Here are 10 culture-defining trends on the internet right now that we’ll probably look back on in the future and think, “Man, those were the simpler days!” Social media has changed the way we consume news and stay updated on what’s happening in real-time. Of course, the problem with such quick breaking news is there’s no guarantee everything that shows up in your Twitter stream is true and credible. Yes, fake news can be a problem, but there really are no other platforms that quite compare for getting your news fix. Popular social networking platforms that thrive on image-based content, like Tumblr and Reddit, are go-to places for GIF sharing. There’s Giphy, the internet’s image search engine for GIFs. Google even has an image search filter for animated GIFs, so you know where to look when you really need to find a specific GIF fast. Just go to images.google.com, do your search, then select Tools > Type > Animated. Hashtags can now be used on Instagram, Tumblr, Facebook, and in all sorts of other corners of the web. It’s quickly grown to become the solution for effectively categorizing content based on specific themes or keywords to make search and discovery a whole lot easier. You can be sure this huge trend isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. The viral power of ridiculous memes like YOLO or Doge is undeniable. We can’t get enough of them, and there are tons of meme generator tools you can use to create your own and contribute to whatever’s most popular at the moment. For many now famous celebrities, starting out by putting their stuff online was really the only option. Today, all kinds of mainstream actors, musicians, bands, comedians, and more owe their success to the openness of the web, including major entertainment-based social networks like Facebook and YouTube. Without them, some celebrities may not have gotten their foot in the door in the first place. Cloud streaming sure does solve the problem of limited local storage, and it’s one of the fastest growing trends in media consumption today. Bitcoin has its fair share of problems, given that it isn’t overseen by any central authority, but that hasn’t stopped its growing popularity. As a result, countless other cryptocurrencies have popped up all over the web, some which seem almost too ridiculous to be real. (Dogecoin!)
