May is a weird month online.
The “new year, new strategy” crowd has finally gone quiet. The people who over-posted in January have either found their rhythm or quietly given up. What’s left is a feed that’s actually quite watchable again – and an audience that’s significantly harder to impress.
The trends cutting through right now aren’t clever. They’re not especially original either. What they are is honest, and slightly unhinged in exactly the right amount.
Here’s what’s worth your attention this month.
Trend One – “My Top 5 Horror Movies” (But Make It Your Niche)
Not actual horror films. That would be far too straightforward.
This is the format where you present the most painfully relatable worst-case scenarios from your world as if they’re blockbuster horror titles. The things that make you want to close your laptop and lie on the floor. The client behaviour that haunts you. The situations that have genuinely kept you up at 2am – or, in the spirit of things, at 2:24am.
It works because it skips straight past professionalism into recognition. People aren’t saving polished content right now. They’re saving the stuff that makes them think “oh god, me too.”
How to use it
Small businesses: The things customers do that you smile through while dying internally. Package them like a horror lineup. Your comments section will do the rest.
Service providers: “Horror Film 3: The Brief That Changes Every 24 Hours.” You know the one.
Coaches and consultants: The five objections that come up in every single discovery call. The more specific the horror, the harder it lands.
@fyghome My top 5 horror movies as a candle brand founder 🫣🕯️ #candlebrand #horrormovies #trend #foryou #founder ♬ The One That Got Away – Katy Perry
Trend Two – “Hallelujah” (The Bieberchella Audio)
Simple. Almost suspiciously so.
The mechanic is this: pair the audio from this year’s Coachella with your favourite things, your product’s best bits, or the moments in your work that genuinely make you want to punch the air. Say the thing. Let the audio do the rest.
No script needed. No production required. The trend rewards sincerity over slickness, which means the brands overthinking it are already losing.
How to use it
Product businesses: The thing your product does that customers didn’t know they needed until 24 hours after buying it.
Service businesses: The moment a client stops second-guessing everything and just trusts the process. Hallelujah.
Creators: Your non-negotiables, your rituals, your favourite tools. The more specific, the more saves.
If it sounds like marketing copy, start again.
@schuh Say it louder for the people in the back #schuh #hallelujah #justinbieber @nuala.grant ♬ Originalton – aboutfufu
Trend Three – “Devil Wears Prada” (Fashion vs Function)
The film’s back in the cultural conversation, and the format it’s spawned is doing serious numbers.
Two sides of a contrast. The polished, aspirational version. Then the reality. The comedy lives entirely in the gap between them – and for most small business owners, that gap is practically a canyon.
How to use it
Fashion and style brands: This one’s almost writing itself. Do it. The more deadpan, the better.
Founders and business owners: “The aesthetic I sell” versus “the 24 browser tabs open at 11pm to create it.” Show both. Don’t explain it.
Anyone in a creative field: The version clients imagine. The version that actually gets delivered. Pick two.
Move fast on this one – it’s mid-cycle.
Trend Four – “Wait, This Looks So Cool”
Low effort. Genuinely.
The format is a quick text overlay – usually in that now-viral baby yellow font – that signals you’re capturing something worth seeing. Then it cuts to a series of short clips. What it’s actually selling is access. The feeling of being shown something before it’s been polished for public consumption.
Your audience has watched your curated content for months. They want the bit you almost didn’t post.
How to use it
Any business with a process: Your work mid-flow. The thing coming together. The result landing. You don’t need a ring light for any of this.
Creators: The details of your day you’ve stopped noticing. Your audience hasn’t. Film them.
Service businesses: The screen recording. The finished deck. The email going out. The behind-the-scenes stuff that feels too ordinary to post is exactly what performs.
The scrappier this looks, the better it does.
@refybeautymanifesting a REFY summer♬ Originalton – Angelina
Trend Five – “We Could Stay Here” (The Glow-Up Arc)
The audio frames a before and after without spelling either one out.
One version is stuck, flat, not quite there yet. The next is at the peak. The contrast does all the emotional heavy lifting. You don’t explain it – you just show it, and trust your audience to feel the shift.
Built for transformation stories. Works best when the before is honest enough to be slightly uncomfortable.
How to use it
Founders: Where you started versus where 24 months of consistently showing up has actually got you. The real version, not the LinkedIn version.
Service providers: Before you had a system, a process, a client base that knew your worth. After. Let the difference speak.
Coaches: The arc of a client’s journey rather than a single result. The journey is the point.
If you’ve been sitting on a transformation story because it feels like showing off – this format gives you permission to just tell it.
@miarosemcgrath 6 months into full time creation 🥹 #contentcreator #selfemployment #quitting9to5 #motivation ♬ original sound – 432pa.hp
Trend Six – “I Used to Cry During Maths Homework”
It’s not really about maths.
The format takes a universally recognised past struggle and turns it into dark humour or solidarity content. It works because it drops the aspiration completely. You’re not presenting as someone who has it all figured out. You’re presenting as someone who survived something ridiculous and lived to find it funny.
How to use it
Freelancers and creatives: The early work. The pitches that went nowhere. The invoice that bounced. Funny now. Definitely wasn’t then.
Marketers: “I used to agonise over every caption for 24 minutes. Now I agonise over the strategy instead.” That’s growth.
Coaches and consultants: The mistakes you made before you knew what you were doing – the ones that actually make you better at your job now.
The more specific the memory, the more comments you’ll get from people saying “this is painfully me.”
@creatorsclubwuppertal 🥲 #luisenviertelwuppertal #wuppertal #wuppertalspots #nrwspots #fyp ♬ Get Down On It – Kool & The Gang
What’s Actually Going On Right Now
People can tell when something’s been assembled rather than said.
The over-edited post. The caption with three rounds of internal feedback. The content that’s technically fine and completely forgettable. Audiences are clocking it faster than ever and scrolling straight past.
What’s landing instead: things that feel slightly off-script. Posts that sound like someone actually wrote them. Content that doesn’t try too hard.
Pick one trend from this list. Apply it to something you were already going to post this week. Don’t build a whole new content plan around it – just take something real and run it through the format.
That’s the whole strategy. It really is that simple.
