That’s So Ten Years Ago

Remember “Survivor”? When Arnold Schwarzenegger became governator of California? Limp Bizkit? “Bad Boys II”? If you laughed or cringed at any of those, imagine what you’ll be laughing at 10 years from today; imagine the things that were so cool and trendy today that will make you smack your forehead in regret in the future. If you’re having trouble with your imagination today, we’ve got you covered. Here’s what you’ll be regretting 10 years from now.

Mannerisms

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  Troy Warwick ’16 YOLO’s it up in the silent room at Penrose Library. Blaring music, no pants…how much more could he be living?

  “YOLO”: Assuming you live long enough while shouting this motto, you’ll find that YOLO only lived once (or rather, lived only once). Heck, Drake will probably be back in Canada for the free healthcare after overdosing at his re-re-Bar Mitzvah, and Zac Efron will have had his tattoo laser-removed. We can’t say that we’ll be disappointed that this phase died out along with its obligatory “hang loose” hand motion that accompanies it. In fact, the phrase will gloriously win a Darwin Award.

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  Whitties Lillian Bailey ’13 and Corinne Pingul ’14 put the phrase into action.

  Reciting “Call Me Maybe” lyrics: We know you have it. That secret urge. That urge, when someone starts saying, “Call Me,” to finish it with a “Maybe.” In the future, people won’t soften their commands with cushion words like “maybe.” Everything will be direct and to the point. That, and we’ll probably have completely forgotten about Carly Rae Jepsen.

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  SWAG. Brenna Bailey ’16 emboidies the meaning, reppin’ some Minnesota gear.

  “Swag”: We may be guilty of using #swag from time to time—or all the time—as a substitute for the word “cool,” but a word that formally means “a suspended wreath, garland, or drapery” should never stay longer than its welcome. And its welcome is very close to ending. Like the hashtags before it, #swag needs to #go.

Fashion

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  A Whitman yoga class models the trending stretchy pant.

  Yoga pants: Yes, they’re form-fitting. Yes, they’re comfortable. But so was every new fashion ever. Eventually it will go out of style to look like you just walked out of your yoga class, or maybe Lululemon will get even more expensive than it is already. Whatever the cause, there will be fewer yoga pants and more of some other active-lifestyle-wear. Also, there will be less cameltoe.

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  Whitties Allison Eggert ’16, Eloise Willemsen ’16, and Louise Karneus ’16 model their grandma outfits.

  Dressing like a grandma: We blame Zooey Deschanel. She’s just so perfect and quirky and adorkably fashionable that it spun out of control and now we all dress like grandmas. Perhaps this is part of an age-old cycle that won’t run its full course until grandma dress-alikes become grandmas themselves. Or it’ll just go out of style in the next 10 years.

• Skinny jeans: The breakdown of traditional gender norms will continue to happen until gender actually turns into a spectrum. But God, the skinny jeans have to go. There are better ways to be a more sensitive male figure in our brave new world than walking around in jeans with inseams smaller than a child’s neck. We’ll learn that soon enough.

Pop Culture

• #hashtags: While it’s been amusing while it lasted, we can’t imagine this trend lasting more than five years. The hashtag will go back to being just a plain, ordinary, useless pound sign. We predict that it will fade proportionately with Justin Bieber’s innocence. Let’s just face it, everything wrong with pop culture is Justin Bieber’s fault. ***poundsignseeyawouldn’twanttobeya

• TLC: TLC as the “The Learning Channel” went out of vogue years ago, but could there be hope that it will return to its content namesake in 2023? If the ratings for “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” and “Long Island Medium” have anything to do with it, then no, no it won’t. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if they come up with even crazier fringes of society to highlight.

• All things Kardashian: Kris Jenner and her motley krew of K-named family members/kash kows have infekted our TVs and entertainment magazines since 2006. If there is a higher being, we hope that he or she will be kind enough to make them quietly go away faster than Kim kan get a divorce from Kris Humphries. Which, kome to think of the pace of that partikular endeavor, might happen in about 10 years’ time.

Technology

• Auto-tune: While this trend created the ability to make anyone sound remotely all right at singing (see: Rebecca Black), auto-tune will most likely die out and be replaced by people who can actually sing. Singers who can actually sing, like Adele, seem to be all the rage now (see: all of her Grammy trophies). Auto-tune will soon be as distant a memory as dancing to dubstep in the TKE basement.

• Televisions: Who in our lifetimes has ever said that televisions are the future? Probably only television salesmen. While TV shows are becoming increasingly digital, the only thing that stands in the way of a purely digital computerized television experience is how advertising would work. TV probably wouldn’t even exist without advertisements—just think about that the next time you see a Billy Mays knockoff ad.

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  DVD’s… pretty soon they’ll be looking as clunky as the old VHS’s.

• DVDs: With Netflix Instant Watch, Hulu and all different manners of streaming stealing the spotlight, the Digital Versatile Disc is becoming less and less versatile. Why bother with hard copies anymore? Everything is going to the cloud, man. That crazy nebulous cloud where all of our movies will come from for the rest of forever.

Politics

• Hating on women: While hating on women should have gone out of style around the same time it became unfashionable to not give women the vote, it is our hope that the anti-women comments of the Todd Akins, Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world will be pushed out of the political arena. If the national backlash against Akin’s “legitimate rape” comment is representative of how this country is moving, feelings like theirs will be a distant memory in 10 years’ time.

• Hating on gay people: Like hating on women, this trend seems to be on its way out. And similar to our feelings about hating on women, we’ve been over this trend for years. This trend can let the door hit it on the way out.

• Hating on underprivileged people, period: ‘Nuff said.