Internet Fads

It may come as a surprise to most of you that, despite my blog, I don't have internet at home. I am able to access the internet with my phone, but that limits what I can do. For no real reason, I have been slow to adapt or accept many things technological. I really don’t understand why this is the case. When I was a teenager, every bedroom in my house had a computer. As well as in the computer room. And in the kitchen. This was before AOL had become the internet provider for most of the country and before the web had become commonplace. Instead, my dad ran a local bulletin board where people would call our computer directly and play trivia games or talk on message boards.

            In college, I was the last of my friends to get a cell phone. The only reason that I did was because my four roommates realized that there wasn’t much point splitting the cost of a land line when I was the only one that used it. When Facebook came to the University of Iowa, I wasn’t interested. I had chosen MySpace. I’ve never really gone onto YouTube to peruse videos. When I started to take ADAM DOES iT more seriously, I realized that it behooved me to not embrace these other forms of social media and try to create synergy. I became active on Facebook. I started a twitter account, although I still don’t understand how to use that. It didn’t take me too long to realize that the internet is nothing but self-reflective. It talked about itself in a language that I didn’t understand about things that I didn’t know. So I decided to participate in a few internet fads.

1. MOUSTACHES

Out of the three activities, this was the one that I was most excited to participate in. That was because it seemed like the one that I could get the kids most involved in. I opted to make it a crafts project of sorts. We did this while we were visiting my brother in Texas. 

My niece, Sofia, decided that boys should have moustaches and girls needed a beard. So she and Emery made a set of facial hair for everybody.

2. TEBOWING

            Tim Tebow is a football player that had astounding success in college. While attending the University of Florida, Tebow became the first sophomore to win the prestigious Heisman Trophy. He also won two National Championships. He was known for sloppy mechanics, an uncanny ability to win, and an unshakable Christian faith. During his summers, he took mission trips and he became fodder when he declared that not only was he a virgin, but he would save himself for marriage.

            In 2011, after a gripping come from behind victory, Tebow knelt down on one knee and started to pray amongst the chaos and celebration from his teammates. People started to take pictures of them in this same pose and it was dubbed Tebowing. I only did this once, as it made me feel uncomfortable. I admire Tebow’s faith and I didn’t want to taunt him. This is not to say that I think that everybody that participates with Tebowing is mocking him. There are plenty of people that are a fan of him and pay their reveries with this action; I am just not one of them.

3. PLANKING
            The first that I had ever heard of planking was from an episode of The Office.

  

Planking is when you lie face down on the ground with your arms to your side. This is often done within a busy area, between two surfaces or anywhere that a board would normally be used. I thought that planking was quite random, odd and quirky. 

Beforehand, I wasn’t really sure how I felt about planking because it was just so random. Once I embraced its silliness, I had the most fun planking out of any of the fads. My sister, Heather and her husband, Mike also embraced planking and took a bunch of pictures of themselves planking while they were on their honeymoon.

           Overall, I came to the conclusion that internet fads are like a giant inside joke. They are like a game that you play with your friends and you make up the rules as you go along. There is no point in asking questions like “why” or “what’s the point?”. Internet fads are like karaoke or any other guilty pleasure. Once you drop your inhibitions, you allow yourself to just go along with it and have some fun.

Have you every participated in any of these or other internet fads? What was you experience like?