all across the world, be exposed to new ideas, see 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 repressed the memory of 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.
Because someone decided that Kylie Jenner had her lips "done," a challenge was made to the internet to do the same, but rather than do it permanently, one was to use basic suction to create a horror show look that vaguely resembled Jenner — or, rather, a mocking look at her. The result? A bunch of teenagers looking quite interesting.
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.
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 other power ups. 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.)
This happened right as YouTube celebrities started exploding, and created actual, legitimate moneymaking social media stars like GloZell.
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?
What's the fire challenge, you ask? It's exactly what it sounds like — people lighting themselves on fire. That's it. No rhyme or reason why. The result is also exactly what you'd expect. Young people who lit their clothes on fire suffered burns of varying degree.
It's unclear what's more annoying: that people were using "YOLO" (You Only Live Once) in stupid situations, or that the internet worked hard to ruin the embedded Drake track that spawned the whole fad. YOLO even ended up being used as a character name on Justified.
