From the phenomenon of “slow dumping” to fidelity tests ranging from the glitter bomb trial, the orange peel theory and the Water Dance challenge, social media has endless ways of inciting paranoia in millennial women.
I was recently scrolling through every millennial’s favourite attention incubus when my procrastinating was interrupted by this headline: “You might not realise it, but are you being slow dumped?”
I started crunching the numbers on my own romance. A short message about when he should pick me up instead of a series of thoughtfully curated cat videos. A dip in the number of times we had sex the week before because he “had an ear infection” and was “experiencing vertigo”. I only post sporadically on social media, but he had neglected to fire-react to a photo of pancakes I ate while sitting next to him at a photogenic café on Instagram Stories.
Not to leave you with a problem and no solutions, further TikTok videos suggest placing a glitter bomb in their car passenger seat mirror. If their mistress, mum, or vain friend from football goes to check their face, they’ll leave an explosive trail of glitter behind and, bam, micro-cheat or full-blown cheat has been exposed.
While the tone was supportive, the persistent message is that taking your relationship at face value is foolish, considering yourself inherently loveable is unwise, and to trust a man is to defy gravity.These trends bring to mind a way of appealing to women’s insecurities as old-fashioned as trite advice manuals like, which promised women answers to the mystery of the male brain in exchange for dollars.