TikTok Is an Annoying Cesspool of Inauthenticity, but These Trends Were the Worst
Feb. 24 2021, Updated 9:31 a.m. ET
It's difficult to pinpoint exactly why viral trends end up becoming as popular as they do, but, when they are all the rage, it's difficult to top them for sheer traffic purposes and getting eyes on your video. The platform's top content creators will either start said challenges or hop aboard the hype train, and everyone else follows suit. However, like many trends, a lot of them are cringeworthy. Here are some of the worst trends that somehow became popular on TikTok in 2020.
The Autism Challenge is easily one of the worst of 2020's TikTok trends.
The #autismchallenge hashtag was first created as a means of bringing awareness to autism and those who've been diagnosed with the disorder. However, it quickly devolved into users uploading videos mocking those with autism and disabilities. Other videos with the same hashtag featured sketches that bordered on sexual assault. Not only did many people find many of the videos offensive, they also were just fundamentally unfunny.
The George Floyd Challenge.
Mocking the murder of someone at the hands of a law enforcement officer...yeah.
"Chinese New Year" building climbing was both boring and dangerous.
Then there were people who decided to just ... climb buildings to the song "Chinese New Year." Looking back, it's difficult to explain how in the world this even became a trend and doesn't necessarily seem that fun. Of course, there were some instances where people actually got hurt climbing said buildings, but for the most part it's just a boring trend that makes absolutely no sense.
Dipping testicles in soy sauce. Why?
Of course there were plenty of irritating attention hoes rubbing condiments on their private parts for views — this is TikTok after all. How this became a trend, who knows.
Filing down your teeth is a pretty bad idea.
Before dentists had to come out and condemn this kind of idiotic behavior, there were an alarming number of people actually filing down their teeth with nail files in order to get a perfect Hollywood smile. Some people even went so far as to put harmful and potentially poisonous chemicals on their teeth to become a "self dentist." Thankfully, actual healthcare professionals went on TikTok to stop this madness.
Guys dressing up as their girlfriends and vice versa always, always trends.
Ha-ha. So funny. Cross-dressing comedy at its finest. People haven't seen this kind of comedic genius since Shakespeare first opened The Globe Theatre in 1599. Wow.
"This is my voice on one day of anime." This is me slowly losing my mind.
It's the same repetitive trope over and over again. The meme never seems to die, and it's boring, predictable, and just extremely annoying. We get it, you watch anime. Leave us alone.
Taylor Swift's "Love Story" remix could be the most boring trend of the year.
Even TikTok's biggest influencer, the almighty Charli D'Amelio, partook in this trend that has people getting down on one knee and then breaking out into dance. That's it. That's the trend. Nothing more to see here.
Supergluing fangs to teeth is just the second dumb tooth trend of the year.
In order to look like vampires for Halloween, a bunch of spooky nerds thought it'd be cool to apply nail glue to the fake fangs in order to look like creatures of the night. Problem is that nail glue has some of the same active ingredients as super glue. No bueno. This resulted in a bunch of follow up videos where young idiots either cracked their teeth on camera or cried about their poor fortune ... err ... lack of foresight.
Veneers are next. Not sure why there's so much teeth idiocy in 2020.
Some influencers went overseas in order to prepare their teeth for veneers, which requires a millimeter to be shaved off of each tooth for the procedure. Tons of other high profile celebrities and influencers have gotten the procedure done. However, what these TikTokers did was prep themselves for crowns, not veneers, and that requires two millimeters or more to be shaved off of each tooth. Meaning they end up looking like the gollums above.
COVID patients suffering from anosmia took shots of Everclear for clout.
One symptom of COVID-19 is losing your sense of taste and smell. So, some TikTokers thought that they'd test whether or not they actually had the coronavirus by guzzling down some Everclear and seeing if they could taste it. Imbibing this stuff can easily lead to alcohol poisoning, especially when you've got a serious illness like COVID-19.
"Self-beauty mark removal" is about as safe as "self-dentistry."
People applied dangerous chemicals to their own bodies in the hopes of removing moles and beauty marks they found unappealing. Unsurprisingly, tons of folks hurt themselves and caused severe damage to their skin in the process.
The cereal bowl challenge is stupid all the time, but in 2020, it's especially stupid.
How does pouring cereal and milk into someone's mouth and eating it out like a human bowl sound? Fun? Disgusting? Dangerous? Maybe a combination of all three, but especially considering that COVID-19 is spreading like wildfire, this early early 2020 trend did not age well.
The outlet challenge isn't a challenge. It's a lesson in stupidity.
Some folks thought it'd be a good idea to put a phone charger into a wall halfway and slide a coin in between the exposed metal portion in order to cause sparks and potentially an electrical fire.
The skullbreaker challenge literally killed people.
This is just straight up bullying caught on camera. Two people convince a third they're going to record a TikTok video where the two people on the outside jump up in the air, and when the third person jumps, they kick their legs out from underneath them, causing their head to hit the ground. Classy. As a result of doing this trend, multiple children were killed or experienced severe injuries.
