The 5 Biggest Viral Trends of 2016

Every year, with the help of social media and an ever-faster flow of information, hundreds of viral trends reach a global audience and cause a bit of a stir. They can, at times, be absurd or dangerous, but the results are often hilarious too. For each trend, thousands of people worldwide participate by sharing their own interpretation of the fad on their social media platforms. As with every iteration, some attempts are carried off with greater aplomb than others… while many a brave soul, in spite of valiant efforts and no doubt generous rehearsal time, simply end up as new recruits in the burgeoning and overpopulated global “FailArmy”. Let’s take a look at some of 5 viral trends in 2016.

1. Pokémon Go

Pokémon go is a location-based augmented reality game that encourages players to go out into the open and catch Pokémon, who appear onscreen as if they were in the same location. The mobile app was tremendously successful immediately upon its release in July 2016. Indeed, only two weeks after its launch, the game recorded 45 million daily active users. A lot of businesses saw the successful app as a fun opportunity to communicate to potential customers.

This mattress brand:

(Saatva Mattress, via Facebook)

These coffee shops:

(Via Spokes Marketing)

This add for KFC :

(Via : adnews.com.au)

2. Water Bottle Flip Challenge

On 24 May 2016, a high school student published a video on Twitter showing his friend, Michael Senatore, successfully flipping a bottle of water during a school talent show. The video went viral (and was retweeted more than 56,000 times). This was of course followed by people beginning to try to complete the challenge themselves. Over time the challenge evolved and took on various ever more complicated guises. Check out these examples:

With more than one water bottle:

(Via chupijuegos.com)

The Reverse Cap Flip :

(via http://imgur.com/)

3. Mannequin Challenge

The Mannequin Challenge is a viral trend that started in Jacksonville, Florida. The concept is really simple: a moving camera films a group of people imitating mannequins “frozen” in a particular pose. Videos started showing up on social media with #MannequinChallenge, and the trend then took the world by storm. Many celebrities, such as Adele, Britney Spears and Michelle Obama took part, and some brands, such as Target and Coca Cola subsequently participated.

(Via Yahoo.com)

4. Dab

The “Dab” is a dance move that finds its roots in Atlanta’s hip-hop scene, however, there is a debate around who exactly invented this pose to begin with. It was already a popular trend in the US by the end of 2015, but the dab then became a global viral sensation in 2016 thanks to a number of athletes, such as American football player Cam Newton, who began dabbing as a means of celebrating their victory or their exploits on the pitch. The Italian football team Juventus even created an instructional video illustrating “How to Dab?”. Thousands of people have joined in and today you can find videos of people of all ages “dabbing” for the camera.

French football player Paul Pogba dabbing after scoring a goal. (via GIPHY)

5. “Andy’s Coming Challenge” and “Trump is Coming Challenge”

The “Andy’s Coming Challenge” was, in a sense, the successor to the “Mannequin Challenge”. This challenge was inspired by the movie Toy Story, in which toys that are actually alive pretend to be lifeless each time they hear their owner coming, at which point they shout “Andy’s coming” and drop to the floor. People started to do the same thing and shared their videos on social media using the tag “#AndysComing”. Even Disney Pixar participated and shared their own video.

(via opk.gr)

Some people transformed this trend into a new challenge, the #TrumpisComingChallenge. Instead of falling to the ground  as in the “Andy’s Coming Challenge”, people ran away in large groups upon hearing “Trump is Coming”..

(Via: welele.es)