I thought I’ve seen it all.
I’ve seen young people do a lot of things to try to gain some level of clout on social media.
Doing trendy TikTok dances, life-threatening challenges, pranks that are pretty much considered harassment.
But until a few days ago, I’ve never seen anyone do this:
Faking a medical disorder for social media clout.
Specifically, one special individual who pretended to have Tourette syndrome.
Yes you read that right.
I never thought I’d see the day where faking disorders would become a social media trend, but it is what it is.
Seeing that makes me glad I don’t spend much time on social media anymore.
I deleted my Instagram and Twitter account.
Never bothered to try TikTok.
I still have Facebook and LinkedIn, but I no longer have their mobile apps installed on my phone making it inconvenient for me to use the platforms. As a result, I only spend a maximum of five minutes a week, sometimes every two weeks on them.
Nowadays, email is pretty much my version of “social media,” which is conveniently on-brand for me (Being an email copywriter).
But going back to social media trends:
I truly believe those who piggyback on trends to gain clout aren’t going to get what they want. Time has shown again and again that whatever trends emerge will disappear just as quickly. And when these people build a following through trends, they’re building a fanbase on a flimsy foundation. Unless they capitalize on the momentum, it’ll only be a matter of time before they’re forgotten.
And yes, it is possible to build a fanbase, or customer base if you want to speak business terms, through email. I’ve seen other people do it, and I’ve seen the progress for myself too (Slowly but surely).
If you want to learn more about that, check out my email copywriting book.
-Ellisen