It was just another night of diligently chipping away at homework while having Facebook open in a side tab. It had been quiet for a while—which was fine, given that it was a Thursday night and I couldn’t afford too many distractions anyway.

Ding.

Within two seconds, I was on the Facebook home screen to check that no, this was not part of my imagination and that yes, I indeed had friends. I clicked on the tiny globe in anticipation. Highlighted in blue was an invitation from my good friend and Ridge alum, Brinda Gurumoorthy, to an event called “scream”.

I was perplexed. According to the invitation page, “scream” would be happening this Friday, at a place called “here,” with over two hundred attendees. It raised a few questions. For starters, where is “here?” How would I get to “here?” Is it feasible to fit two hundred people in “here?” And are we talking about Scream 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5?

The internet experiences countless fads every year, from a contentiously-colored dress to people dousing themselves in ice water, and this year is no exception. In the past month, strange Facebook events have begun to infiltrate newsfeeds and gain momentum as a joke throughout the social networking community. Some popular events include “give up on everything,” running from November 17 to March 17 with a current attendance list of over twelve thousand Facebook users; “moment of silence for all my wasted potential;” “drop out of school and turn into JOHN CENA;” “put a burrito into a stroller and push it around like a human baby”—so on and so forth. And so one could imagine the amusement that comes with seeing how Facebook friend John Doe is going to “turn into an actual cat” or how Jane Doe is interested in “crying and eating bread by yourself on the floor.”

Yet as is the case for most funny things, this got old pretty quickly. Kevin Yu ’16 notes, “The fad seems to be losing steam. In the beginning it was kind of funny, but then way too many people decided to hop on the bandwagon. Perhaps it’s a means of being ironic or whatnot, but I’ve started unfollowing those who do it because it seems to have lost its purpose.”

And the sentiment is completely understandable. When every other post on our newsfeed is about so and so attending some bizarre event, the initial amusement stops and annoyance sets in. When there are countless events nearby all bemoaning the struggles of first semester finals or proclaiming a love for bread, the jokes become as stale as, well, bread. So it comes as no surprise that the late November trend has already begun to fade with the start of December.

According to Clare Halsey ’16, “A lot of people say that they are ‘interested’ in these strange Facebook events in an attempt to portray themselves as endearingly quirky individuals. Many social media platforms glorify being ‘weird.’ Being different isn’t a bad thing at all, but I think that many people do odd things for the sake of being different.”

The phenomenon of eccentric Facebook events indeed stems from a deeper desire to fit into a community and identify with others who might be undergoing the same ordeal as we are. Paradoxically, it also serves to amplify our eccentricity by publically declaring our struggles.  In putting down a response to an event invite, one actively acknowledges that it will show up on multiple newsfeeds and perhaps capture the attention of others. In effect, the attendees may be broadcasting their own sense of humor, but obnoxiously amplifying it to the rest of world.

Interestingly enough, most of these events share a similar theme: self-deprecating humor. Because thousands of Facebook users seem to find common ground by dubbing themselves failures—hence the popularity of the event “give up on everything”—this social phenomenon uncovers another fascinating cultural norm of today. While being able to open up and feel vulnerable is an admirable trait, society has come to embrace the extreme: those who are insecure and unhappy with themselves are viewed as approachable and worthy of attention, while those who are confident and content are passed over as negligible. And so we have begun to amplify our own struggles to elicit the attention that we so desire, as this Facebook event phenomenon so aptly captures. In hindsight, the mindset is flawed. Why are we so strung up on being noticed? And since when has hating ourselves to be loved by others become the “it” thing to do?

On the suggested events list in the margin of my newsfeed was one that sums up the waning phases of this Facebook fad. “Weird fake event to show everyone how quirky and cool I am,” happening December 28, displays the widening recognition of just how annoying these invitations have become.

As fleeting and irritating as this trend was, however, it extends to some wider implications: our overwhelming need to be validated and the harmful societal pressure to self-deprecate. Only when we begin seeking validation from ourselves rather than social media and jump off the “notice me!” bandwagon, can we stop cheating ourselves of self-confidence and individual worth. And that’s an invitation anyone would surely accept.