What was the defining moment of this decade? Was it the shut down of beloved internet platform Club Penguin? The rise and fall of seven-second videos on Vine? Or was it when an egg became the most-liked Instagram photo?

You might be having a hard time recollecting these events, since, according to the Mayan calendar, the world ended in 2012.

Needless to say, this decade brought about many fast fads. Trendy fashion statements came and went like flexing your Silly Bandz collection down your arm. On a recent Scroll Instagram poll, 89% of responses said the bracelets were trendier than clip-in hair feathers. This percent begs the question: how was something as simple as colorful shaped rubber bands such a staple of our childhood?

“It was like, hey, it’s a dinosaur, I like dinosaurs, give me that. It was just child-like wonder, and that’s why they took off,” Jasper Liles (10) said.

It’s hard to remember this decade without the help of rising social media platforms like Twitter and Instagram. In 2015, the internet went to war over whether a now-infamous dress was blue and black or white and gold. Similarly, in 2018, Twitter user @cloecouture posted a four-second audio with a simple question attached: What do you hear? This tweet sparked the Yanny versus Laurel debate, earning over 27.7 million views on the original tweet and even making it onto national news cycles.

Another chief characteristic of this era was the emergence of dance crazes, starting with the viral Harlem Shake challenge on YouTube. This was followed by moves such as the whip and nae nae, Gangnam Style and Hit the Quan from Memphis-based rapper iHeartMemphis.

This decade was filled with challenges, ranging from eccentric to beneficial. In the 2016 Mannequin Challenge, participants would freeze while Rae Sremmurd’s “Black Beatles” played in the background. In 2014, the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge sought to bring awareness to Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Our fingers were tap-happy this decade, with gaming apps such as Temple Run, Angry Birds, and Flappy Bird. Then, in 2016, Pokémon released its mobile platform, Pokémon Go, on which players could catch creatures like Pikachu and Squirtle in real-time.

“When the game first came out, I did not have a cell phone,” Liles said. “Somehow I got cellular service to work on my old iPad, so I started walking around the neighborhood with this huge iPad in my hands thinking I was the coolest kid on the block.”

As the 2010s come to a close, many reflect and wonder what fads and trends will be remembered in the long run; what truly matters is that the joy and “child-like wonder” of the decade is carried on into what will hopefully be the new and improved roaring twenties.