Grinds my gears: Trend followers

You know what really grinds my gears?
Trend followers.

There has been a history of certain trends that start off with everybody having to buy them, and then they end up almost exclusively in backwoods trailer parks. I would like to cite the whole Ed Hardy and Affliction shirt craze. At first, everybody from Kanye West to Sylvester Stallone was rocking jeans with some ornate skull biting a rose in its teeth, and now the only people sporting the overpriced style are five-year-old rappers and Louisiana swamp royalty.

Also, these people are coming off as instigators when they’re only trend followers. When a jersey boy shows up to the club wearing a Tapout shirt, and Kimbo Slice comes up and knocks him out by only staring at him behind his beard, don’t be surprised because he asked for it. You were wearing the garb of a warrior, when you were only a wannabe.

Guys trying to look macho aren’t the only violators of trend following though. Ladies are just as guilty. I’m not sure which unstable, drug-addicted celebrity decided that Uggs and sweatpants were fashionable, but she’s wrong. As a result, people think that it is now socially acceptable to be an under-achiever and wear pajamas outside the house. It’s not just teenage, Hannah Montana addicted, girls either. Tom Brady, the pretty boy quarterback of the Patriots, is an Uggs model. Evidently he receives his fashion influence from impressionable teenage television shows rather than his fashion model baby-momma, Gisele.

There are also people just hopping on vegetarian trends because they saw some documentary about how chickens like to roam the prairies. If you’re a vegan because you have some abstention from meat for religious beliefs, animal advocacy, or cholesterol, more power to you. But if you’re a vegan because everybody else in your Hemp Helps Boulder club is one, start thinking for yourself. Social trends are influencing everything from the sale of fake mustaches to national elections. It is only when people start thinking for themselves that they can truly have a voice outside of what they are simply told. Speak up America. It is only through you that we can end the progress of horrible trends like Rebecca Black, skinny jeans, and tiny dogs.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what grinds my gears.