Do you know what a girl dinner is? How often do you think abut the Roman Empire?
If you’re not sure what these questions have to do with each other, you probably haven’t been hanging out on social media much this year. Both topped TikTok’s list of the top trends on the app this year.
TikTok is a video sharing app with 1.2 billion users worldwide, according to the Search Engine Journal, making it the fourth most popular social media app. It released information about the year’s trends Wednesday.
This year on TikTok, users “embraced the culinary delicacies known as girl dinners, shared know-before-you-go tips from the biggest concert tours of the year,” asked “what can’t we make with cottage cheese?” and couldn’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire, said the company in a blog post.
For those who missed the trends: girl dinner refers to sparse snack-like meals that girls might eat when they don’t feel like cooking or going out. According to Bon Appetit, these dinners are “literally just a snack plate,” but videos about them kept going viral this year, and they shot the phrase into the social media lexicon.
Now, for that “Roman Empire” question… it’s a refence to the trend of women asking their husbands how often they think about the Roman Empire.
You may be surprised to find out that many say they think about it all the time.
Here’s a top list of all of the biggest trends on TikTok this year:
· Videos from the tours of pop stars like Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Sabrina Carpenter and Paramore.
· How often do you think about the Roman Empire?
· Unsettling McDonald’s Grimace Shake videos about the milkshake honoring one of the company’s iconic mascots popular on HorrorTok.
· Planet of the Bass, a 90’s Euro Dance music video from comedian Kyle Gordon that pretty much became the song of the summer and “landed him some superstar superfans, including the Jonas Brothers who invited him to open for their tour in August,” said TikTok.
· Girl dinner, rat girl and tomato girl summers, all part of “The Year of the Girl” trends inspired in part by Greta Gerwig’s hit film “Barbie”.
“Year on TikTok 2023 is a way for us to honor some of the standout moments that have happened on TikTok throughout the year. It’s a window into stories that have inspired, entertained and educated over 1 billion people around the world. Thank you for another year of bringing joy to our community and sharing your creativity with us,” said Adam Presser, TikTok’s head of operations, of the year-end report.
YouTube, another video sharing site that was ranked by Search Engine Journal as the second most popular social media site behind Facebook with 2.5 billion users. It also released a report on top trends this year.
“In 2023, you turned talking toilets into a global hit, took regional Mexican music to the top of the charts, and found your place in a Barbie world,” it said. “Major moments in the zeitgeist came to life in new and more varied ways than ever before on YouTube.”
Here’s a list of the top trending topics on the site:
· Skibidi Toilet: a series featuring a head in a toilet “trying to teach us a profound lesson about the meaning of art,” according to this video.
· Grimace Shake: like the trend on TikTok, unsettling videos featuring the limited-time shake honoring the McDonald’s mascot.
· Israel Palestine: searches about the ongoing war prompted by an Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas in Israel.
· Peaches (Bowser/Jack Black): Jack Black sang this song as the Nintendo character Bowser for “The Super Mario Brothers Movie” released this year.
· “The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom”: this video game, a sequel to “Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild”, was released this year for Nintendo devices.
· Garten of Banban: a horror video game that take place in a kindergarten.
· Barbie (2023): Gerwig’s hit film starring Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling.
· Peso Pluma: a 24-year-old Mexican singer.
· Artificial Intelligence: AI boomed this year with the release of ChatGPT and other tools that can create AI images.
· Flowers (Miley Cyrus): a song from “Endless Summer Vacation”, Cyrus’ latest album.