Social networks are windows to the world. And sometimes to ourselves too. TikTok’s latest viral trend is a good example of this. A large number of videos began to circulate on the social network with a shocking statement: “But the lamp looks strange”. It is used as a hashtag in thousands of posts. It sneaks in as a catchphrase in videos. There are even those who record pieces where they devote themselves to theorizing about their possible meanings.

And it makes perfect sense that it should. At the end of the day, the trend tells us about networks, but it also tells us about ourselves and, in a sense, how we view happiness.

We explain ourselves.

Are there “weird” lamps everywhere?

If you usually browse TikTok or other social networks like X or Instagram, you’ve probably come across this. A. short phraseenigmatic and seemingly taken out of context, but managed to sneak its way into thousands of publications: “The lamp looks strange.” Videos featuring this are usually always similar. Maybe not in the details, but in the tone.

Even though there may seem to be a shadow of doubt hanging over them, they often tell us personal stories, and they almost always tell them in an optimistic tone.

There are those who talk about how they achieved their goals, those who celebrate how united their family is or that someone close to them has finally overcome an illness, those who brag about their lives or how well their work is going with their boyfriends or at the office… But in the end, everyone ends up with the same slogan: “The lamp looks weird.” .” Not only this. Many videos also feature the same background music, a mysterious, dark melody highlighted by the sound of crickets.

This phenomenon has spread so much and aroused so many curious people that videos began to appear on Tik Tok trying to explain the meaning of this expression. The most common theory, collected even by the Know Your Meme website, forces us to go back more than a decade. to 2012and Reddit, a different network.

@anahialeecarbajal

I miss you my fat man 🥹#lalamparaseverara

♬ It’s a sad atmosphere. -e52basha

In January of that year, reddit user /u/temptotosssoon answered a strange question on the platform: “Have you ever felt a personal connection with someone you met in a dream and then woke up feeling bad about?” And he did it in a strange way. /u/temptotosssoon shared an experience he supposedly had, worthy of a Hollywood script or a good legend, wrote /u/temptotosssoon reptile pastaThis is how they present it in Know Your Meme.

Essentially, the author explained how a tackle he received from another player during a college football game some time ago caused him to collapse and lose consciousness. So, lying on the ground in the midst of the chaos, the young man dreamed of a “perfect life” in the purest way. American Dream: While he was delirious, he met a girl, got married, got a good job and had two children.

For more than ten years. His dream life took a completely different turn when he noticed that there was a “lamp” while sitting on the couch one day. I was weirdIt’s like it’s been turned upside down”.

The young man describes how from then on he became obsessed with the “strange looking” lamp. He stopped sleeping. He stopped going to work. He even became estranged from his family. When his wife finally decides to ask for help and take his children out of the house, the narrator has an “epiphany” and realizes what the problem is: that strange lamp was not real, just as his wife and children were not real himself. the perfect job or the decade of achieving his dreams.

As Calderón de la Barca said, “Life is a dream.” As the lamp begins to grow and the young man slowly comes to, he realizes that he is lying on the ground surrounded by people, with no sign of his wife and children.

On the contrary, he had lost his teeth as a result of the blow and a police officer had to escort him to the hospital; This was the beginning of three years in which he suffered “terrible depression” precisely because of the grieving of his wife and children. It had never really existed beyond its tremor.

The Reddit story worked. Modestly at first, but over the years and especially as a result of its republication, it gained considerable visibility. In fact, so much so that in 2020, a YouTuber decided to turn it into a short film. The story escalated and spread to TikTok, where another piece related to the story triumphed in 2022.

The rest is network history. It became the fairy tale lamp of the author of the Reddit story a symbolIt’s a metaphor for the frustration TikTok users put themselves through to share their own stories… And those strange lights that appear when everything seems to be going well.

Pictures | TikTok 1 and 2 and Thomas Stephan (Unsplash)

via | Trends

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