Finding Nemo

Why did God give us two ears? Trick question. God voted to go with two extra mouths so that we could sing his praises while playing the harmonica and making out with Molly Popular. Unfortunately, he got vetoed, and we were forced to pursue single-mouthed activities instead. To punish us for ruining God's plan for three part harmony solo's, he invented things like Foreign Languages, Karaoke, and Nemo Music to offend our auditory receptors...and personally, I would rather listen to a Spaniard singing Sweet Caroline on Tuesday nights than Nemo Music.

Nemo Music has swept the nation, herding tweenage sheep into a pattern of bad lyrics, bad haircuts, and bad attitudes. While Nemo used to be confined to the underground scene, now it's an in your face, mass produced, carbon copied trend.

It started innocently enough in the mid 90's with the Disney movie, "The Little Mermaid". Kids didn't quite know what they were getting themselves into when they sang along to classics like "Under the Sea" and "Part of that World". Simple things like putting on a phony Jamaican crab accent, or wearing a sea shell patterned bikini tops became popular. The seed was planted.

A decade of inactivity caused this feeding frenzy to settle back into a simple fad. Then it happened. Finding Nemo hit the theatres. Those Pre-Mo kids who got their gills wet by the Snorfblat and the Dinglehopper went crazy for anemones and Australian accented sea turtles. Hair styles quickly followed: Purple and blue like Dory, striped like Marlon. Slang terms like "talking whale" made added to the Nemo mentality. It was not uncommon to see a group of kids so "Nemo" that they would tuck their right arm in their T-shirt sleeves to emulate their Pop Culture star. The Nemo wave had hit.

With the popularity of the Nemo image rising, several lesser talented "copy-cat" acts followed. Within a year, Shark Tale and The Little Mermaid II were in theatres and what was once a talent based, underground, movement turned into an over-played, pop-infused, talentless, paycheck (that really didn't even have original scores). Every time I see a clown fish in a tank, I shed a tear for the hundreds of forgotten hermit crabs. But as long as it's cool, Nemo kids will ride the trend wave all the way to temporary popularity, just to catch the next one before it breaks. What else can you expect when the seaweed is always greener...

Andrew
Official Trend Setter and The Opinionator