What is a canon event? The latest relatable TikTok trend explained
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You may have seen social media videos captioned with things like “can’t interfere it’s a canon event” and scratched your head wondering what that may mean.
The release of “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” on June 2 caused more than just $494.6 million in box office sales. The film has also caused a new TikTok trend to surface involving so-called canon events.
A canon event involves an occurrence or event that can alter your experience or way of life in big or small ways. The event needs to happen in order to shape you into who you are today.
In social videos, these events include things from when your middle school sister takes selfies with her face covered to best friends from freshman year moving in together.
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What is a canon event?
The term "canon event" stems from the latest “Spider-Man” movie, which follows Brooklyn’s Mike Morales, aka Spider-Man, reuniting with Gwen Stacy, a Spider-Woman and love interest, and him dealing with Spider-People who are working to protect the Multiverse’s existence. Along the way, Morales finds himself fighting with the other Spider-People and figuring out how to save his loved ones.
In the film, Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) tells Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) that canon events keep the Spider-Verse intact and make each Spider-Person into who they are. These are life-changing events, like a death or getting bitten by a radioactive spider, that shape them.
If these events are altered or stopped, then it can interfere with the Spider-Verse.
What is the canon event trend?
The canon event trend has taken over TikTok as people claim they’ve gone through canon events or are witnessing them.
For example, TikToker @annaxsitar joked about watching a girl just out of a relationship meet her first “situationship” which is an “emotionally immature guy who offers a good time, but will absolutely wreck her trust.” She then adds “(can’t interfere, it’s a canon event).”
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Canon event examples
Other versions are a little less serious such as a video by @emma_r043 which says, “My sister at 10 wanting to buy a lifeguard hoodie (I can’t interfere, it’s a canon event).”
The trend became so popular that a filter was created by @ollietylerr to generate “your canon event.”
One video by the creator @fredluvsbread generated 13.8M views of him using the filter and finding out his canon event is “Having an emo phase.”
Reach the reporter at dina.kaur@arizonarepublic.com. Follow @dina_kaur on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Spider-Man multiverse and TikTok collide with the canon event trend
