Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
No fees, cancel anytime.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
People are social beings, so whatever we say about the absolute independence of our judgments, it cannot be 100% true. After all, we are always influenced by other people, events in the outside world and, of course, various trends.
As they say, big trends are seen from a distance - and what once looked cool and stylish, after a few decades, may seem silly and ridiculous. For example, now I can't look at some '00s photos of myself wearing a mullet without a facepalm. But I was on trend at the time! Damn it, it turns out that there are and have been so many stupid, ridiculous and just dangerous trends in the world that netizens now recall and reasonably criticize.
More info: Reddit
This post may include affiliate links.
RELATED:
#3
foot binding. that practice in china where they break and bind young girls' feet to make them more feminine
Some of the trends that you will see in this collection were associated with people's religious beliefs, while some, many decades or even centuries ago, were supposed to emphasize social status. Well, some just appeared literally out of the blue, because some celebrities acted in one way or another, and then numerous followers picked up the idea. But what exactly unites all these trends is that probably none of the people who followed them at that moment thought they were acting really stupid.
#4
Saggy below the butt pants. Sure, sag your pants a few inches if you think you got steez, but Jesus Christ, if your belt is below 100% of your butt crack, you’re an idiot
Benita Valdez 1 year ago
🎶Pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Lookin like a fool wit yo pants on the ground🎶
#5
Overusing terms like gaslighting, bipolar, or narcissist to where they've lost meaning. Someone disagreeing with you isn't gaslighting, having a change of mood isn't bipolar, and your ex may have been a d**k but that doesn't necessarily mean they're a narcissist. As someone who's autistic I also don't like the similar trend of people self diagnosing. There's nothing wrong with looking up symptoms for mental disorders, learning difficulties, etc if you go to your doctor. But lot's of people don't, they simply decide they have all these problems.
Amy Taylor 1 year ago
Bullying is another one… bullying is the relentless, cruel torture of someone for doing nothing other than existing. Now if you disagree with someone, or call them out on their s****y behavior, you’re called a bully.
"History knows many ridiculous traditions. More precisely, those that today we consider ridiculous, many years ago, were considered completely logical and appropriate," says Valery Bolgan, a historian and journalist, editor-in-chief of the Intent news agency from Ukraine, to whom Bored Panda reached out for a comment. "No, many 'challenges' and flash mobs of our time or of the last decades intend to show their own absurdity - but this is already the specificity of the postmodern nature of modern culture."
"By the way, another trend that runs through the millennia of human history is the tendency to idealize the past and believe that it used to be better in the 'good old days'. After all, one of the first records about what a decline in morals had taken place and how young people were inferior to previous generations applies, if I'm not mistaken, by the second millennium BC. So, it's okay - ten to twenty years will pass, and we will remember with nostalgia, for example, 'good old TikTok'. It is likely that this will happen," Valery states.
#7
Gallon Smashing 'prank' where a person would purposely drop gallons of milk in a grocery store while making it look like an accident, leaving a huge mess for some poor supermarket employee to clean up.
#8
there's some good ones here but the licking stuff at the grocery store and putting it back is a top contender
#9
People on social media posting inappropriate pictures of themselves at solemn sites to try and seem edgy. (IE: Auschwitz, the Berlin Holocaust Memorial, Ground Zero in NYC, Pearl Harbor site, Vietnam War Memorial, Tsitsernakaberd Memorial complex, Srebrenica Genocide Memorial, etc)
Final score:
200points
Linda Souza 1 year ago
Also when they pose with the casket at funerals. Just tasteless and wrong.
In any case, compared to many of the traditions that people followed centuries ago, modern trends - even dangerous ones - often look like innocent child's play. After all, for example, when medieval townspeople deliberately slayed cats, considering them accomplices of witches - and then there was no one to exterminate the rats that carried the plague - these delusions really cost the lives of millions of people. Now just compare this, maybe, with the recent TikTok trend of people stealing toilets and stuff from schools. As they say, everything is relative...
#10
The fire challenge where these kids were pouring acetone on themselves then lighting themselves on fire. Apparently it was supposed to be a short burning sensation, but as you’d expect there were kids who got seriously injured from the burns, and a mom who recorded her son doing the challenge even got arrested after being reported to social services.
#12
I would say pulling pranks on random people in public.
I am secretly waiting for the video of a prankster going to sleep permanently.
Sonja 1 year ago
Good and truly harmless pranks exist, but they are very, very rare. Most pranks bank on laughing at others people's suffering. I saw real celebrities sit in wax figure museums pretending to be wax figures. That was funny. I saw a prank pretending that people had accidentally ordered a real horse instead of a pretty figurine, but in the end the people were surprised with the really pretty figurine and a day on a horse farm. That was funny too. I saw a prank were they surprised a person thinking they were testing restaurants being served with their favourite childhood dinner. That was lovely. But most pranks are just cruel. The good pranks aim to make the pranked person happy in the end. But most only make people miserable so others can laugh at them.
In any case, there are trends without which the history of humanity would be much better, and hardly anyone will argue with this. And now we're definitely looking forward to you adding some comments with modern or ancient habits and traditions you also considering to be absolutely weird or ridiculous. After all, we might have missed something in this selection, so let's help each other to refresh our memory in the comments...
#13
I don't know if anyone has posted this already, but I recall a while ago there was something called the "knockout challenge" or "knockout game". It basically involved a bunch of teenagers and even adults walking or running up to someone, usually on the streets, and hitting them as hard as they could in the face with a closed fist, hoping to knock them out.
I just looked this up and, apparently, this kind of "game" dates back to the 1990's.
I hope this isn't a thing anymore.
#14
For me, I’ll never be able to process the fad in the Victorian era of *EATING EGYPTIAN MUMMIES*
Never will that s**t not send me right back to pure disbelief, horror and confusion.
#15
[Taking women's lives] for “witchcraft”
robin aldrich 1 year ago
I'd like to add: putting them in institutions for what was diagnosed as emotional problems, women, especially ones who enjoyed sex, they were given hysterectomies because it was thought they had a wandering uterus. That's right, their uterus would wander. And it caused them problems, so it had to be removed. And they were put in insane asylums.
#16
If you think Tiktok trends are stupid or dangerous, people of the past were even worse.
When people thought radium was good for you, there was a huge trend to put it in EVERYTHING. Face creams. Water crocks. Toothpaste. Hair products. Makeup. Chocolate. Toys. Nightlights. Watches. Spas. Impotence treatments. SUPPOSITORIES. Yes, people were sticking radioactive stuff up their a*s in the name of health.
People would even paint their TEETH with it for the glow. It blows my f*****g mind as a chemist.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12732/9-ways-people-used-radium-we-understood-risks
#17
Burning people who followed a different religion than the current ruling class. I'm looking at you Catholic England and your burning of the heathen Protestants for daring to publish the Bible in English.
And by burning, I do mean alive. I can't think of many worse things.
#18
The one where people were trying to jump away from moving trains last second
PunnyPanda 1 year ago
When I was in 5th grade, the local transit authority came in to teach us about the dangers of trains. They showed us a short film called "Chicken on the Tracks" about these kids who would dare each other to stay on the tracks in front of a train til the last sec. It was pretty well made, and got you emotionally involved in the characters. The last scene, a kid barely escapes, but out of nowhere, gets hit by a train coming the other way. However, the worst part is the very end when the cops are interviewing the surviving kids. Another cop walks between them and the camera carrying a CLEAR PLASTIC BAG OF A KIDS LIQUIFIED GUTS. WE WERE 10 YEARS OLD.
#20
Probably the trend of exiling cats out of European towns during the back plague.
Display_Name 1 year ago
Wouldn't the cats help prevent or at least tone down the black plague? I thought it was caused by rats.
#22
I was going to go with ripping out thousands of people's still-beating hearts as a sacrifice to the sun god, but it seems that people are interpreting this as worst *social media* trend ever.
#23
X-Ray parties: People would get together X-Ray themselves and each other exposing themselves to huge amount of radiation.
The Tape Worm Diet. People would give themselves a tapeworm to lose weight, then drink kerosene to kill the tape worm.
Both around 1900.
TwirlyGirly 1 year ago
And then there's the former leader of the U.S. asking his top immunologists to investigate whether people infected with COVID-19 could potentially be cured by washing out their insides with bleach or disinfectant. This was in 2020.
#24
Lick weird stuff during COVID challenge. Let’s try and get sick. Please people have you heard of hepatitis? Typhus? Salmonella?
#25
Ragebait.
Not only is it garbage quality content, it's done on purpose and people that interact and share only make it more popular.
TwirlyGirly 1 year ago
According to slang.net: "Rage bait is similar to clickbait but focuses on eliciting user anger to increase clicks, traffic, revenue, etc. (part of rage farming)."
#26
Happy Slapping.
Was a trend in the UK back in 2005 where you would slap a random person, hard, and video it. It usually turned into a fight if the person that got slapped reacted. I’m pretty sure it lead to a few deaths.
#27
That Tiktok trend several months ago where people stole toilets and stuff from schools.
WonderWoman 1 year ago
Stealing a toilet from the bathroom of a school where it only gets a cursory cleaning every so often has got to be the nastiest of all nasty things to steal.
#28
Bum fighting. (Really? Am I the only one who remembers this?)
#29
Using exaggerated, unnecessary terminology in day to day life
Identity politics/social grouping
#30
Vocal fry.
What do you think ?
and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 1 year ago
Taint tanning. Also, a tucker carlson favorite, testicle tanning. For MANLINESS.
Elio 1 year ago
I think we should just let those a$$holes continue with that.
Load More Replies...
Ben Stubbs 1 year ago
How is it the editors allow posts highlighting religious persecution, but won't let me say bum, tit or bugger?
and_a_touch_of_the_’tism 1 year ago
Taint tanning. Also, a tucker carlson favorite, testicle tanning. For MANLINESS.
Elio 1 year ago
I think we should just let those a$$holes continue with that.
Load More Replies... Ben Stubbs 1 year ago
How is it the editors allow posts highlighting religious persecution, but won't let me say bum, tit or bugger?
You May Like “Teen Boys With Alpaca Hair”: 30 Fashion Trends That People Have Had Enough Of 30 Times Police Were Called on People For The Dumbest Reasons “Like Something In A Movie”: 36 Hospital Workers Share Their Wildest Stories
Mantas Kačerauskas
Gabija Saveiskyte
Gabija Saveiskyte
Related on Bored Panda
