The Things We'd Like to Leave Behind in 2018

Keep your backyard chicken coops, dear 2018, and your vampire facials, too. And the stiff-arm Floss dance? Stomp it out in the new year. Here's some of what the AP would like to leave behind as we slide into 2019. You're welcome.

1. The Floss: The arm-flailing, hip-swaying, rapid-fire dance craze is the new Dab and we owe it to 16-year-old social media dude Russell Horning, aka The Backpack Kid. Horning grew a sizable Instagram following through his dance moves as far back as 2014; Katy Perry invited him to do his thing with her on Saturday Night Live in 2017, launching him to social media superstardom. Other celebs, moms, dads, athletes, and pretty much all of YouTube are flossing their lives away. So are all the little kids in your households, once they outgrow "Baby Shark," that is.

2. Gender reveal parties: Have we not outgrown blue for boys and pink for girls? And whatever happened to a surprise? Gender reveal events, such as the one recently that sparked a massive fire in Arizona, have grown into an industry, with party supplies on sale and DIY tips all over the place. Celebrate the birth of a human being instead. Oh wait, that's what baby showers are for, and birthdays.
3. Your chicken friends: Organic eggs, pest control, fertilizer! Those are some of the apparent joys of keeping backyard chickens. The idea is they roam around your Brooklyn patio, patch of grass, or suburban wood, finding their way home at night. Or something. Some are confined to enclosed runs. And what happens when hipsters can't cope? According to news reports, the feathered puffs with legs get dumped at animal shelters, sanctuaries, or worse, gobbled by some predator. Just go to a store.
4. Keto desserts: Ketogenics, and ketosis, and the ketogenic diet have been around forevah. But the masses got all whipped up in 2018. Here's how it goes: A high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carb approach to eating may be good for difficult-to-control epilepsy in children, and for weight loss and general health in all. The idea is for you to get more calories from protein and fat and fewer from carbs, in part by cutting back on carbs that are easy to digest. And that, my friends, includes sugar, which has given rise to plenty of "fatberg"-like desserts.
5. Boxes: In beauty and fitness, food prep, apparel, and toys, all your dreams can come true in a box for a fee. Subscription boxes have been around for a while but in 2018 there were so many they needed to be curated and heavily reviewed by media and consumers alike. So many copycats. Such a big grab for the cash. While it's truly nice and way convenient sometimes to receive a curated box of stuff in the mail, especially at dinnertime, do remember that you're the one who's paying, unless you got lucky and your boxes are gifts that keep on giving.
6. Vampire facials: Using your own blood with little skin pricks is on the gross side of the beauty equation. But then again, so are the gods commonly known as dermal fillers. Let's shed some light on the bloody facials. First, you need your blood drawn. Then you need your blood to be run through a centrifuge to isolate the platelets. This is all about PRPs, or platelet-rich plasma. Then microdermabrasion or microneedling is done to really get those platelets in there. We never thought we would wax sentimental about bird poop facials, caviar facials, or cow amniotic fluid. On the face.
7. Beyond: When we're not "obsessed" with everything, we're "beyond blessed," ''beyond grateful," ''beyond honored," ''beyond exhausted," and "beyond excited." No. We're all right here in this dimension. Is the meaning of the word not enough without the qualifier? Why not allow yourselves to be, simply, blessed, grateful, and honored?

(Read the AP's full list here.)