“Only in Ohio.”

“It’s givvvvinggggg…”

“BFFR.”

TikTok has undoubtedly influenced the lives of many people, especially teens. You are very likely to encounter classmates whose sense of humor, vocabulary, and pop culture references are completely derived from social media. It is a peculiar phenomenon to observe in people: Since everything that’s supposed to be indicative of their personality is copied and pasted from TikTok, is it really them?

Along with all these new trends, cringe culture has also emerged alongside the rise of the app. People get shamed constantly for using certain emojis or words, such as the crying and skull emojis, or by saying words like “SLAY” and “PURRR.” Social media has made many users extremely insecure, projecting their own judgment and insecurities onto others. 

For people who aren’t on social media at all or as much as their peers, making conversations with people of the same age can be extremely difficult, especially since social media users’ language is littered with new phrases and memes that can be hard to keep up with. 

It’s common in a friend group that a person who doesn’t take part in social media feels left out and feels pressured to download apps so they can catch up with the trends going on. Instagram Reels have gained recent popularity as well as Youtube shorts which are essentially tiktok videos that get reposted on to these other platforms. 

Not to mention the harmful effects social media has on app users that don’t know how to manage their time on the app. 13% of kids from ages 12-17 have reported signs of depression along with 32% reporting increased anxiety, and 25% of ages 18-25 year olds reporting mental illnesses. All these groups report high usage of social media as well, and according to multiple studies done, many have found a prominent link between increased social media usage and an increased risk for anxiety, depression, loneliness, self-harm, and suicidal thoughts.

It is easy for people to lose themselves in the online world’s breeding grounds of conformity by saying the same things and wearing the same clothes. The blatant irony is that these same people with cookie-cutter personalities are the ones preaching about originality and individuality. 

So a word of advice: Instead of building a new personality off of trends that’ll pass in a month, take the time to find yourself and build an original personality that fits you.