Honestly, looking back at it now, 2017 feels like a fever dream we all collectively shared but never really woke up from. It was the year the internet broke. I’m not talking about a technical glitch or a server going down in Virginia. I mean the actual spirit of the web went through a blender. If you spent any time on YouTube or Twitter back then, you know exactly what I’m talking about when I say out of control 2017. It was a chaotic era where the barrier between "real life" and "content" didn't just blur; it evaporated.
The pacing was relentless. One week we were watching fidget spinners take over the physical world, and the next, the entire advertising industry was collapsing because of what some guy said in a forest in Japan or a bridge in a video game. It was a time of extreme highs and terrifying lows.
The Year the Algorithm Lost Its Mind
You remember the "Adpocalypse," right? That was the defining moment of 2017. Brands like Coca-Cola and Toyota suddenly realized their ads were playing before videos that... well, let's just say they weren't exactly brand-safe. This sparked a massive crackdown from Google. They started demonetizing everything. Creators who had built entire careers found their income vanishing overnight. It felt like the Wild West was finally getting a sheriff, but the sheriff was firing blindly into the crowd.
It was out of control.
The pressure to stay relevant in that environment led to some of the most bizarre behavior we've ever seen online. To beat the algorithm, you had to be louder. You had to be faster. You had to be more "extra." This is the year Jake Paul turned a quiet neighborhood in West Hollywood into a literal war zone, culminating in him jumping on a news van while a reporter tried to interview him. It sounds like a parody now, but at the time, this was peak entertainment. People were obsessed.
The Fidget Spinner Fever Dream
If you want a physical artifact of how weird things got, look at the fidget spinner. It was everywhere. Gas stations. High-end boutiques. Your dentist's office. By May 2017, every single one of the top 20 best-selling items in the Toys & Games category on Amazon was a fidget spinner or a fidget cube.
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Then, just as quickly as it arrived, it died.
This cycle of hype and immediate disposal became the blueprint for how we consume everything now. We saw it with the "Salt Bae" meme early in the year and the "Distracted Boyfriend" stock photo later on. We were cycling through culture at a speed that felt unsustainable. It was a precursor to the TikTok era, but without the polished editing tools we have today. It was raw, messy, and frequently dangerous.
When Pranks Went Too Far
We can't talk about out of control 2017 without mentioning the "DaddyOFive" controversy. This was a massive turning point for how we view "family vlogging." For those who missed it, Mike and Heather Martin ran a channel where they "pranked" their children. But these weren't "I hid your shoes" pranks. They were psychological-level events that eventually led to a massive investigation and the parents losing custody of two of their children.
It was a wake-up call.
The internet realized that the pursuit of views had created a monster. We were watching real-time trauma disguised as entertainment because the platform rewarded engagement over ethics. The "prank" genre, which had dominated the early 2010s, hit a wall of reality in 2017. People started asking: at what cost?
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- The rise of "Clickbait" reached its zenith.
- Thumbnails became increasingly garish, often featuring bright red circles and arrows pointing at nothing.
- Logic took a backseat to the "Storytime" video trend, where creators would recount increasingly unbelievable (and often fake) personal tragedies for clicks.
The Crypto Explosion and the First Great Crash
Away from the YouTube drama, the financial world was having its own out of control moment. This was the year of the Initial Coin Offering (ICO). Bitcoin started 2017 at roughly $900. By December, it was knocking on the door of $20,000.
I remember people who didn't know how to use an Excel spreadsheet suddenly telling me I was an idiot for not putting my life savings into "Dogecoin" or some other obscure token. It felt like free money. Of course, we know how that ended in early 2018, but the mania of late 2017 was unlike anything since the dot-com bubble. It wasn't just tech nerds; it was your aunt, your mailman, and your barber all talking about blockchain technology they didn't understand.
The FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) was a literal sickness. It drove people to make decisions that ruined them financially, all because the numbers on the screen kept going up.
Politics and the Great Divide
We also saw the first full year of a new political reality in the US, and the internet was the primary battlefield. The "out of control" nature of 2017 was deeply tied to how social media platforms were being used to spread misinformation. We learned about "fake news" as a concept, not just a slur, but as a systematic issue involving bot farms and targeted ad campaigns.
The Echo Chamber effect became a recognized sociological phenomenon. We weren't just disagreeing anymore; we were living in different realities. Whether it was the "Covfefe" tweet or the relentless cycle of "breaking news" that seemed to happen every thirty minutes, the mental load of being online in 2017 was exhausting.
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The Beauty Community Meltdown
Even the makeup world wasn't safe. This was the year of the first major "Dramageddon" seeds being planted. Jeffree Star, Laura Lee, Manny MUA—the names that would eventually become synonymous with internet scandal were building empires. The level of wealth being flaunted was astronomical. It wasn't about the makeup anymore; it was about the lifestyle, the private jets, and the feuds.
Why We Can't Look Away
So, why does out of control 2017 still matter? Because it was the prototype.
Everything we struggle with today—doomscrolling, influencer burnout, algorithmic bias, the death of nuance—it all went mainstream that year. We saw the potential of the internet to connect us, but we mostly saw its power to distort our perception of what’s normal.
Think about the "Tide Pod Challenge." That started as a joke, a meme about how the laundry detergent looked like candy. But by the end of the year, it had morphed into a genuine public health concern. That’s 2017 in a nutshell: a joke that goes too far until someone actually gets hurt.
How to Handle the "Out of Control" World Today
If you’re feeling like the current internet landscape is just as messy as 2017, you’re right. But we’ve learned a few things since then. Here is how you can actually survive the noise:
- Curate your feed ruthlessly. In 2017, we followed everyone because we didn't want to miss out. Today, that’s a recipe for a nervous breakdown. If an account makes you feel anxious or angry, unfollow it.
- Verify before you share. The lesson of 2017 was that "viral" does not mean "true." Take ten seconds to check a source.
- Acknowledge the "Hype Cycle." When you see everyone rushing toward a new trend (like the AI boom of right now), remember the fidget spinner. Ask yourself if this will matter in six months.
- Disconnect by design. The creators who survived the 2017 era were the ones who knew when to turn the camera off. You need a "digital Sabbath" or at least a few hours a day where the algorithm can't reach you.
The chaos of 2017 wasn't a fluke. It was a shift in the tectonic plates of how we interact with information. We can't go back to the "simple" internet of 2010, but we can choose not to be swept away by the next wave of out of control madness.
Stop scrolling for a second. Look at the room you're in. That’s the only thing that’s actually real. The rest is just pixels and noise, much like it was back in 2017.