If you have been on social media lately, I am sure you have definitely seen the nomination trends that have been flooding the internet. Tapping through my friends' stories, I was indifferent about this trend, but slowly, the nominations started to reach me and my social circle. Especially following the USC Speak Your Mind trend, Instagram has been flooded with "Nominate 6" prompts. At first, I thought these trends were nice ways to interact with friends online and learn a little more about the people I know.

But now? I think there is a lot more to these trends than posting photos and nominating your friends.

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The Trends

The first nomination trend the internet saw was the USC Speak Your Mind Challenge where participants pour ice water on themselves to bring awareness to mental health. Participants then would nominate people to do the challenge, creating a chain on the internet.

Shortly after the trend died down, the "Side Shot Nominate 6" "add yours" sticker rapidly gained popularity. The sticker was started by bigbangpictures1 and currently has over 2.7 million addendums.

Participants would post "side shots" of themselves, particularly playing or doing a sport. People that did not participate in a sport would also post, but that raised some controversy online as people claimed that was not the point of the trend.

Two more trends in the form of "add yours" stickers followed this. One was the "4 Fits Nominate 6" started by anttbeezyy_ where participants post four photos of their outfits and nominate six people to do the trend. The other was "Little You Nominate 6" started by againstjay where participants posted baby or toddler photos, also nominating six more people to do the trend.

Both trends currently have over 2.1 million participants. While these were the main trends floating around peoples' Instagram stories, there were definitely other smaller scale ones that are being spread among the community.

People online have dubbed this era the "nominations" period.

Image Credit: Yifei Wong from Unsplash

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Purpose & Effect

Unlike the USC Speak Your Mind Challenge, these trends stray on the "just for fun" side of the internet. The Speak Your Mind Challenge was made to spread a meaningful word about mental health.

The Nominate 6 trends are simply ways for people to connect through the internet. And that has definitely worked. With the chain reaction effect, these trends flow from social group to social group rapidly.

These "add yours" stickers are also easier to complete than the USC Speak Your Mind Challenge. Since the Nominate 6 stickers are trending, people are more compelled to participate and nominate, hence the immediate spread of the trend. But since it takes so little time to complete, more and more nominations are flooding Instagram.

As more and more trends pile up onto my Instagram homepage, I'm starting to think one thing: It's starting to get repetitive.

Image Credit: Gabrielle Henderson from Unsplash

The Downside & Takeaways

I get it. The Nominate 6 Trends seem fun at first. To be honest, that is what I thought too.

Now that I think about the trends, somethings feels off.

There can be a lot of peer pressure seeing your friends do the challenge. They nominate you, and suddenly you feel obligated to do it too. You start to compare your photos and format to everyone else's stories, nitpicking through the different between your photos and theirs. Sound familiar?

Because it is so repetitive, you are suddenly spending time picking through your photo album to attempt to stay on trend. While it’s cool to see what everyone’s into, it can quickly turn into a comparison spiral—especially if your feed is full of trends you can’t afford or just don’t vibe with. It's easy to get caught up in what is aesthetic than what is authentic.

Personally, these trends tend to tire quickly as well. After starting my third or fourth stories, I felt a lack of originality that I had not felt in the beginning. I wanted to hop onto the trend since it seemed pretty fun, and most trends are mostly spread throughout celebrity and internet influencer circles. Yet after all that, I feel immune to trends now.

That is just my personal opinion, though. Maybe you think differently. These trends definitely impact other people in various ways depending on their personality.

It is perfectly fine to participate in the trend, but still remember that being honest about what makes you feel good, trend or not is the best thing. In the end, the lesson to learn from this trend is as ever, to not fall into the trap of peer pressure and social media.

What do you think about this trend?