As 2021 draws to a close, people are taking time to reflect on the year that was, is and could’ve been.
Regarding work-life, education and parenting, the uncertainty of the pandemic’s future prevented many of us from going back to a sense of normalcy. But one thing remained constant and that is our use of social media.
With many of us glued to our phones more than ever, you may have noticed trends have come and gone or have stuck around.
Curious to hear of the more disastrous viral events, Redditor SweatyCure asked:
“What is the dumbest trend of 2021?”
Observe the examples below to determine which do you think were the lamest trends of this year.
The Video Sharing App
“Anything on tik tok.” – CryptographerOwn3688
“Case in point: That school shooting day rumor last week.” – BayushiKazemi
Dance Trends
“Moms tik tok dancing next to their new born baby who’s either dead or dying.” – ThatOneFilmPerson
“All this booty and stomach stuff. All those dances that are so sexual. I don’t know if that’s so good for the youngsters to learn. I just find it cringey.” – iiipzy
Social Media In General
“Literally all of it.” – 44untrue
“twitter and tik tok.” – E190wings
“Tiktok is mainly children under 10.”
“Children are dumb.”
“It adds up.” – tuwabau
The Root Cause
“I’m not sure, but I’m 99% sure it started on Tik Tok.” – InfiNicty
Wreaking Havoc In Schools
“Hard to say, but maybe the whole ‘devious lick’ thing.” – Writy_Guy
“Devious licks licking icecream and dec 17 school shooter challenge.” – BobOfBrazil
“God the devious lick trend was so stupid.” – pyjamapants14
“Except that disappearing clothes trend. I’m good with that one.” – LexLuthorJr
“Milk crate challenge was one of the dumbest but also one of the most entertaining.” – Filtaido
School Shooter Challenge
“Devious licks licking icecream and dec 17 school shooter challenge.” – BobOfBrazil
“December 17th – School Shooting Trend.” – sfisher923
A Violent Challenge
“You remember the skull breaker challenge?”
“It was a while ago. Three people would stand shoulder to shoulder, and the one in the middle would jump. The two people of the sides would then kick the middle’s legs in mid air, so they would fall backwards and crack their skull on the ground.”
“A few people died.” – uninterestedcrab
Gun Violence
“The new trend where they are threatening to shoot up schools on Tik Tok.” – OnasoapboX41
“What the actual f’k is wrong with people? How do they not know that threatening to shoot up a school is illegal?” – DogsAreCool69420
“That’s the exact reason why my parents didn’t let me go to school last Friday, there were too many threats towards my school.” – garvin1313
“My middle school was threatened to be shot up by a killer clown when that was going around 2017.” – OnasoapboX41
The Hair Don’t
“I hate that mullets have come back strong in Australia.” – flibblewobble88
“2020 wtf is the point of a crop top hoodie???” – Gilligan_Gurl
Pushing A Cause
“Making your political affiliation a major part of your personality and then cheerleading politics like it’s a goddamn sport.”
“And the worst part? Maybe 10% of these people actually knows sh*t about politics and political issues. And maybe 5% knows sh*t about how the government works.” – PunchBeard
Investments
“Gamestop and meme stock investing. Ruins price discovery and the entire equity market turned to sh*t.” – CapableScholar16
Conflicting Responses
“Treating CRT[critical race theory] like a pandemic, and COVID like a theory” – MacSanchez
“Honestly, the CRT thing gets under my skin. They can’t define it nor describe it to save their lives, but they hate it anyways because that’s what they’ve been told.” – BayushiKazemi
Anti-Biden Slogan
“Let’s Go Brandon” – cowboybluebird
COVID Reaction
“Antivaxxers” – gixanthrax
“Not wearing a mask in public.” – Laurence_Bloke
“Not washing your hands and using hand sanitizer.”
“COVID IS STILL AROUND.” – Dimple_from_YA
“Vaccine refusal and fake vaccine passports.” – muusandskwirrel
“Making the decision not to have a vaccine that could save your life because needles are sharp.” – AncientZebra0
The 5G Conspiracy Theory
“COVID shots give you 5g!!!”
“Then sign me the f’k up.” – muusandskwirrel
COVID Deniers
“The continued refusal of the general population of the planet to accept that covid has no easy solutions. Only one very hard solution.”
“Like a broken ankle, they would rather walk on it than get it taped up, plastered and immobilised giving it time to heal.” – BraveLittleToaster77
“During the height of Covid we stopped my stepdaughter from visiting her bio dad or his parents. The grandparents went absolutely crazy over this becuase according to them.Covid didn’t exist in their house.”
“Then they went silent for a few months. Found out later it was because grandma got covid.” – Kanagaguru
A Neglected Routine
“Not washing your hands and using hand sanitizer.”
“COVID IS STILL AROUND.” – Dimple_from_YA
Over The Variants
“Delta and Omicron.” – YashSrivastav17
Stupid Inconveniences
“Losing the tv remote and masks.” – doomslayercurse
Social Disgraces
“Inviting someone out to brunch whwn it’s obviously ypur treat and tgen expecting them to pau half.” – CollegeAssDiscoDorm
Baring It All
“Naked in front off your loved ones.” – Hugosimpon
Fashion Disaster
“The ‘big t-shirt as a dress’ look. The only thing frumpier is those god forsaken high wasted pants.” – BEJimmy
In The Buff
“Naked in front off your loved ones.” – Hugosimpon
In Summary
“2021 itself.” – MarvelSanctuary
“Its ability to pass by in the blink of an eye.” – Own-Jacket-1929
“I don’t know, if this is from 2021, but I really don’t like 
when something is funny, I don’t get it.” – Kalle579
Back in the day, trends focused more on fashion and food. While those still apply, the introduction of social media was a game-changer in many of our daily interactions.
Madonna was a huge trendsetter in the 80s, thanks to visual media like MTV showing her ground-breaking and very risque music videos. Soon, fans started dressing like her and wearing gummy bracelets–often purchased at grocery store toy dispensers.
Now, anyone can be a trendsetter as an influencer on various social media platforms like Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
However, this time, trends have become harmful “challenges.”
From TikTok challenges to COVID deniers, there were many trends from 2021 people could do without and are looking forward to a clean slate in 2022.
One thing’s for sure, many of the viral challenges that encouraged violence were the ones most Redditors detested and hoped would never continue as we head into the new year.