There have been countless times within the past decade that a brand new phenomenon sweeps the nation for weeks and has everyone on their feet, just for people to completely forget about it less than a month later. Remember how big Drake’s “Hotline Bling” video was, and all the memes that sprung from it? And remember how, just two weeks later, everyone considered those exact same memes old. Or how about the ice bucket challenge, or the cinnamon challenge? After stumbling upon an old video this past week, I decided to drown myself in all the phenomenon that swept my high school and early college life so far. Without further ado, let me go ahead and share what I remembered with you.
1. The Harlem Shake
It’s been three whole years since this phenomenon took off. A YouTuber by the name of Filthy Frank (who has quite a unique personality) uploaded a compilation video, which started off with several costumed people kicking off the very first instance of the meme. After this, the video was then parodied by one group, and then another, and then another, until it felt as if the entire world was in on it. You had the Miami Heat, the "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon"staff, the University of Georgia swim team all doing the Harlem Shake—hell, even my high school decided to do their own version of it. It was absolutely insane just how many Harlem Shake videos were created, and that might possibly have been the exact reason why this phenomenon was so quick to die off. After nearly two weeks when Filthy Frank first uploaded his video, there was a rate of 4,000 videos uploaded per day of people’s own interpretation of the Harlem Shake. It just got old… extremely fast. Three whole years later, and people couldn’t care less about this meme anymore.
2. Flappy Bird
You remember this. Your mother remembers this. Your grandmother remembers this. You all remember how many times you controlled your little stupid yellow big-lipped bird and crashed right into that first pipe. Flappy Bird was a mobile game where something as simple as flying through five rows of pipes became harder than getting a perfect score on the SAT. People couldn’t stop talking about it in high school, as all my friends would screenshot their high score and post it on Facebook. It became hotter than the phenomenon that was Temple Run. Unfortunately, we were never able to find out when this game hit its peak, as the developer of the game pulled the game off the market due to reasons that seem incomprehensible to the majority of planet Earth. With its pull off the store, so too did everyone’s memory of this game.
3. Kony 2012
I remember when this first became big. After a rather ordinary day at school during my sophomore year of high school, I got home and went straight to Facebook. Immediately, I just see everyone sharing a thirty-minute long video speaking of a charity’s effort to have the fugitive Joseph Kony arrested by the end of the year. It was honestly a very moving and impactful video, and it almost made me want to donate twenty dollars to get that care package to spread the word. However, just a week later after the video was released, just when the "Kony 2012"video was at its biggest, the director of the short film was caught on camera naked on the streets doing some…questionable activities. That, along with many questions concerning the transparency of what was spoken in the video, quickly led to the downfall of the video, and had everyone who paid twenty dollars for that care package instantly regret having done so.
4. The Dress
White and gold? No. I know it’s been a year since this came out, but to everyone who told me I was wrong when I said it clearly wasn’t white and gold, I just want to take this time to say I told you so. This phenomenon became humongous after someone posted a completely washed-out photo on Tumblr of a dress where no one could confirm what the actual colors of said dress were. After Buzzfeed talked about it, a large viral war over whether the dress was black and blue or white and gold commenced. The war even prompted a young man to get a tattoo of the dress in black and blue with the words “White and gold?” over it. Actually, I’m done talking about this. If I have to type out all those colors again I might lose it. #blueandblack
5. Friday
Remember when we were all exposed to greatness five years ago? Legendary singer Rebecca Black released her one single that had all of us gleefully singing “It’s Friday!” as we walked down the school hallways. Or am I remembering it wrong? Honestly, you can’t blame Rebecca for what happened. A company promising a thirteen year-old girl that she can be a pop star if her parents fork over $2,000? Hell, I would sign up in an instant if they asked me. Well, what came out of it turned Rebecca Black into an infamous singer who reminded us the order of the days of the week as she sat in the backseat with kids that barely looked like her friends. Let us also not forget about that extremely obnoxious and out-of-place rap section of the song that didn’t rhyme whatsoever. The original YouTube video had over three million dislikes, just to show how widely-hated “Friday” was. There is a happy ending to this though, as Rebecca Black ended up appearing in Katy Perry’s “T.G.I.F.” music video and now has a YouTube channel with over one hundred million subscribers. You know what, maybe I should give that company a call…