Trends During COVID-19

Simon+Scannell+plays+Among+Us+with+his+friends+on+his+phone.

Nathaniel Scannell

Simon Scannell plays Among Us with his friends on his phone.

Alex Roy, Staff Writer

COVID-19 has caused lockdowns all over the world for 10 months now. A lot can change in 10 months from seasons to habits, to trends. But what kind of trends can there be when the world is in a mass lockdown and how do people know about them? Sometimes trends throw themselves at you like hairstyles or music but others are more difficult to follow, like clothing.  

In the past year, the food industry has begun to offer more plant-based meats. The most popular of these is the Beyond Meat Impossible Burger, which is advertised in different ways depending on the restaurant. Burger King calls their plant-based burger the Impossible Whopper. Back in September 2019 McDonalds even had a “PLT” or plant, lettuce, tomato on their menu which has since been removed. 

Social media and music have found ways to interconnect over the past year with the app TikTok which incorporates music into short videos that users make. Because of quarantine Tiktok has grown even larger and currently has 2 billion downloads on the app store ans Google play. 

“I have started to do things I have never done before like making TikTok videos and stuff,” senior Rey Hayashi said.

 TikTok helps people find music to listen to. Some of the top 5 songs on Billboard’s top 100 year end chart are Blinding Lights by The Weekend, The Box by Roddy Rich and Rockstar by Dababy featuring Roddy Rich. These songs are very popular on TikTok and you can find them in many videos. An artist that has gotten bigger recently is a rapper named CORPSE, his popularity skyrocketed when people started using his songs in their TikTok videos.  A big thing to do on the app are dancing videos, where people dance to music. 

“TikTok dances and seeing all different types of people trying them and seeing their changes on them,” senior Hayley Shaw said. 

Streaming apps have gotten increasingly popular during the pandemic. So much so that some people have even gotten rid of normal television. Apps like Disney+ and the new Peacock from xfinity are just starting out, but classics such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, the two largest streaming services, still prevail. Netflix and Amazon prime continue to be the most popular because they continue to add new and old content that keep people subscribed. 

“[My] favorite thing since [quarantine] started is watching shows I’ve never watched before,” senior Caden Brewington said. 

 A game that can be played on the phone and PC, it has been confirmed that the game is going to released on current Xbox consoles but not Playstation consoles. The game has been trending recently is a game called Among Us. Among Us is about a group of crewmates who have to complete their tasks before the imposters kill them, another way to win the game is to vote out the imposters. The game was released in 2017 but only started gaining popularity late last year.  

“[My favorite part of the game is] I like that I can play with my friends and random people from all around” Orly Suarez said.  

    2020 was a year full of crazy stuff like riots, protests, wildfires, murder hornets and all of this heppening in the middle pandemic but even with everything going on people found a way to continue to entertain themselves, to work, and to simply exist.