The whiteboards in Mrs. Davisson’s room are adorned with “chill guy” and “hyperpigmentation.” If this were said to an average adult, they would be confused. However, not for the middle schoolers of Cannon Falls Middle School, as they understand the many memes and trends that took place this past year. There were trends in food, music, brands, dances, and memes. Out of the many trends, a few stood out in 2024.
This 2024 year had many popular food trends such as Dubai Chocolate, a chocolate bar filled with shredded phyllo dough and pistachio. Dubai Chocolate also has orange and green chocolate drizzle on the top. Many salads were also made on social media, most of them being made out of candy or cucumbers. For the candy salads, friends all brought candy and mixed them. Sometimes there would be a theme like chocolate or gummies. “Hear Me Out Cake” cakes were also extremely popular. These are cakes with pictures of unusual things or people that the person making the cake thinks are cute. For example, many animated movie characters were seen appearing on the cakes.
In the music industry, artists rose through the charts. Taylor Swift’s new album, The Tortured Poets Department got 2.7 billion streams. Other artists like Charlie xcx, Bruno Mars, Ariana Grande, Beyonce, Zach Bryan, Lady Gaga, Travis Scott, and Benson Boone were all very popular this year. Rebecca Kuehlman said during the 2024 year, “Zach Bryan was my favorite singer.”
Lululemon and Nike were some of the most popular apparel brands in 2024, along with Uggs, Zara, and Zambas. Kuehlman’s favorite clothing store is Lululemon, just barely ahead of Carhartt. These were all very popular because they had creative new designs for clothing. Uggs and Zambas are a kind of shoe brand, while Zara, Lululemon, and Nike are all types of clothing brands.
TikTok also had its fair share of trends. There are always TikTok dances being made on the app, but like most things, only certain dances gained popularity in 2024. “Wait, they don’t love you like I love you,” is a crowd favorite with many people doing a specific dance to the song, while waiting in line, shopping, or at the ice cream shop. There were also viral dances to songs like Sticky and Million Dollar Baby.
Trends were also seen in memes. There were so many memes this year from “Chill Guy” to “No Chick-fil-A sauce” to “I just want to be part of your symphony”. A good meme, according to Anya Nygarrd, is “Something that is funny in a stupid way that isn’t expected to blow up.” Some of the best memes have no apparent relation to anything and are about unexpected topics. The topics for memes are incredibly random, ranging from suitcases to knee surgery.
There were lots of trends in the 2024 year. From food, music, brands, dances, and memes, 2024 had plenty across many different areas. Many of these trends have also made it into 2025. 2025 will also have its own share of new trends. Maybe one about hippos eating muffins, or a viral giraffe, no one knows. Trends are always the most random things.
