The Influence of Social Media Trends

In Today’s generation, popular trends on social media have a huge influence on younger people.

Trends can consist of different things such as makeup, clothes, music, toys, and interests.

It is constantly seen throughout different media outlets of viral products or ideas being shared with millions of people online. When a particular trend is being seen by people continuously, it has an effect on people following what their peers are doing. People want to fit into society and have the coolest or most desired product out there which influences the spread of new items becoming popular.

Social trends are a smart way for companies to make more money off the products they push onto younger people online. This has been seen many times when a celebrity is pictured with a product, once millions of people see a person they admire with a product, they want to be just like them which means buying the products pictured with said celebrity.

Trends can also bring awareness to different organizations and not just for selling products. In 2014, the ice bucket challenge was a popular trend that spread across Instagram’s platform. The trend was created to help bring awareness and donations to Lou Gehrig’s Disease, also known as ALS, which stands for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Pete Frates, a formal baseball player for Boston College, helped promote the nonprofit organization, ALS Association, because of his own diagnosis of the disease.

Both celebrity and regular accounts made videos of pouring ice water on themselves while tagging at least three friends to post themselves participating too. This trend is an example of one of the many situations that brought light to very serious topics. The millions of people posting about the ice buck challenge resulted in the organization raising tons of money.

An estimated $115 million was raised for the cause in just a few short months that year. The ice bucket challenge was created to raise money for research purposes in hopes of finding a cure for ALS disease.

The Ice Bucket Challenge is just one of the many trends that took over social media platforms. Many nonprofit organizations have found themselves going viral over the years which brings awareness to millions of people. Situations like these can come out of pure luck to get a topic talked about by what feels like everyone on the internet. Getting people to talk about certain topics, brings attention to a cause that can get people to donate money. It’s not only companies and organizations that get attention online but also individual people.

On TikTok, you can find multiple people sharing their stories and asking the public for help by donating money for different personal causes, such as surgeries for themselves or relatives. People are able to raise thousands of dollars just by posting their GoFundMe and relying on people to like and share their videos and posts.

For more information on the Ice Bucket Challenge, you can contact the nonprofit organization, ALS Association at alsinfo@als.org or call them at (800) 782-4747