Society is obsessed with what’s trendy. But before we allow trends to dictate our lives, we should stop and ask ourselves what value they actually have.

When something becomes a trend, everyone rushes to do it without a second thought. Whether it’s taking ice-cold showers, catching Pokémon, or swallowing massive doses of paracetamol—it doesn’t matter. What matters is that everyone else is doing it, and apparently that’s considered a good enough reason for you to do it too.

If Madonna, Shakira, or Taylor Swift happens to be the artist everyone is listening to this year, millions of people will listen to her. Do the songs have any real value? Are there more talented artists out there? None of that matters.

Nobody cares why something becomes popular in the first place. Once you get caught up in whatever is trending, independent thinking gives way to blind following. Most people who jump on a trend can’t even explain why it matters. Some of them probably don’t even like it.

I find it equally troubling that once something is no longer fashionable, it can disappear completely from people’s minds. While everyone is obsessed with a particular phenomenon, the next week nobody even remembers it. This creates the dangerous impression that everything is temporary. But things that truly have value don’t have an expiration date.

History is full of examples of trends that people are now embarrassed by—from some hairstyles to cutting yourself to prove you were emo. We have every reason to expect some of today’s trends to meet the same fate.

So perhaps the next time someone decides to stand on the edge of a skyscraper for a selfie or tries to deprive their brain of oxygen on camera, we should all tell them it’s stupid from the very beginning, rather than letting it turn into a global trend.