- A new TikTok trend involves creators making "high school wrapped" videos of their graduating class.
- The trend seemed to originate with the Australian influencer Rhiannon Cunningham.
One of the latest trends on TikTok involves people spending hours researching what happened to their high school classmates since they graduated. Inspired by the annual Spotify Wrapped craze, creators are making "high school wrapped" slideshows that analyze how many are in relationships, which ones have already gotten married, where they've all moved to, and other major life updates and milestones.
The trend appeared to begin with the Australian influencer Rhiannon Cunningham, whose "high school wrapped" video from January 12 has amassed over 13.5 million views. She herself has over 323,000 followers.
@rhiannoncunningham Idk if this made me feel better or worse about myself HAHA #aussieintheuk #australian #spotifywrapped #datingwrapped #wrapped #highschool #rhiannoncunningham #dejavu ♬ original sound - rhiannon ✨
Cunningham collected information on 140 out of the 153 people in her 2016 graduate class — or those she could find information about online. Her presentation scrolled through a number of slideshows and hilarious rankings, including classmates' "dateability," where they live, "key life moments" (like giving birth, owning a home, or prison sentences), and who got hotter over time.
"It was just scary to see how many people literally looked exactly the same," she said at one point.
Cunningham found some interesting discoveries, like how nearly all of the people from her graduate class remained in Australia (she was one of the outliers, now living in England).
After Cunningham's video jumped in views, a number of other creators started making these kinds of slideshows, including a Toronto-based TikToker who said she was directly inspired by the influencer.
@iced_oat_milk_latte Fully copied @rhiannon ✨ !!!! Class of 2017 wrapped #highschoolwrapped ♬ original sound - /u/soph
Ava Cole, a 21-year-old TikToker from Florida, told Insider that making her video took around six hours because she went through her senior class yearbook and tried to look up everyone on social media. Her 2020 graduate class had 330 students, although she said in her video she couldn't find information on almost a third of them.
"I saw some girl do it in England & thought it was so funny," Cole told Insider over Instagram. "It also intrigued me because I didn't like the majority of my class and had NO idea what they were doing now because as soon as I went to college I went out of state."
@avaisabellacole my high school graduate class of 2020 wrapped :p #fyp #wrapped ♬ original sound - ava
She found out that ten of her classmates who dated in high school seem to still be in those relationships, and that two of them already have children together.
"A lot of people from my class did end up seeing the video," Cole told Insider. "Both people with kids saw it and commented ... other people from my class commented as well." She said the feedback she got was mostly positive.
The trend's use of slideshows seems to be a direct riff on the popular "2022 Dating Wrapped" trend, which went viral in December and featured people summarizing what their dating life was like last year. Both TikTok trends parody the annual Spotify's Wrapped campaign, which has been criticized for flattening music to simple data metrics, but has also spawned great memes.