Do Not Be The Trend

@fredoyetayo|November 17, 2025 10:30 PM (7d ago)18 views

Over the past week or so, I have watched a few things unfold on Twitter that left me thinking a lot about how we use the internet. Nothing entirely new, to be honest, just the same familiar cycle. Someone talks a lot, builds an audience, becomes a sort of mini celebrity, then one day something breaks through from their offline life and the whole thing collapses into a mess of quote tweets and hot takes. It reminded me of a simple thought I have carried quietly for years: do not be the trend.

I first joined Twitter in late 2007 then left and signed up again in June 2009. I will say that that is definitely a lifetime in internet years. In those early days, from around 2009 to 2012, I was very active and I tweeted a lot. I had thousands of tweets, and I enjoyed the conversations, the jokes, the sense that you could be connected to people you had never met physically.

Then, between 2013 and 2016, I almost disappeared from the platform. I would check occasionally, sometimes I would not check at all. Life was happening offline and Twitter was just background noise. From 2016 till now, I have been back to checking Twitter regularly, but with a big difference. I hardly tweet, I mostly read. I think a lot, sometimes I even compose entire threads in my head, but I almost always choose silence. Not because I do not have opinions, but because I am very aware of how easily those opinions can become a performance.

A lot of the people who end up trending on Twitter are not necessarily bad people. Many of them simply talk too much online. They have an opinion on everything, they tweet it, quote tweet it, thread it, repeat it, and eventually it begins to feel like they are "somebody". If you keep talking long enough, and loudly enough, you will attract followers. People will start to see you as a voice, a thought leader, a personality. You slowly become a character on the timeline, someone people expect to have takes, someone they look up to or argue with. The problem is that once you become that character, it can get very hard to remember where the performance ends and your real life begins.

Generally social media platforms like twitter and instagram encourages performance. It rewards sharp takes, confident statements, and emotional extremes. You are not required to live the life you tweet or post about. You only need to sound convincing. So you find people tweeting things that are not their reality. They tweet values they do not practise. They tweet a lifestyle they do not live. They tweet principles they do not stand on when no one is watching.

Offline, there are complex situations, mistakes, contradictions, and secrets. Online, there are threads and hot takes. The danger is that the audience slowly builds an image of you that is not true. They fill in the gaps with assumptions, they project their hopes, their frustrations, and their fantasies onto you. One day, when the offline finally collides with the online, the gap between perception and reality becomes too obvious to hide.

That is when "disappointment" starts. Not because you were ever perfect, but because people thought you were something you never actually were.

Another thing I have noticed is how easy it is for people to mistake followers for real relationships. Because you have thousands of people following you, retweeting you, laughing at your jokes and agreeing with your takes, it starts to feel like you are important, like you are a star.

But Twitter popularity does not automatically translate into real life influence, respect, or love. Some people genuinely enjoy your content, yes. Some learn from you. Some are entertained by you. But there are also people who are just waiting.

The same crowd that hyped you up can swiftly turn you into content. The day you become the trend, you are no longer a person but a topic. People will analyse you, judge you, and joke about you, often without any real knowledge of your offline life.

The truth is, there is a lot that happens offline that does not belong on Twitter. There are struggles, relationships, conflicts, family matters, personal growth, spiritual journeys, and private failures that should never become tweets.

In the same way, there are things that happen on Twitter that should never be allowed to shape your offline reality. Just because people like your tweets does not mean you should start walking around in real life as if you are a celebrity. Your landlord does not care how many followers you have. Your spouse, your children, your colleagues, your neighbours interact with who you really are, not your online persona.

If you let Twitter convince you that you are more important than you are, you might start neglecting the things that actually matter.

Personally, I prefer what some might call a quieter life. I am not silent because I have nothing to say. In fact, I often have too much to say. I simply recognise that perception and reality are two very different things, and I do not want to live in a way that confuses the two.

I know that one tweet today can become a screenshot tomorrow and a trending topic next week. I know that people build narratives very quickly, and once they have decided who you are in their minds, it is almost impossible to convince them otherwise. For me, it is enough that the people who truly know me offline can see my growth, my struggles, and my sincerity. The timeline does not need to validate that.

There is nothing wrong with sharing, teaching, entertaining, or even being popular online. The problem starts when you forget that the internet does not know the full story. So, speak if you want to, tweet if you like, build if you must but just remember: do not be the trend. Because when the trend ends, you still have to live with yourself offline, long after the timeline has moved on.