'Who TF Did I Marry,' brat summer and Moo Deng: The demure social media trends of 2024

Another year is drawing to a close and with it, 365 days worth of fresh pop-culture moments. From the end of a T-Swift era and the epic Drake-Kendrick feud to the explosion of Chappell Roan and the high-profile arrest of Diddy, there has been no shortage of developments to talk about.

What's harder to keep up with than movie releases, album drops and celebrity feuds? Social media trends, of course! Between the rapid cycle of internet culture and the tendency to get caught up in our own feeds, even the most chronically online of us can miss a big moment or two.

Forget your favorite trend of 2024? Still confused about what some of them meant in the first place? Luckily, it's that time of year for an end-of-year recap.

Take a stroll down memory lane and look back at the year's biggest trends and topics.

Sephora kids

As the year began, an interest in premium skincare and beauty products skewed younger and younger, prompting adult shoppers to take to social media to discuss an influx of preteens in luxury stores like Sephora scrambling to get their hands on brands like Drunk Elephant.

This fascination with products younger kids do not need, especially anti-aging skincare, raised concern not only among annoyed shoppers but experts as well. Ultimately, the term coined for these youth, "Sephora kids," began carrying a negative connotation and one state even proposed legislation to ban selling certain anti-aging skincare products to kids younger than 13 years old.

'Who TF Did I Marry'

Perhaps one of the most unforgettable and iconic social media happenings of the year, "Who TF Did I Marry?!?" was an over 50-part TikTok series so popular, that it was picked up for a television show adaptation.

Poster @reesamteesa amassed millions of views on her 52-part (yes, you read that right) TikTok playlist recounting her Lifetime special-worthy marriage she says she entered into with a scam artist during the pandemic.

While over 50 installments at roughly 10 minutes per video may sound excessive, especially on a short-form platform like TikTok, the series, titled "Who TF Did I Marry," became an almost overnight success after Reesa Teesa began posting in February.

In September, it was announced the story would be adapted into a TV series developed by Natasha Rothwell.

Four Seasons Baby

You know her, you love her, and so did social media this year.

The "Four Season Baby," real name Kate, went viral in May for her bougie taste in travel accommodations. After mom Bailey Wise of Tampa asked her family in a now-viral clip who wanted to visit the Four Seasons Orlando for a stay, Kate, clad only in a diaper, reacted with such enthusiasm the internet could only imagine she had a discerning taste for hotels.

Millions on the internet loved Kate specifically for they called her ability to be a "fully conscious baby," prompting a trend of adults joking about super-intelligent babies that make us pause with their eerily adult-like behavior.

The Four Seasons itself, as well as several sports teams including the Atlanta Hawks, Cincinnati Bengals and the Spanish-language MLB account, got in on the joke.

Man or bear debate

The hypothetical heard 'round the social media world: Would you rather run into a man or a bear alone in the woods?

The question ignited debate in the spring when many netizens, especially women, began sharing a preference for the bear, sparking a conversation about gender-based violence in the U.S. and beyond.

As one woman explained in a TikTok, "You know, I would rather it be a bear because if the bear attacks me, and I make it out of the woods, everybody’s gonna believe me and have sympathy for me," she said. "But if a man attacks me and I make it out, I’m gonna spend my whole life trying to get people to believe me and have sympathy for me."

Another pointed out, "I know a bear's intentions. I don't know a man's intentions. No matter how nice they are."

Similiar sentiments were shared far and wide not only with comments and videos, but memes, spoken word poetry and skits.

Charli XCX and Brat summer

This year, we enjoyed a "brat summer," a phenomena even then-presidential candidate Kamala Harris embraced.

It all started with the release of musician Charli XCX’s album "BRAT" on June 7, which USA TODAY called an embrace of “a hot-mess pop star aesthetic, prioritizing club culture at its core but still offering introspective lyrics on aging, womanhood, grief and anxiety.”

In a TikTok interview, Charli XCX broke down her definition of the word "brat": “You are just that girl who is a little messy and maybe says dumb things sometimes, who feels herself but then also maybe has a breakdown but parties through it. It is honest, blunt and a little bit volatile. That’s Brat.”

Bucking social expectations, indulging in life's pleasure and embracing individuality, along with a sprinkling of Y2K fashion, defined "brat summer."

The cultural moment was so big, "brat" was selected as the Word of the Year by the Collins Dictionary.

The Olympics

The 2024 Olympic Games in Paris gave rise to plenty of internet silliness and hoopla.

From the meteoric social media rise of Ilona Maher, the chocolate muffin man and the obsession with Stephen Nedoroscik to the "didn't make the team" trend, even non-sports fans had a lot to enjoy this summer.

And we must not forget our Speedo-clad hero, "Bob the Cap Catcher," who also stole viewers' hearts.

Very demure, very mindful

"Demure" was dubbed the Dictionary.com Word of the Year for 2024 thanks to a massive craze started by TikToker Jools Lebron in August.

Lebron sparked the trend with a single, hyper-viral TikTok video that has since amassed over 54 million views, using the terms "demure" and "mindful" to describe her daily makeup look.

"You see how I do my makeup for work? Very demure, very mindful," Lebron says in the video. "I don't look like a clown when I go to work. I don't do too much. I'm very mindful while I'm at work. See how I look very presentable? The way that I came to the interview is the way I go to the job."

The internet took this and ran with it, dubbing "demure and mindful" an attitude, an aura, a lifestyle.

As the phase took off across social media and beyond, Lebron was tapped to partner with brands from makeup to drink companies, even appearing on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" alongside RuPaul. And, like any colloquialism popularized by an internet trend, celebs, brands and even the president himself cashed in on the sensation.

Moo Deng and Pesto fever

It has been said that the internet was made for cute cat videos - but what about baby pygmy hippos and chunky penguin chicks? Baby animal fever spread like wildfire this fall when the internet became absolutely obsessed with two especially big stars.

First, Moo Deng, a bouncy baby pygmy hippo from eastern Thailand's Khao Kheow Open Zoo, became pop culture's fascination with her exceptionally sassy attitude, adorable chubby face and many antics caught on camera.

Then came Pesto, the exceptionally robust penguin chick hatched at the Sea Life Melbourne Aquarium in Melbourne, Australia. Towering over the adult penguins and his own adoptive parents as the biggest baby ever born to the Sea Life, people could not get enough of the larger-than-life ball of fuzzy brown feathers.

'Wicked'

The year ended on a gravity-defying high note with the theatrical release of "Wicked."

The long-awaited movie adaptation of the Tony Award-winning show starring Ariana Grande and Cynthia Erivo pulled in $114 million on its opening weekend alone as millions flocked to see the first of the two-act series.

The release created a full-on pop culture moment that got everyone talking, whether about the movie itself, theatre-viewing rules, the many Erivo-Grande interviews, singalongs, or the source text itself.

With the smash success of the film's release, we can probably expect to see something similar when Part 2 debuts next November.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Social media year in review for 2024: A look at top videos, trends