Trends worth starting
When you hear the word trend you probably think of young teens eating Tide pods or transforming themselves from “ugly” to “hot” in cringeworthy videos. I can't deny that most trends fall into the category of meaningless stunts for a few likes on social media. What we need is change.
Trends have no positive outcomes other than the inflation of egos of the trend followers. Therefore, we should strive to start trends that are in the best interest of the people around us and our beloved planet. Positive change does not necessarily need to always be brought about through big movements and protests. Change can start right from the tips of our fingers.
Initiating good trends is easier said than done, for various reasons. If you're starting from scratch, you must first think about what exactly the issues are that you wish to solve. The world has so many problems at the moment that we are spoiled for choice when it comes to picking what we want to work on. A simple method would be to look up the UN Sustainable Development Goals and discover a specific goal that you want to proceed with. You could also look around your community and try to identify the most significant social or environmental issues that are local to you.
Once you have chosen an issue, you can brainstorm ideas on how you can bring about reformation. Trends are never long-lasting, and hence long-term plans are not really required. Even if we have short-term solutions through trends, at least we are receiving a positive output for a few weeks.
There have already been many great, productive trends going on around us that we might not have taken much notice to. Take for example the recent #TrashTag challenge. You may have seen this wonderful trend floating around your social media platforms these days. You might be surprised to know that this challenge has been going on for years but only now has it gained immense popularity.
#TrashTag asks you to go to a place, clean it up, and post satisfying before and after pictures of the place. The trend is extremely simple and that's why it has been so effective. As proven by how popular declutter and organisational YouTube videos or Netflix shows are, people find it soothing and satisfying to see something or someplace get cleaned up. This is why they easily started to pitch into this trend.
The #MeToo movement may have been a much more serious and large-scale project, but it can still be classified as a trend. Social issues as such need dire attention and #MeToo has undoubtedly helped thousands of women to speak up and break the taboo. Gender-based sexual abuse is not gone. However, we have made progress through a simple trend of sharing experiences on social media using a hashtag.
Trends bring people together for one common cause. All social movements rely on that as well but do not achieve it as easily as trends do. Why not just use trends for a way to fight issues that would otherwise take much longer to handle the traditional way?
Mayabee Arannya can never say no to a cup of tea or cute doggo pictures. Send her the latter at fb.com/mayabee.arannya