🌐 From Hi5 Hearts to TikTok Trends: The Glow-Up of Social Media

If you grew up in Mauritius, your first taste of social media wasn’t Instagram aesthetics or TikTok dances — it was Hi5 skins and MSN nudges. Remember rushing home from school to see who “viewed your profile”? Or changing your MSN status every two hours so that one person would notice? Those were simpler times. Messy, glittery, and honestly, iconic.

Then came Facebook, and everything changed. Suddenly, social media wasn’t just about your school friends — it was your cousins, your parents, your teachers, and that random uncle who poked you for no reason (why was “poke” even a thing?). It was exciting but also… overwhelming. The “like” button crept into our lives, and slowly, our moods started depending on how many thumbs-up we got.

Fast forward to Instagram, and boom — the era of perfectly curated feeds. We were all out here taking 25 shots of our iced latte just to pick the one. Food flatlays, golden-hour selfies, Snapchat streaks — our social media suddenly looked a lot more glamorous than our actual lives. But the pressure was real. Even the “candid” shots were anything but. 

And then… TikTok arrived. Or should I say, the endless scroll era. Suddenly our feeds knew us better than our best friends. The algorithm figured out what made us laugh, cry, or binge-watch at 2 a.m., and it never let us go. Short-form content became king — quick dances, micro-skits, aesthetic transitions. Attention spans? Gone. If a video lasted more than 30 seconds, half of us would already swiped away.

Post-Covid, another shift happened: influencers took over. While we were stuck at home, they became our escape, our entertainment, our shopping guides. Lives on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok became the new hangout spots. Businesses jumped in too — because where else are people spending their time if not online? Social media turned into a giant marketplace where you could buy skincare, sign up for a workshop, or even order food without leaving the app.

Meanwhile, blogs… remember those? They slowly started vanishing, gathering dust in the corners of the internet. People wanted faster content. Why read a 1000-word blog when you could get the same info in a 60-second TikTok? Blogs became rare, almost forgotten, like a quiet café in a world of noisy food courts.

And then — plot twist — AI entered the chat. Literally. Tools like ChatGPT slid into our digital lives, changing how we create, consume, and even think about content. Suddenly, you could brainstorm, draft, and even edit and review your posts with a little AI assistant. The same internet that once taught us how to code glitter text on Hi5 now hands us instant captions, poems, and entire essays on demand. Wild, right?

So here we are today: a little nostalgic for MSN nudges, a little tired of endless reels, but still glued to our screens. Social media has grown up, and so have we. From Hi5 hearts to TikTok trends, it’s been quite the ride. And if history has taught us anything, it’s this: the apps may change, the formats may shrink, but we’ll always find a way to connect, share, and overshare.

And maybe that’s why I’ve decided to bring blogging back into my life. Because while short videos and quick scrolls are fun, there’s something special about slowing down, putting thoughts into words, and creating a little corner of the internet that feels like home. So here I am — back to blogging, back to storytelling, and back to connecting with all my beautiful people in my own way. 💕

Until next time,