Viewing Thread:
"Trends and why they suck"

Bored and can't sleep, so this is a post about a vague idea in my head that I'm going to try and write out, it may work or I may get bored after 10 mins and delete it.

Trends.

Happens in movies, games and life.
And it annoys me.
It shows a marked lack of imagination/individuality and I seem to be one of those people that usualy stands to one side and says "Hang on a minute" whilst every one else is rushing to get on board whatever trend-boat is sailing that day.

With games:

Metal Gear Solid came out, and suddenly it was all the rage to sneak about and not kill people.
But what developers seem to forget is the reason that game was such a hit is because it was original.
To suddenly find 20 other games involving sneaking/hiding etc means it's another stale genre, just the same as everything else but now you're sick of that gameplay.
Right now, I'm seeing a lot of war games.
Started with Operation Flashpoint I think, a realistic tactical shooter that threw you into the army and made you fight.
And the war trend is continuing, but now it's WW2 with Wolfenstein and Medal of Honour and Half-Life mods.
What starts out as a totally unique and refreshing idea is hammered flat and left tasteless and dull.

With Movies:
Tarantino did Reservoir Dogs, and for the next couple of years all we saw were quirky movies about crime, and damn Guy Ritchie for ripping off Long Good Friday and ensuring that we had shelves full of rubbish Brit "Gangster Films" that should never have been made. (Love Honour and Obey, Bang Bang your dead, Circus etc)

But my biggest gripe is with the mindless trends in life I see every day all around me.
Take something like fashion.
One person says that it's the "in" thing to wear jeans with the waistband ripped and frayed, suddenly loads of "Yah Yah" types are walking about in the hottest new thing, but by now it's old hat and nobody wears them anymore.
Now it's the thing to get this oil that makes your jeans look old and dirty.
Hello? I've been rocking that look since I was 10, guess that makes me a trendsetter eh?

But it's not just fashion, it's everywhere.
Flat Eric.
A pointless advert, yet suddenly it's number one and everybody has a Flat Eric puppet.
And then you realise how idiotic you look with it, and it disappears.
Why?
Are people that lacking in imagination?
Same with these forums, a topic is posted that wins GAD and suddenly there are 15 different variations on the winner, without people realising it won because it was different and original. (usually)
I'm not knocking the people that imitate, it's just another example of people seizing on a pre-existing idea and churning it over instead of searching for something new and original.

Music is exactly the same.
We were (although it's dying out now thank christ) awash with "Nu-Metal" bands.
Baggy short wearing chimps singing about how crap parents are and "isn't life hard" and "If I die before I skate" and people lap it up.
They think it's the best thing in the world and sneer at people that like pop because "It's so manufactured man, it's totally for brain dead sheep".
But what they don't see is that they're wearing the same stuff as all the other non-conformists and rebels.
It's no different, just because you're doing it doesn't mean you're not slavishly following a trend.

People seem afraid to stand out from the crowd, to say "I like this" when nobody else does.
I remember when I gave Stryke grief for liking Lord of The Rings.
I wanted to see if he'd change his opinion and say "Yeah, it wasn't that good" just because people were hassling him.
But he stood his ground and told us all where to go.
That's doing something because you want to, not because every one else is.

Titanic.
How many people watched that movie?
How many people went 2-3 times? Yet now everyone says that movie is crap and "rubbish".
Well it's one of the most profitable movies ever, so some of you went more than once.
So why change your mind now?
Because common opinion says to?

Fun that, don't just go along with the trend, stand out, be original for the love of life.

And now I *am* bored of this and sleepy.
Jury Duty again tomorrow, so I'll be reading "The Princess Bride"

G'night punks

Is yours a Packard Bell?
Does the monitor have the speakers stuck on the sides of it?


Will yours run Flashpoint?
Whats the meaning of life?
What keeps the clouds in the sky?
Why are there so many roadworks? Is it because they haven't finished building the world yet?

I think I have the same one as you

Aye Aye

Windows 98 second ed
Intel Celeron 433MHz
Intel i810-L (100MHz)
128mg Ram dynamicly shared with Graphics(DVMT) :oS
6.4Gig hard drive

Intel i810-L x2 AGP Graphics
6x DVD Drive

Crap really

Mystique wrote:
> I want to play Flashpoint but my crappy pc keeps crashing at the main menu when
> i *try* to play it.

Don't suppose anyone knows why this is?

What sorta PC have u got?

I want to play Flashpoint but my crappy pc keeps crashing at the main menu when i *try* to play it.

Don't suppose anyone knows why this is?

I need some sort of music transportation device.

It was quite amusing on the train on the way home for the weekend. There were a few peopl around me, and we were all listening to our walkmans.

All had either dance or rock playing, turned up so everyone could hear how "in with it" they were.

I had a CD of Saint Germain (I've mentioned them in the Music forum before, a kind of funked up jazz type stuff, mixed with a bit of dance - very good!).

Anyway, I was listening to this, and it got to a really loud jazz bit. So I'm sitting there on the train, with loud saxaphone and trumpet blasting out of my headphones.

I got quite a few weird looks, I can tell you...

Trends rule! They tell us what to do, how to dress, what to watch, how to look, what to eat, who to like, etc.

Trends are like a guiding hand through this tricky life. I don't choose to follow trends, I just go were I'm taken as if I were on auto pilot. It saves me a lot of time and brain power.

Without trends I'd be so caught up in trying to choose how to live for myself, I wouldn't have enough time to think about giraffes.

In closing, trends RULE! (for now)

Hidden And Dangerous, and possibly Commandos, I think, restarted the trend for War games.

You wouldn't believe the amount of kids that hate nightclubs and stuff, but go anyway because that's the trend.

I like what I like. Trends are pointless because something else will take it's place in a few months.