Are Fidget Spinners Ruining the Internet?

You go to your local store, you see fidget spinners.

You scroll your Facebook wall, you see fidget spinners from your friends or in the news.

You go on the subway, kids are playing with fidget spinners.

You travel on the public transport, students talk where they can get the best price on fidget spinners.

You read the news, you find out a man rushed to the hospital with a fidget spinner in his anus.

You read on the news that some cheap spinners may contain dangerous amounts of lead and mercury:

Rubin, an independent lead poisoning prevention advocate, first tested three fidget spinners sent to her by a friend with an XRF instrument. Two were lead-free, but one had very high levels of lead and some mercury. She then disassembled a fidget spinner with LED lights and found both lead and mercury. She found 19,000 parts per million (ppm) of lead and 1,000 ppm of mercury.

These numbers are sobering because scientists consider under 90 ppm of lead to be the safe threshold in children’s toys, according to Rubin. But the paint on the LED light spinner contained 334 ppm of lead and 155 ppm of mercury in one test. The unpainted metal base contained 1,562 ppm of mercury and 2,452 ppm of lead.

Or that a boy got a fidget spinner haircut.

It’s time to stop.

A Short Paragraph About What a Fidget Spinner Is

First of all, however, there are some important points to make about what a fidget spinner is not.

• It wasn’t invented by Catherine Hettinger. She invented a different kind of a spinning toy.
• There’s no scientific evidence that fidget spinners cure PTSD or ADHD.

Fidget spinner is that toy that spins. And spins, and spins, and spins, and helps relax. We could end here.

It’s become extremely popular not only among children but also among adults who pushed it to another level and started making spinners out of luxurious materials. Why it’s so popular? There might be a couple of explanations:

• Spinners are an effective fidget toy, they help in stressful situations
• They are available in numerous designs.
• They are easily portable.
• They are suitable for kids, students and adults.

Fidget spinners have entered almost every sphere of life which also has a significant effect on the Internet and the content inside.

Personally and half-jokingly, I feel like half of the Internet is made of the fidget spinner content.

Trend

What’s interesting, the trend that has started in April or May and it’s still on. Using social media monitoring, we had a look at the number of mentions of “fidget spinner” on the Internet and the engagement it drives.

For example, within the last 7 days “fidget spinner” has been mentioned 90 742 times. Here’s the breakdown of sources.

You can see that the majority of mentions come from Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Another interesting thing is that the “fidget spinner” content generates huge engagement.

Below you can see the number of mentions, their social media reach and the number of interactions they drive just from one day:

• Number of mentions: 14 978.
• Estimated social media reach: 39 355 188. Nice.
• Likes: 326 392.
• Shares: 56 028.
• Comments: 69 018.

You see the numbers are still high.

Trends Within the Trend

In general, fidget spinner content falls into a couple of categories that overtake YouTube. The majority of fidget spinner videos is about unboxings, challenges, tricks, fidget spinner vs something and 99999+ RPM fidget spinners.

Unboxing

Pretty self-explanatory: people unbox fidget spinners, describe them, point out advantages and disadvantages. At the moment there are 198 000 videos on YouTube.

Challenges

It seems that imagination is the limit. There are around 165,000 videos about challenges of all sorts.

YouTube Fidget Spinner Tricks

There are 285,000 videos of people, including professional fidgeters, who teach fidget spinner tricks. Yes, there are professional fidgeters.

Fidget Spinner Vs

Another trend is called “fidget spinner vs” in which people confront spinners with all sorts of objects, including iPhones, tongues, faces, or Lamborghini Huracan. Stupidity is the limit here. There are over 48,300 videos on YouTube.

99999+ RPM Fidget Spinners

What seems to be a trend within the trend is creating “99999+ RPM Fidget Spinner” videos. At the moment, there are more than 44 000 videos and people are still these videos.

Engagement

New things about fidget spinners come out every day. Using Brand24, we analyzed engagement fidget spinners drive. Over the last 7 days, the most engaging piece of content comes from Tasty and it’s a recipe for fidget spinner cookies.

The second most engaging content is about making a slime fidget spinner.

And the third piece of content that drives high engagement is about making a gallium spinner that melts in hands. Awesome.

They all come from the last 7 days. So you can see that spinners are still the thing.

Are They Ruining the Web?

Fidget spinners caught on and just like cancer consume the Web. No wonder this trending topic is being picked up and discussed by creators of all sorts, no matter what their niche is. It seems like a good opportunity to increase the number of views, followers and boost the engagement.

Even the biggest names on YouTube gave it a spin. For example, PewDiePie decided to become a fidget spinner:

Here’s Casey Neistat’s clickbait:

Markiplier:

Or Jarppi of Dudesons:

It’s important to note that when it comes to the creators above, their content on fidget spinners is probably more of a tease than an actual fascination with fidget spinners. But still, it probably gets them more views.

As the topic is getting more and more exhausted, people invent even dumber things to do with fidget spinners.

Applying makeup using a fidget spinner:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BUSstoCBeY2/

Curling hair with fidget spinners:

Fidget spinner anal plug:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BVC-WZYjFMc/

Playing the bass guitar using a fidget spinner:

And we get to see these stupid things online as they’re extremely popular.

It’s Unavoidable

What’s worth noticing here is that people consume this content and enjoy it. There’s no point in holding a grudge against spinners who seem to really enjoy the whole thing. Trends come and go.

We should rather blame people hopping on the spinner bandwagon and poisoning the Internet with this shitty content, day after day, video after video.

It’s time to stop.