A review of the year in trends

By Alice O’Donnell

Arts and Entertainment Editor

Ahhh! The daffodils are blooming, the sun is shining, students are stressing; it can only mean one thing – we’re nearly at an end to this academic year!

How? Like, how is this scientifically possible? Which Doctor Who has been meddling with time and making it speed up so quickly? I swear last week was February – how is it May already?

As the academic year comes to a conclusion, I decided to have a look back over the trends which marked the year (if only to prove to myself I actually experienced these past few months and didn’t just fall into an alternative reality!)

September – Cloud Bread.

Cloud Bread. Please, I beg, pause reading and google ‘cloud bread’. It’s exactly as unreal as it sounds. And you can get different coloured cloud bread! Ahh I just love cloud bread so much. My first week back in Galway, I gave the recipe a go. Sadly, I did not get a ‘cloud’ consistency… More like tired, burnt leather. To be fair, I didn’t have an electric mixer and regrettably I don’t think my weak attempt at hand mixing was enough to get the air needed into the mixture. However, I haven’t given up hope on this trend, and as soon as I’m home (and with my mother’s high-tech way-more-powerful-than-my-puny-arms electric mixer) I’m giving it another go.

October – The Ghost Photo-Shoot

The ghost photo-shoot! Although I never actually got around to taking part in this, I adored seeing the photos of strangers all around the world. In case you missed it, the concept is super simple. All you do is don a white sheet and your coolest pair of sunglasses, and go around with your friends and have a photoshoot. It admittedly sounds a bit wacky, but it’s a few hours of entertainment and some pretty cool photos have come from the trend. Plus, there was something undeniably child-like about it, and I think the main reason it went so viral was how wonderfully nostalgic it was.

November – Celebrity Beef

“Does anyone have any, like… wicked random celebrity beef?” I dare you to read that sentence and not hear that girl in the car. A quality question, and boy did the internet provide. For maybe like two months, TikTokers were spilling tea left, right and centre on much-loved celebrities. If I’m being honest, it probably wasn’t the most wholesome thing (because I mean, there was no proof and the celebrities couldn’t even defend themselves) but boy was it entertaining. It was finally Trisha Paytas’ time to shine.

December-Singing Snowmen

The ‘Snowman’ Singing trend. Not only was this trend mildly entertaining, but I managed to find a new song to add to my Christmas playlist! Sia’s ‘Snowman’ was popular and covered by many different singers. Someone on TikTok sliced lines from covers and put them together to form one audio, and people would choose different topics and would imagine who sang what lines. It sounds weird, and frankly pointless, and to be honest it was. But it was also madly entertaining, especially when people would say which letters of the alphabetic they would imagine singing certain lines, and… it strangely made sense?

The Return of Summer

By Aine McGee

As soon as the evenings stretch longer, and the sun begins to shine, I can feel a weight lifting off my shoulders. With a tough winter over us, the returning of nature and sunshine is beginning to feel like the return of normality. There’s no longer the worry of trying to get out for a walk before 4p.m. or risk walking in the pitch black or the dullness of looking out at the blank lifelessness outside.

As we see colour returning to nature, we are also seeing a rise in colourful clothing in fashion. I think this bright colour trend is reflective of people’s mood. We have been trapped inside for a year with little to look forward to and little to spend our time on. This year people need a little more colour in their lives and bright eye-catching clothing is a great way to achieve this. The bright colours we are seeing everywhere this summer make a large contrast to the bleakness of winter and is the pick me up everyone needs.

For students it has been a particularly difficult time, most of us are stuck inside all day doing our college work from our bedrooms. Summer approaching and the possibility of people getting vaccinated and things beginning to reopen is a thought that has gotten many people through this particularly hard winter. While at the moment it isn’t safe to meet up with large groups of people, I think the sun returning is a great reminder of better days ahead where we can finally enjoy the beach with friends or meet up for a walk in the sun. With the reintroduction of county-wide travel and plans for intercounty travel in the coming months, when the days become longer we can begin to remember what a beautiful country we live in. With beaches and mountain walks beginning to open the summer brings the possibility of more adventures and days out and more of a chance to explore our beautiful country.

While we aren’t always blessed with warm weather here in Ireland, it makes the odd heatwave even more special. For me, the first day above 15 degrees is a sign to pull my shorts back out. You can feel a change in atmosphere on nice days, mainly in people’s mood. A nice day in Ireland is so drastically different to the winter days it’s beyond serotonin inducing and you can feel the change everywhere. While we can’t get away on holiday this year, we

January – TikTok Musicals

TikTok musicals. In what was either a wonderful movement of cross-national unity to create art, or just a bunch of drama-grads bored in quarantine, TikTok became the wildly surprising origin of fan-made musicals. First, we were blessed with Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical (complete with choreography, staging, and even a Broadway-style programme). Then we had the sadly short-lived Up musical, and the next musical trend to sweep TikTok was a Bridgerton musical, written and found on Abigail Barlow’s TikTok (@abigailbarlowww). is put the block of feta and the tomatoes in an ovendish with garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper. While that’s baking away, cook some pasta. Once they’re both done, combine and mix! It sounds crazy simple, but the dish really is delicious.

April – Chic Chicken

Fake chicken… made by flour and water? I will put my hands up and say I have not tried this cooking trend (yet!) There just seemed something wildly implausible about starting with a bowl of all-purpose flour and a jug of water and finishing with vegan chicken.

February – Come Dine With Me-In Quarantine

Come Dine With Me – Quarantine style! I’ve seen so many photos and videos of people trying the hit TV show concept with friends or family. With restaurants closed, it’s such a fab idea to spice up a week of otherwise typical dinner. When some UK universities locked down their student accommodation, many students who lived in the same block and were Covid-19 free gave it a go and uploaded the results of each night online. The funniest ones were the dinners with a definite theme, like Mamma Mia! or 1950’s. Once restrictions lift, I can’t wait to give it a go with my friends.

March – A Feta fixation

Baked tomato and feta dish that somehow managed to take over the world. Admittedly, I did manage to miss this trend on my own until my flatmate fished out a pack of pasta, a vine of tomatoes and a wedge of feta cheese, and announced she was going to give it a go. I would really recommend anyone who is at a loss of what to cook to give it a chance – all you do However, the dish is very real, and is called “seitan”, originally a Chinese meal. Apparently, by washing the flour mixture repeatedly you remove the starch until all you have left with is wheat gluten protein. I’ve heard mixed reviews, but one of the main things to keep in mind is that while the texture is similar enough to meat, there is no similar flavour, so if you do give this trend a go, make sure you flavour it a lot… As in a lot.

When I was researching this article, I came across the whipped coffee trend – which was nearly exactly a year ago! Where has the time gone? To be honest, trends have managed to keep the monotony of lockdown at bay, and I can’t wait to live through another year of new and mad trends to obsess over.