Viewpoint – #Trashtag generates environmental trend

By Jade Myers/campus editor

Viral trends usually consist of doing dangerous acts, such as eating Tide pods and dancing next to a moving vehicle on busy roads.

And if they’re not dangerous, they’re just ridiculous, like shaving eyebrows into squiggly lines or putting lash extensions in nostrils.

None of which says much for the millennial generation, who mostly get blamed for trends on social media and anything else going wrong in America.

The newest trend, #trashtag, is something productive and smart for once.

A person takes a before and after picture of an area in the environment that they clean up and posts the photos side-by-side.

Most before pictures are outdoor spots completely covered in litter, such as beaches with tons of plastic trash, a sight that completely makes people lose faith in humanity.

In the after pictures, participants stand with lots of trash bags and the newly cleaned area looks as mother nature intended it to, a small step toward restoring some of that lost faith.

#Trashtag is something that anyone can do if they put in the work and several people all over the world have.

The viral trend is doing what has not been done before, making it cool to help the environment.

If more trends mirrored #trashtag to promote helping the environment or anything other than dangerous acts, then maybe society’s view of millennials could change.

Most millennials are tired of hearing the complaints the older generations unfairly stick on them, and this is one way they could change that.

If more trends actually contributed to the world and society in a positive way, the rest of the world’s viewpoint of millennials could change.

Millennials could be the ones who use social media to improve the world and fix mistakes older generations made instead of making society look like it’s in a downward spiral.

So, take credit for this one millennials, you earned it. Let’s make environmentally friendly trends trend.