The 2020 Effect

Instructions

(arrow keys to pose) tw: yap session The 2020 Effect is an effect where our perception of time has been distorted since 2020, the year of the COVID-19 pandemic when many were stuck at home. An example of this would be when one would look up a Youtube video from 10 years ago, and expect it to be from 2010 or a similar time. Unexpectedly, the video ends up being from 2014, which is way later than expected. Many people have suffered from the 2020 Effect, but there are certainly more deranged, cringey things that had their prime in the year of 2020. In 2020, TikTok has became increasingly popular. With this newfound popularity came trends on the app. One of these trends was cosplaying characters from games and anime. The most notorious of these cosplays were the cosplays of a character named Junko Enoshima. Junko Enoshima is a character from the video game series called Danganronpa. The cosplays featuring this character would usually consist of a cosplayer doing four iconic poses that the character did to Sporty O's song "Let Me Hit It." The video would then be put at 3x speed to make the movement smoother. People who have looked back on this trend have said that it was heavily cringe because of the overexaggerated facial expressions and cartoonish movements. It is also considered cringe because most people doing the trend were just beginning to cosplay, and weren't very skilled on how to make wigs or how to do makeup. Another trend that was popular in the pandemic was dressing in "alt" fashion. Alt fashion is short for alternative fashion, and is usually, but not always, accompanied by a certain music genre or belief. The outfits that an alt person would wear in 2020 would usually derive from elements of e-girl/e-boy, scenecore, emo, and mallgoth. Common themes were striped sweaters, Demonia boots, hoodies, and arm or leg warmers. The makeup used for 2020 alt fashion would usually have too much blush, messy graphic eyeliner, and a large amount black lipstick, either on both lips or only the top lip. It may have consisted of patterns on the cheek or nose, such as freckles or symbols. This trend was also seen as cringey because of the unneccesarily large quantity of makeup products used on the face, and the amount of people claiming to be "alternative," yet being excluded by other older alternative subcultures. One last trend that arose during 2020 was the "POV" trend on TikTok. POV is an acronym for "point of view." These videos would consist of text onscreen that read "POV:" and explain a situation. The person in the video would then lip sync to an audio, usually being a song, or a clip from a show. These POVs would usually have a romantic context to it, and would also have overdone movements to the lip syncing such as weird facial expressions, or certain dances. This trend is seen as cringe as well because of the caricatured lip sync, and possibly cringeworthy audios. The plot of the video would also be cringe because of it usually being overused or excessively intimate. Since the pandemic, our view of time has been altered by a large margin. However, we have managed isolation through apps like TikTok, and by creating different embarassing, silly trends on the platform. However, when looking back on such fads, one might feel regret that they have participated in such a thing. Ultimately, the damage to our digital footprint has been done because of the cringeworthy trends on TikTok in the pandemic. yap session over