【Documentary Archives】

In a year where anything could be Documentary Archivesan era, it's fitting that TikTokkers are ending the year by revisiting their various eras.

Soundtracked to a sped-up version of "Celebration" by Azealia Banks, the "my 2022 eras" trend consists of users posting a series of photos that encapsulate their year. Each image is captioned with the "era" is represents. So far, over 340,000 videos have been posted using the song. On the internet, the term era describes a period of one's life. For example, when someone says "I'm in my girl-boss era," what they mean is that, right now, they're ambitious and independent.

These eras tend to be hyper-specific and can be anything from "lives with mom era" to "nursing student who should not be on vacation era." Of course, it's normal for someone to cycle through multiple eras in a calendar year.

If you did anything this year, you can slap era to the end of it and upload it to TikTok. It's the type of trend that's becoming rarer on the platform, one that attracts both regular users and creators like @not.even.emily and @oliviaamcdowell. @not.even.emily's eras include, "kpop concerts nonstop," "chasing my actress dreams," and "wearing black nonstop."

The combination of a series of photos and hyper-specific captions makes the trend feel like the final boss of photo dumps and the fad of describing everything as an era.

• On TikTok, everyone is starring in their own TV show
• The TikTokkers who got us through 2022
• From 'Anti-Hero' to 'About You,' here are TikTok's most viral songs of the year
• 10 viral moments you forgot happened this year

The obsession with eras on the internet began with the "flop era," a term that originated on stan Twitter to describe an album cycle that didn't live up to expectations, and has since gone through eras of its own. There's been the villain era, Fleabag era, Reputation era, etc. But at a certain point, era lost almost all meaning, becoming a quirky add-on to any activity or state of being. Eras aren't even limited to just humans, dogs like @frankscreams got in on the trend too.

While haters have been quick to call out the (primarily) young women participating in the trend for referring to a week-long vacation as an era, the trend aims for something ephemeral — the perfect embodiment of another year around the sun.

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