Keeping Up With The Quarantine Trends

Amidst the COVID-19 self-quarantining of the country, many people have resorted to following internet trends to escape from isolation boredom.
As a somewhat avid social media user myself, I have scrolled past many of such trends as I try to pass the time away. Memes, of course, are a common ground in the social media realm. They often change with the circumstances of the world and may trend within themselves, but meme trends are not what I wish to focus on.

The first trend I happened upon was that when quarantining was at its beginning, and people were trying to figure out how to keep healthy and in shape while stuck in the house. This consisted of pouring water and soap onto the floor, holding on to something stable (like a counter), and running in place.

However, you might be able to see the potential problem with this. I saw one of these videos among the crowd of many, but instead of using soap and water, they used oil and held onto the counter and oven door. As they began running faster and faster trying to keep up with the slickness of the oil, the oven door kept opening and made them lose their balance, and they hit their head on the counter and fell on the floor.

Needless to say, that trend did not last that long. However, with the end of seeing the running direction, I started seeing one that I considered a favorite: recreating famous artworks with items found inside the household.

This trend is quite self-explanatory. People choose a painting or artwork and find objects in their house to recreate it and take a picture. I have seen recreations of the “Arnolfini Portrait” by Jan van Eyck, “American Gothic” by Grant Wood, and “The Astronomer” by Johannes Vermeer.
This trend/challenge was thought up by the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, California, as a way to keep people inside their homes busy, according to the Smithsonian Magazine.

However, the trends do not just stop there. One that is not necessarily new has been popular amongst many coffee lovers, and that is the one of whipped coffee. Originally called and stemming from the South Korean Dalgona coffee drink, it is made by whipping instant coffee, sugar, and hot water of equal proportions and then adding hot or cold milk.
The trend started with the popular short-video app, TikTok. Though, whipped coffee is not the only trend/challenge the app has created. The trends/challenges go from making videos with family members to toilet paper. Yes, that is right, toilet paper.

As many knows, there was a massive toilet paper outage that is still happening. On TikTok, however, it seems that the toilet paper many have stocked up on is being used for the “Level Up” challenge, where people place their toilet paper in a row creating a block for their animals (usually dogs). Every time the animal jumps over the toilet paper block, passing the level, a new row of toilet paper is added until the animal cannot jump over the blockage.

These trends can be an excellent way to keep from self-isolation boredom in these different times where the nation is encouraging people to quarantine. However, it is still important to stay safe and courteous of other people as they also deal with the pandemic of COVID-19.