When I think of trends that have come and gone — including the ones that are now stuck in the trend graveyard — I grow sad. So many had real potential. But there’s one trend I always come back to—the pièce de résistance of them all: the Adult Swim trend. Now hold on — before you freak out, and go, “the WHAT trend!?” Try to go back with me to late 2021, when we were still in the depths of what I like to call COVID TikTok. Before all the ads took over the app and before we were worried about the app getting banned, people were using their creativity to create the “AS” logo on anything they could find. Back in the days of cable, when Cartoon Network would switch to the Adult Swim — the more risky channel — in the evenings, they would play a video on the screen where the letters “A” and “S” would appear. This would appear on the TV to warn parents before the more mature cartoons aired, but it was subtle enough that children wouldn’t ask what Adult Swim was. The Adult Swim trend on TikTok was a creative take on this TV commercial.
Typically paired with the song “Running Away” by Vano 3000 in the background, we had impressive videos, like one guy mowing his entire lawn except for one spot where it spelled out “AS.” Some were coffee cups revealing words in the foam, others were murals. All these expressions of creativity packed into these five-second videos were doing exactly what TikTok was always meant to do: showcase creativity. I have always seen TikTok as a creative outlet — where I could connect with other teenage writers during the COVID-19 pandemic, and discover incredible art. I know others may see TikTok as an influencer homeland, but if you take a moment to look around, it’s full of artists just trying to express themselves — and I think the Adult Swim trend showcased that perfectly. Please bring back creative trends like this once more, and get away from the dangerous ones like eating Tide detergent pods or destroying classrooms and theaters for fun.
