There has been a lot of trends being made around the Internet.
There was the weird and disturbing animation of Skibidi Toilet and the harmful egg prank.
Now, people are posting videos of kids with hurtful rumours and they’re calling it the ‘Lala Bop’ trend.
What Is Lala Bop
Titania Jordan, author and Chief Parent Officer at Bark Technologies said that the trend started late 2022.
It first started when a TikTok user posted a song by that same name.
The song is used in videos, calling out to people, to shame them for allegedly dating around.
The trend has gone from shaming people for dating around to calling out to any bad behaviours.
These videos might not even be true and could harm those that were targeted.
The Dangers of Lala Bop
These videos are shaming people for things that may or may not be true.
It’s considered cyberbullying and should be taken seriously.
Other than that, this trend is not only circulating on TikTok.
It’s also posted on Instagram and the accounts are usually school based.
Imagine having a rumour about you posted, along with your picture posted on a public Instagram account.
Think about how many people would talk about the rumour and how many predators might use the picture for harmful reasons.
What You Can do to Prevent This
This trend might not be circulating among the kids in Malaysia but it’s circulating the Internet that it might catch up to kids here.
There are a lot of accounts on Instagram and TikTok and all it takes is a simple search and multiple results come up.
You can try blocking every account you can but it can be tedious.
On TikTok, you can actually filter out keywords.
A detailed instruction on how to filter out keywords can be found on TikTok’s User Safety guide.
You can also filter out keywords on Instagram.
The first step you need to do is go to your profile and click the triple line on the top right corner of the screen.
Then go to ‘Settings and privacy’ and you’ll see a section that says ‘Suggested content’.
Click on that and you can see that you have options but to filter out certain words or phrases, just simply go to the ‘Custom words and phrases’ section.
Another thing you can do is talk to your kids about cyberbullying and the harms of it.
Prevention Is Key
Remember that trends move quickly and the Lala Bop craze might start circulating in your child’s feed at any given moment.
Monitor what is being exposed to them and go through the prevention steps before it reaches our kids here.
Let other parents know about this trend so they too can keep an extra eye on their children and what they watch.
The sooner we block these contents from being exposed to the children, the better.
Disclaimer: The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice from Motherhood. For any health-related concerns, it is advisable to consult with a qualified healthcare professional or medical practitioner.
For more insightful stories and fun recipes, stay tuned to Motherhood Story!