You spend hours finessing the ideal post for a trend. Only to find the internet's already moved on? Yeah. It's like arriving at a party at 3 a.m. with chips when everyone's carrying out the furniture.
Welcome to the speed-run life cycle of internet trends, where you blink and your "fresh" concept is already in the digital nursing home.
Remember the Harlem Shake? Urban Dictionary captures it in all its 2013 glory: a group of individuals performing strange, uncoordinated dance moves to the same 30-second drop of a song. Everywhere. Offices. Dorm rooms. Even at your cousin's wedding reception.
Now? Say the words and see Gen Alpha look at you like you just mentioned a fax machine.
The thing is, trends used to last months, maybe even a year if they had the cultural stamina of the Ice Bucket Challenge. Now they burn out in days. Blink and you’ll miss them, or worse… you’ll be the one posting it on day 9, when the internet has moved on to a raccoon eating grapes or some AI-generated pizza nightmare.
Sites like Know Your Meme literally have to track trend histories like sports commentators. One moment, you’re a viral god. The next? You’re just “historical context.”
Social media algorithms live off endless novelty. The moment something begins to get predictable, engagement suffers, the algo drops it down the memory hole, and a new hot thing replaces it. That's not internet madness, that's strategy. Platforms don't want you stuck on repeat, telling the same joke.
HubSpot's social media trend fatigue blog gets it exactly right, people are exhausted. Hearing the same audio clip or dance 400 times a day wears off quickly. Even the creators are burned out, producing content that's essentially a template change with yesterday's post.
This is why you'll notice folks begin skipping trends altogether and going for "evergreen" content (i.e., material that's still worthwhile watching six months down the line). But the thing is, avoiding trends can sometimes seem like it's missing the inside joke in the group chat.
Short answer: yes, but quick. Like, "see it at lunch, record it before dinner" quick. If you don't post it immediately and wait until you've "perfected" it, you'll be that corporate account still using Minion memes in 2025.
Or, own the cringe and post late deliberately. Lean into it. Caption it: "Trend's dead, I'm just here for the vibes." Irony is golden.
The secret is recognizing when to surf the wave and when to just allow it to crash without you. Trends come and go, but online memory never forgets, which is why we still have Harlem Shake videos lingering rent-free on YouTube.
