Trends are defined as patterns that spread throughout social media. Anything can become a trend from owning lots of moisturizers to the type of boy that a lot of women are attracted to at the time.  If many people agree with that specific trend then they start to follow that specific trend and start to spread it themselves. Social Media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are the main ways to spread these specific trends by adding hashtags at the bottom of your post or making a video about it and posting for the world to see. Present trends can have both a positive and negative effect on a person but, those negative effects leave scars deeper than what the positive can heal.

For example, a trend currently spreading around social media is something called body positivity. It allows teens who are self-conscious about their bodies to be comfortable in their own skin no matter their size. Tall or short, skinny or thick, everyone is loved for who they are not what their appearance is and that is the main idea of this trend. It is a way for people to feel more confident about themselves and it allows them to transfer that confidence to the outside world. This is a very positive thing and I think that it helps a lot of kids to love themselves that little bit more. However, trends like these also have bad sides. Yesterday, I saw a TikTok of a person who was dancing in their living room, just having fun: one of the hashtags at the bottom of the video was #bodypositivity. Unfortunately, the top five comments in the comment section were about how she was enormously overweight, and that just because she wanted to believe in body positivity doesn’t mean that she can reach an unhealthy state. Now even though I understand that being active is very important for the body and mind, the way that people pass on this information hurts people even more. This woman had the courage to post this video of herself, and others decided just to knock her down again.

My point is that trends can have positive effects on people but they can also just hurt them  even more than they already are. On the other hand, there are some trends that aren’t about making people feel good about themselves like the one I pointed out earlier about the type of boy that is very attractive. Trends like these cause kids to change themselves so that they could be part of these trends. At the moment this trend highlights thin, tall, skater boys, who often smoke nicotine and/or drink alcohol. To put it into perspective, if a boy is trying to get a certain girl to like him and this girl posted on her TikTok that she is attracted to this type of boy, the boy with the crush may try to be like this said boy. This may cause him to create habits that he probably wouldn’t have picked up before such as vaping or getting tattoos. His morals may have been against this and he could have been the purest person out there but, his crush led him into changing. Never underestimate the power of a high school crush. It can make boys do extravagant things just for that one girl to notice them. In this case, the trend that was created with this “perfect boy” causes kids to go down a path that could end up really hurting them and the trend only has negative effects. 

Overall, either way these trends end up having a negative effect on those who follow them and see them on a daily basis. Its effects are emphasized due to the young age at which these trends are introduced to children There can of course be positive effects such as uplifted personal confidence and the urge to do something that can better yourself, but those chances aren’t given to everyone. It’s impossible for a trend to be solely good, these trends should be lessened if not stopped, and with the world revolving around social media right now a feat like that would also be impossible.