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Welcome to 2019! Although the year 2018 is behind us, annoying people on social media are still alive and thriving… which means I have plenty to complain about. These seven trends on social media are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of cringeworthy content online. But, alas, these are the immediate ones that should remain dead in 2018. If you were an offender of any of these last year, you’re in luck! You can forget that nonsense and start off fresh by never committing these viral crimes again. Now, in no particular order, here are the social media trends that need to remain in 2018:
Captions About Food On Non-Food Pictures
I wrote an entire article about this back in July called “That’s Not Actually How You Look At The Waiter When He’s Bringing Your Food“, so I’ll be brief here… but some of y’all are STILL captioning your bikini pics about Taco Bell and I’m pretty sick of it. This overwhelming phenomenon is where hot people feel inclined to remind their audience they have some down-to-earth tendencies like, gee, eating? Just own your hotness. Confidence is in for 2019. Pizza captions are out.
Goat Yoga
I know most yoga practice teaches students not to judge, but it’s very difficult to refrain from making fun of this “fitness” trend. Here’s my irk: If you want to just hang out with goats, go hang out with goats. They’re not that hard to find if you really try. And if you’re just looking to make your hour of yoga an Instagrammable moment, I think you might be missing the point of doing yoga…
“Weird Flex, But Okay,” “Thanks For Coming To My TED Talk,” And “This Ain’t It, Chief”
If you still type any of these phrases on your social media accounts (whether you’re trying to be ironic or not), you’re just embarrassing yourself at this point. These blurbs had a shining moment of glory, but they’ve been dead for a while now and shan’t be resurrected any time soon. Don’t worry – we’ll all be overusing another annoying phrase sometime soon.
Twitter Meme Overuse
Remember the “don’t say it, don’t say it” meme on Twitter a few months ago? Yeah. That wasn’t funny after the first three creations of it. It was one of the most overused memes of the year and, if I’m being totally honest, it was just a shitty meme all around. The only thing the meme did was point out a common phrase people say. So. Let’s not overuse Twitter memes this year, please.
Metallic Balloons
In fairness, these should’ve been long gone by now… I swear if I see one more birthday post with somebody holding those God-awful metallic balloons I’m going to scream. They were original and cute circa 2011 when they first surfaced on our social media feeds, but now it’s just a try-hard move for a subpar Instagram picture reminding your followers that it’s your birthday. It’s time to be more unique.
Instagram Pop-Ups
You know what I’m talking about. There’s The Museum of Ice Cream, Color Factory, Candytopia, and The Museum of Selfies… Unfortunately I’m not making any of these up. Now, look. I actually went to the Museum of Ice Cream when it opened and it was cute I guess… but as someone who doesn’t consume dairy or care all that much about a selfie in a pool of not-so-hygenic plastic sprinkles, it wasn’t that great for me. These $30 per ticket selfie stations can be fun, but they’re ultimately a huge superficial gimmick that does not make customers’ lives better in any way, besides giving them a good photo op.
Posed “Candid” Pictures
The other day I overheard a group of girls say “Now, let’s take a ‘candid’ one!” which… well… obviously was not candid whatsoever. This happens at brunch, birthday parties, holiday get togethers… even wedding photographers pose their clients to look “caught-in-the-moment.” Now, I get it. People want cute pictures where they’re casually smiling downward while walking, laughing mid-meal, climbing up a staircase or ladder or lounging around glancing into the distance. But let’s be honest here: When you boil it down, these pictures are just like a newer version of the duck-lipped selfie that we’re going to be cringing at in a few years.
There are plenty more social media offenses I didn’t touch on, so feel free to sound off in the comments about what irks you when scrolling through your Insta feed. Just, please — don’t caption a selfie “probs thinking about pizza” this year… For my own sanity..
Respond
KatieCallaway
Katie is 27 and is from Nashville, TN but lives in Los Angeles, CA as an actress, comedian, writer, and marketing manager. Although some might disagree, she likely peaked when she had dinner with Randy Jackson and he called her “dude” a lot. You can see her active on the Twitterverse at @KECallaway or you can also follow her new Insta at @KatieCallaway even though she hates Instagram.
@kecallaway
@katiecallaway
YES to the fake candid pic. One girl I know from Junior League went through a bad breakup a year ago and since then she’s gone batshit crazy setting up photo shoots of her alone in her apartment like “Headed to a baby shower!” or in her college teams jersey “Let’s go team!”. And it’s at least 3 or 4 times a week. The best was one she posted the other day of her laying on her stomach on her bed, facing away from the camera “reading” a book with some dumb quote about reading more this new year. To me it just screams I’m insecure and I survive on likes to make me feel worthy.
And yes if it bothers me so much I should unfollow her. But her craziness is entertaining to watch–don’t judge me. We all have people we hate-follow.
Do we know the same person from JL or is this just a trend for 30 something divorcees? It’s like a thirst trap for sympathy.
Starting a comment with “one girl I know from Junior League”… might be a PGP first. Are you meeting up with your friends Buffy and Angelle for lunch after your morning shopping trip today?
I think a lot of us are in Junior League. Might want to educate yourself about what it really is before stereotyping.
What is the percentage of black members in your JL chapter compared to the percentage of black citizens in your city? The JL in my town is lily white, and they like it that way.
I’m a guy and don’t know anyone involved in JL, but with that said….why does the racial make-up matter? Does every single organization need to be proportionally represented by race?
Bill, yes, and no. JL is supposed to serve their communities, and I imagine that an organization that is so monochromatic might not do as good a job as one that, I don’t know, includes members who represent more than one portion of a community. All these rich, white ladies descending upon the ghetto to help out poor kids that they would never see otherwise kind of rubs me the wrong way.
Also, in the deep south where JL is very popular amongst upper income ladies, I can’t help but wonder if various chapters use the photograph attached to membership applications as a way to exclude non-white ladies.
Maybe the JL in places I’ve lived in Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana is just messed up and everywhere else is great.
From what I’ve heard about it, it sounds like a post-college sorority, but I think it’s disingenuous to accuse them of racism based on including pictures when you have no proof of them doing this. But again, since it’s chapter-based, I would imagine every chapter is run differently and things vary from one location to another.
As for volunteering, should they not help out poor kids from the ghetto at all then? Or can you not help poor kids in the ghetto if you’re well-off and white?
I think you are missing the point here. The way I read it bhtigers simply is encouraging more diversity/representation in the chapters they have observed (“in Georgia, Mississippi, and Louisiana”). No mention of DC in that list interesting enough.
I don’t think anyone is saying “don’t help poor kids”.
“All these rich, white ladies descending upon the ghetto to help out poor kids that they would never see otherwise kind of rubs me the wrong way”
Yeah… wait what? I think you are arguing against yourself here bub
The latter part of my comment where I say “As for volunteering, should they not help out poor kids from the ghetto at all then? Or can you not help poor kids in the ghetto if you’re well-off and white?” addresses that part. bhtigers said that rich, white women volunteering in the ghetto rubs her the wrong way so I was curious if it was better that these rich-white women shouldn’t help the kids in the ghetto at all or if they were disqualified from doing so because they were white and rich.
Ohh, I see. I’m reading it as he wants more (diverse) people. Not the barring of a certain group.
Classic misunderstanding :^)
For the record, I am in a Junior League chapter in the south and it has way more diversity then I honestly originally thought it would have. Makes me really proud!
Basically I thought I would be walking into a room only full of white woman. And yes, it is the majority, but I was happy to see there were other members of all races and backgrounds.
Your only experience with JL is in the south, isn’t everything in the south racist? The golf courses in the south is racist, are all gold courses now racist. That’s like saying I swam in a lake in Michigan and it was cold so all lakes are cold.
JL- I bet you’re a ton of fun at parties lol. Give me a break with your faux outrage.
I’m in DC where the JL makeup is extremely diverse. We are proud to have our first African-American league president this year.
No more than 5 IG stories at one time. Littering my feed with Morse code looking stories should be grounds for a 24 hour ban from posting.
No more than 1 (one) IG story at any and all concerts.
It’s not really a social media offense but simply letting someone else on social media drive you insane. This isn’t an attack on Katie or her article, great post. It made me think about how my girlfriend follows people and whenever they post it’s “GOD SHE IS SO ANNOYING” or “She needs to get over herself.” Just unfollow them. Why allow something that has nothing to do with you affect your mood
The mute button is a godsend for this exact reason.
You can mute button your girlfriend? Thats a money maker right there.
I’m not a big fan of using movie or tv quotes as captions. You aren’t Dwight or Phoebe or Ron Swanson, so maybe caption the picture in your own words instead of just saying something that a fake person on tv said one time.
YOLO
#swag
Swing and a miss there champ
To be fair, this take really deserves a “This Ain’t It, Chief”, Chief.
Guys, always opt-in to have the social media apps track your location. The god coordinates along with your IDFA number are gathered and sold to many other companies via APIs so you can enjoy being pandered to all over the internet by advertisers who just want you to give them money for products that most likely cause cancer in some form. Also, be sure to opt into push notifications so that these same apps can get a better understanding of your interaction behaviors/timing and also so they can pepper your phone with rich media that are trying to sell you products that most likely give you cancer somehow. Also, also, enable microphone access so that dormant scripts in the back end can be triggered via keywords/phrases that corporations are bidding on via AI so that you can be served advertisements on the internet for products that will probably give you some form of cancer. Keep spending your hard earned money on questionable things and to top it all off, when you want to use your healthcare for things that these products cause, you might get denied coverage even though you’ve been paying out the ass the whole time from both ends. Now, you can rest knowing that you live in the best country in the world, a country who has the shittiest internet delivery lol
Completely agree with your photos being posted with non-related food captions. A girl on Instagram I know of often posts a selfie with captions like “smiling bc I was thinking of my next burrito” or “surprised I’m smiling because I was starving while taking this” and it’s just…annoying.
Girls who do those photos where they grab hands and lean toward each other looking super obnoxious. Every girl on my feeds does this, and it’s like they have no way to pose normally. That and spreading incorrect political graphics are my top two.
Do you include “PGP Commenter” on your resume?