Here’s a trend you’ll relish
by Kate Zimmerman for the North Shore News
TIRED of simply trumpeting the trend ideas of others, I’ve finally decided to start inventing my own fads at the rate of two or three per week. Join me, won’t you? We’ll have such fun.
I have a bit of a jump on you, being in “the media.” After all, in our positions of trust and authority (ha) we have been telling you what to think for years. Open any Weekend edition of the Globe & Mail, for instance, and you’ll get a revelation like “Tuesday night is the new Saturday night.” Why, you might ask. And we’ll tell you: because it allows inner-city snobs to avoid mingling with those who still think Saturday rocks, the dreaded “bridge-and-tunnel” crowd. (I’m sure the trendsetters don’t mean the Lions Gate Bridge, don’t worry. It’s the Port Mann they must have been referring to.)
The point is, we in the media determine ‑‑ with your needs in mind ‑‑ whether pink is in, or how firmly you want to embrace boho chic (medium firmly). We tell you whether grilling iceberg lettuce is okay (it is!), whether getting “compassion fatigue” is normal (“experts say that all fatigue is normal”), whether Wallace & Gromit is any good, and whether Wensleydale cheese, Wallace’s favourite, is sure to hit peak sales after the film’s release.
You are, of course, perfectly free to ignore our advice. Perfectly free … if you want to be a clueless frump. But we’re okay with that, if you are. The individualism craze is on the wane, but, you know, cling to it, if you prefer.
Personally, I’d like to start out small with my new trend- inventing hobby. There’s no use me choosing a fad for others -- say, “21st-century Intellectualism” -- that will be impossible for myself to follow. So I’ve decided to simply bite the bullet and tout my own lifestyle as the ultimate in desirability. ‘Work Less, Eat More,’ Experts Advise will be a typical press release sent from my office to the lifestyle sections of newspapers, to be instantly followed up by avid reporters.
Expect a flurry of such yarns in local and national newspapers, compliments of my excitable tips. I’m predicting coveted page 3 placement in the dailies. Look for headlines like Love Handles Totally Hot, Says Catherine Zeta-Jones and Double Chins ‘Enchanting’: Dame Edna. ‘For Obvious Reasons, I Now Hate Low-slung Pants’ will be sent out along with a photo of a freshly matronly Britney Spears in nice, sensible corduroy overalls. Then, of course, we can expect the inevitable fashion story, Corduroy Overalls Storm Paris Shows.
I predict I’ll get the most ink from the press release entitled Orlando Bloom: ‘I Like a Few Whiskers on my Girlfriends.’ I’m swamped this week with my magnum opus, a little thing I like to call Dogs Now Ten Times as Popular as Cats; I’m shooting that out Tuesday with supporting arguments in the form of faxes to be sent hourly until newspapers across the land give in. But I’ll be working on the Orlando Bloom thing next week and some variation of it should be published internationally in early November. I’ve timed it to coincide with the release of Bloom’s latest movie, Elizabethtown.
When you start your own rage, I would advise you to select as your advocates young, up-and-coming, good-looking celebs (I know, that’s redundant -- as if there could be an ugly celebrity!). Avoid anyone who’s been convicted of murder (accused is okay) or is currently incarcerated (on parole is okay); this is just common sense. People who make pornography in their back yards, such as Snoop Dogg, are also not recommended as spokespeople because of the New Prudishness trend that I was flogging (well, not flogging, that sounds perv-y -- encouraging) last week. Celebrities who cannot spell properly are also not credible these days due to recent hit movies about spelling bees (read more about this in my daily Hollywood Trend Report).
I don’t feel I need to get the permission of these celebrities to drop their names. They’re always complaining about the press; I might as well give them more of the same to complain about. You should, too! Go wild. Put Madonna on your steak-flavoured snack-foods bandwagon, if that’s your dream, or have George Clooney “say” that white patent leather shoes with matching belts are the bomb for men. Nobody investigates whether these stars really do wear bedroom slippers made out of vintage bee pollen; it suffices that we’ve read somewhere or other that they do, and that’s how we know that we can, too.
Of course, there is a darker side to vogue-making. Sometimes we’d like to promote a craze that we might not follow ourselves but that will indirectly benefit us. For instance, over the past few months I have helped several friends move. As a result, I am now popularizing the “Spartan Lifestyle,” also known as “The New Austerity.” (You should always have the word “new” in the title of your trend.) Why does anybody need more than one record album or CD, if it’s pretty good? That’s a question each of us, except me, should ask ourselves. Here’s an up-to-the-minute credo that everybody (except myself) should adopt: “Vases: one short, one tall.”
Likewise, let’s put the kibosh on pianos -- Glen Gould is dead (hello!) and so is his instrument. Only a truly needy friend will help another move a piano and not use the opportunity to suggest a crossover to piccolo. Same musical notes, right? Yet so much lighter.
It’s now clear to me where magazines like House & Home are going with this trend-forecasting stuff. Their editors happen to only own beige items so they want to make sure that all the rest of us admire beige-on-beige. The only way to do this is to inform us that it’s au courant. We’ll invariably agree ‑ - after all, we read it in a magazine. A style magazine, for goodness sake. There’s no need to bring any other adjudicators into this.
You see how easy this is? Simply rely on your own most selfish impulses and make them a bellwether for your entire community. Get some mountain biking god to (ostensibly) trumpet that mountain biking is defunct and road racing is the way to go, and you’ll have plenty of empty trails to explore. Sneak references to Debra Messing’s extreme beauty into the hands of every fashion magazine editor on the continent and suddenly expressive big-beaked redheads like yourself will be completely a la mode.
Just follow my example, my dears. As I say, it is the trend.
Writing > Humour
