Gone, but not extinct yet

This year we had some nice days, but now it’s time for a dino ice age.

Oh man, this is the last TRENDASAURUS ever to grace the pages of the Mustang Daily, so let’s wrap things up right.

First off, I want to say sorry if I ever put your favorite trend on blast and made fun of it. I didn’t mean to make you embarrassed to wear UGGs and mini skirts. If that’s your shit, that’s your shit, so rock it. That’s what trends are about, whether you set them or follow them. If you like it, do it with authority. For example, if Pogs come back, you best have the fattest slammer and a huge tube, because they call me the pancake man – I flip stacks, bitch!

Another hint: Don’t be afraid to let go of trends for any reason. Sometimes you can get really invested into a trend like Tamagotchi pets (I got so tired of cleaning digital poo), and then when no one else is playing anymore you feel like, “Well, I can’t let Nibbles, Captain Tiddly and Arkbar the Magnificent just die,” so you keep playing. It’s best to let it go and tell your kids about it later. Honestly, the digipet is like our generation’s pet rock.

Also, I never got around to saying this until now, but the vocoder effect that T-Pain, Chris Brown, Lil’ Wayne, and now 50 Cent are using is so overplayed. Snoop Dogg’s “Sexual Eruption” came out and was ballaholic and then every other rapper wanted to hop on the trend. Ugh, if you wanna hear some good vocoder check out Zapp & Roger (Dr. Dre loves these dudes). Today the technology has changed to the point where it’s automatic. When Zapp & Roger were doing the vocoder thing, they had to play a keyboard while singing. The effect you hear today that makes the voice wobble and sound robot-esque is actually applied to the voice track and adjusts the pitch of the singing into the correct range when the singer goes out of pitch. In other words, Lil’ Wayne sounds like he can sing because he can’t sing. I know, lame right?

Now that that’s off my chest, I want to say that I’m going to be graduating in two weeks, which has me examining how sweet a deal going to college and not trying to survive in the real world is, but I think we can make this ordeal easier on ourselves if we carry on some of the trends we’ve got going on at college.

For instance, we can carry on the concept of sharing without kegs and red cups. We can’t, however, carry on drinking like we did in college. My friend Stephen’s been saying for a while that if you drink every night in college you’re called a partier, but once you graduate, you’re called an alcoholic. So cut it out.

But still, we can carry on the community aspect of college. Let’s make it as easy to make friends for the rest of our lives like when we were meeting people in the dorms for the first time or seeing the same random dude at parties every weekend. We don’t have to get cold just because we’ve become professionals.

Also, let’s play drinking games when we’re all in retirement homes. How about a little king’s cup with warm milk? First person to pass out gets Jell-O dumped on their Rascal scooter seat.

For real, I hope this column kept you entertained between class (or during . bad student!), but now it’s time for the TRENDASAURUS to get hit with a giant comet or an ice age or whatever scientists are saying killed the dinosaurs. Don’t sweat it though, someday this dino’s comin’ back to wreak havoc on your city like Jurassic Park 3. Peace!

Brian McMullen is a journalism senior and a Mustang Daily columnist.