TikTok and Its Crazy Trends

At 303, we spend a large part of our day analysing and researching different social media trends and looking for ways we can use trends for the benefit of our clients. This time spent on social media means that, between us, we rarely miss a trend… which brings us to the TikTok Feta Pasta Trend. You’ve probably heard of it but if you haven’t, no doubt you’ll discover it soon on your ‘For You’ page (if you’re a TikTok user that is).

Every week there’s some new viral trend on TikTok. Perhaps this is as a result of lockdowns, where people have more time to experiment to create weird and wacky things, or perhaps this is just the fact that TikTok gives anyone a platform to finally share these weird and wacky things with the world. This is no bad thing as it’s given creative freedom to individuals and it seems to be working. We’d make a pretty good bet that there are only a handful of Gen Zs left who haven’t tried at least one of the TikTok dances that have graced our phones so often over the last year. Dances and beauty trends took off pretty quickly, but when last month the TikTok world turned its attention to Feta Cheese, now... that was a surprise. The idea is simple and really quite genius, and with a bit more digging social media quite quickly revealed that the trend actually first went viral on Instagram in 2019. A Finnish Food Blogger named Jenni Hayrinen was responsible, she shared the recipe on her page, calling it ‘Uunifetapasta’. The ingredients and method are simple: add cherry tomatoes, garlic, olive oil, salt, pepper and a block of feta to a roasting dish, roast for around 30 minutes and then mix in some cooked pasta and basil. A quick and easy supper, what’s not to love?It wasn’t so much the trend itself that got our attention, although we were intrigued to try it, but it was the attention it drew from big names such as Refinery 29 and Vogue. It really got us thinking more about the content we see day-to-day and how it ultimately impacts our lives. Refinery 29 published an article titled ‘Is Feta Cheese Really Selling Out Thanks To This Viral TikTok Trend?’ where they discussed that back in February, supermarkets in the US were selling out of blocks of Feta. I mean seriously, selling out of Feta? It’s mad. Vogue also took the matter into their own hands, divulging that as far away as Sydney they’re also struggling to keep Feta on the shelves. They even reported that one supermarket chain in the US had reported sales of Feta had increased by 200%.So, we wanted to find out if in the UK we had been saved from this madness? But after a bit of digging it seems that the Gen Z’s in the UK (of which, most of us at 303 are) are as susceptible to TikTok Trends as those in other countries. With some help from our friend Google Trends (Thank You, Google) we discovered that between the 30th January and the 13th February in the UK, the search for Feta cheese grew by 284%. A huge increase for something that (We’d make a pretty good bet) many people have shown no interest in before. It’s a pretty mad idea to think that something you can see on your phone and digest in under 30 seconds can have such a huge impact on sales and search trends in such a short period of time. Reports have shown that Gen Zs are the biggest digital content consumers, the majority spending over 4 hours on their phones a day, and with the largest proportion of TikTok users in the UK (26%) falling into the Gen Z category we don’t really know why we are surprised. TikTok themselves say that 60% of worldwide users fall into the Gen Z category. What we do think about the whole thing is - What we see on TikTok is fashion, so, therefore, it comes and it goes. They’re short-lived trends that have their moment, but who's to say that TikTok isn’t also having its moment and we’ll move onto the next big thing shortly…Let us know what you think of TikTok - a fan or a sceptic? Send us a DM on Instagram.