If you’ve ever tried to explain an online joke to someone who “isn’t really on TikTok” and watched the light leave their eyes, congratulations: you’ve encountered a microtrend.
What is a microtrend?
The definition of a microtrend is, conveniently, vague. Collins Dictionary very helpfully defines it as ‘a minor trend’, which I’m sure anyone familiar with the words micro and trend could have deduced independently. A more widely accepted definition frames microtrends as niche cultural moments that gain rapid traction online, most commonly in fashion and aesthetics. Imagine bows on everything and deer print; football jerseys and Brazil tops. Imagine anything you’ve seen in a chain store and thought, yeah, this is ending up in a landfill next month.
For the purposes of this list, a microtrend refers not just to clothes or aesthetics, but to hyper-specific internet references: jokes, phrases, screenshots, or images that briefly infiltrate the collective consciousness before vanishing forever. It’s not a complete list; it can’t ever truly be, but it does attempt to collate various memes, tweets, and TikToks that brought the internet together.
10. Labubus, but specifically the 24k gold Labubu
Rank: Ten
Origin: Labubus began as a small designer toy used by TikTok creators as an accessory or aesthetic prop. The ‘24k Gold Labubu girl’ emerged when a creator started posting fake, outlandish versions of the toy, claiming she owned the “one and only” edition.
The 24k gold Labubu was funny, but its lifespan was brief; the creator was cancelled practically the following week, and her subsequent attempt to revive relevance by invading Floptropica failed spectacularly. For that reason alone, it earns its place at the bottom of this list.
9. Turning 19 in Poland
Rank: Nine
Origin: Turning 19 in Poland originated from a pun or play on words related to the military; in Poland, individuals can serve in the armed forces at age 19, so turning 19 in Poland became a way to compliment people by playing on the slang of ‘serving’.
Whilst it was funny for the two weeks it was alive, ‘turning 19 in Poland’ is too niche to ever reuse, and only made sense to a certain corner of the internet. Because, personally, I had to have the joke explained to me by someone more chronically online than I am, it ranks low on this list.
8. The streets killed me
Rank: Eight
Origin: a TikTok of two women lecturing children on the streets. The kids can be heard laughing in the background, ostensibly not taking them seriously, prompting one woman to say that she ‘ran the streets’, and the other to raise her hand and say ‘the streets killed me’.
The woman’s animated presence made viewers doubt whether the streets truly killed her. Regardless, it’s an excellent phrase to drop into conversation about your own struggles and hardships.
7. probs offensive, will probs delete later
Rank: Seven
Origin: Trisha Paytas’ tiktok posted in 2021, featuring Paytas dancing to the song ‘King Tut’ in a stereotypical Egyptian costume that Paytas herself recognised as insensitive and potentially harmful. The TikTok, which still has no clear purpose for existing, was captioned: probs offensive, will probs delete later.
She didn’t delete it later.
6. Coca Cola hello !
Rank: Six
Origin: A video filmed by James Charles about a ‘frozen brown elephant’ drink, which turned out to just be Coca-Cola.
The true humour of this meme was the parodies that came out of it. Almost immediately, behind-the-scenes footage surfaced showing Charles filming the TikTok, in which he’s standing like a child dressed like every 65-year-old from Florida. One Redditor, in defence of the TikToker, claimed he was standing that way to ‘counteract his BBL’.
5. 365 Buttons
Rank: Five
Origin: A now-deleted TikTok comment thread under a video that was about ideas for 2026 rebrands. A user, named Tamara, said she was going to have ‘365 buttons’ to remind herself about ‘the passing of time’. When pressed about what she meant by the cryptic comment, or what she intended to do with the buttons, she replied: ” Hey, so actually it only has to make sense to me for me to do it, and I don’t feel like explaining it to anyone else.
This entire comment thread was completely unnecessary, and in fact would not have garnered any attention had Tamara simply explained in a few words what she was doing with the buttons. Instead, she gave people a sentence that could be used for pretty much anything they didn’t feel like justifying. It would rank higher if it weren’t so new, and Tamara herself hadn’t deleted her account to try to kill the meme.
4. Perchance
Rank: Four
Origin: A surreal essay about Mario, in which the student uses ‘perchance’ as a full sentence. The marker wrote ‘you can’t just say perchance’ above it, which the internet then took and ran with.
For me, perchance is a great filler word to use in casual conversation. It’s also a way to test out if people are chronically online; if you say ‘perchance’ and are hit back with ‘you can’t just say perchance’, then you know you’ve found someone with a screen time higher than six hours a day.
3. Skims bush
Rank: Three
Origin: A “faux hair micro string thong” released by Kim Kardashian in over a dozen shades.
The Skims Bush was extremely short-lived, which feels appropriate; it didn’t beat around the bush, so to speak. I tried to find someone with the item to comment on its wearability, but unfortunately, no one on Earth seems to have purchased it.
2. A shrimp fried this rice
Rank: Two
Origin: Someone once tweeted ‘So you mean to tell me that a shrimp fried this rice’ in a pun on shrimp fried rice, which immediately led to a bunch of funny spinoffs, including ‘so you’re telling me a boot cut these jeans’ and ‘u telling me an oatmeal raised this cookie’.
Honourable mentions include ‘Road work ahead? Yeah, I sure hope it does, and ‘you’re telling me a ginger bred this man?’.
1. Prolly not
Rank: One
Origin: A TikTok made during the height of POV-tok, in which the creator is pretending a loved one is on the brink of death. He asks ‘Doc, will she make it?’, tears in his eyes, but follows it up with the doctor replying ‘prolly not’.
An incredibly versatile phrase that can be used in both everyday language and academics. It paved the way for POV tiktoks in the years to come, and serves a crucial reminder that we don’t have to be poetic and serious all the time. Sometimes the answers to life’s questions are simply prolly not.
The micro trend of cutting microtrends?
It’s worth acknowledging the rise of the anti-microtrend microtrend, too, as we become increasingly aware of overconsumption and collective burnout.
At their best, microtrends bring people together. At their worst, they’re just elaborate distractions. Maybe the real trend is knowing when to log off—or at least saying prolly not to the next one.
And if you don’t understand half of these references? That’s fine. The internet will replace them by tomorrow anyway.