Social media is a big part of people’s lives. It dictates the trends, what’s right or wrong, what’s cute, what’s weird. People have become crazy over what’s trending. The second something starts trending it becomes on everyone’s minds.

Stanley Cup revenue has increased tenfold since becoming trending on TikTok. When something starts to trend you begin to hear and see it everywhere among the majority of people, especially younger generations. Unfortunately, with all of these people wanting to look and be what’s trending, they all end up being the same. Leaving us copies, and pastes of one another.

We no longer have individuality. I think that it’s been stolen by social media.

People no longer have unique styles, likes, or even vocabularies. Everyone likes the same music, clothes, brands, books, foods. How many videos have you seen of people raving about the same artist? Clothing websites or brands?

Most of these trends come from Tiktok. About 53 percent of people say they are Taylor Swift fans with over 2.6 million videos with #SwiftTok according to TikTok. That’s a little over half of the US population. Her popularity increased majorly after she started trending on social media for her Eras Tour on TikTok with over 150 million monthly users in the United states.

Tweens have even started hoping on the trends, specifically skin care, and makeup. These tweens are known as “Sephora Kids.” Kids are becoming more worried about what’s trending than being kids. They don’t know what they like without the trends telling them what that is.

Mindlessly scrolling has become a soul hobby for many. Sports participation has decreased by about 10 percent from 2019-2021 according to USA facts. According to a survey taken by Cosmo JrTracking, the average teen spends 4.8 hours a day scrolling, and with a school day for most on top of that it doesn’t leave much time for other activities.

Social media has put us in a small standardized box that has become almost impossible to get out of if you’re a social media user, or trend follower.

Although it’s understandable humans by nature crave others’ approval so it makes sense why everyone wants to be trending. We no longer have hobbies and things we like. We’ve become too busy scrolling and having people tell us what’s cool or not.

We’ve been robbed of the ability to be unique due to the virtual world we now live in, and it will continue to take more of our individuality if we let it.