{"id":2447851,"date":"2019-08-22T07:15:00","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T13:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=311592"},"modified":"2019-08-22T07:15:00","modified_gmt":"2019-08-22T13:15:00","slug":"writing-switch-trending-now-fad-or-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/writing-switch-trending-now-fad-or-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Switch: Trending now \u2014 Fad or fiction?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sometimes it can be difficult to decide which facets of popular culture you\u2019re willing to absorb straight into your very sense of being and which ones will end up on the wrong side of history, like \u201cWhat Does the Fox Say?\u201d and please please please god oh please \u201cBaby Shark.\u201d This week we\u2019re discussing three wonderments that have entered our society recently and determining whether they are here to stay or will fade away. All of our analyses you should read in the voice of a pair of guffawing sportscasters making wildly outdated \u201cfat\/phat\u201d jokes.<\/p>\n

Hard seltzers<\/strong><\/p>\n

SB (Pro): We were always heading this way. For 110 calories, you can drink slightly sweetened seltzer water with faint hints of fruit flavors and a 5% ABV. It\u2019s like giving purpose to La Croix if La Croix wasn\u2019t already one of the best beverages on the planet.<\/p>\n

For someone like Ben who values low-calorie content above all else \u2014 his recent drink of choice is Diet Pepsi and Svedka \u2014 you\u2019d think he\u2019d embrace the drink staple that is hard seltzer. And if 5% ABV isn\u2019t enough, switch from Truly or White Claw to Four Loko, which just launched the hardest seltzer of all time coming in at 14% ABV. While I haven\u2019t personally tried it because Aspen liquor stores don\u2019t dabble in the Four Loko or BuzzBallz market, you should probably try it sooner than later (and let me know how it is because I\u2019m not being that guinea pig). I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a limited time thing, I just think it will be banned a la the original Four Loko.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know how this goes away. It\u2019s a diet wine cooler marketed as an alcoholic, flavored seltzer water. It\u2019s genius and also refreshing.<\/p>\n

BW (Anti): I truly (heh) try not to judge people for their tastes in music, movies or alcohol. Hell, last weekend I pounded 15 BuzzBallz while dancing in front of my mirror to \u201cSmooth Criminal\u201d on repeat and bragged about it afterward. But when I see grown men walking around clutching a White Claw, I feel a slight twinge of \u201c\u2026wtf are you doing\u2026\u201d somewhere in my peripheral cortex or whatever.<\/p>\n

I really have no reason to be a hard-seltzer hater. Fewer calories? I\u2019m a fat ass, so that sounds beneficial. Fruity flavors? Sweet, gotta fend off scurvy somehow. Sessionability? I\u2019m fairly certain that\u2019s hipster for \u201chow easy it is to slam a shit ton,\u201d and as someone who is going to drink all that come in the case, well, sign me up for 1,400 calories of pisswater, I guess.<\/p>\n

I think that\u2019s what bothers me the most about hard seltzers: There isn\u2019t much nuance in carbonating whatever comes out of the tap. That and the market is already more diluted than its alcohol content. I don\u2019t really want to put water in my body because fish have sex in it and that\u2019s disgusting. Just give me the moldy chunks fermenting in a hazy IPA. Besides, I LIKE the hangover; I don\u2019t want to be rehydrating at the same time I\u2019m desperately pumping myself with toxins. Prediction: By next summer, we\u2019re getting white girl wasted on something else.<\/p>\n

Vaping<\/p>\n

BW (Pro): I want teens to start smoking.<\/p>\n

I want them to start drinking, banging and listening to albums with \u201cPARENTAL ADVISORY\u201d on them \u2014 ideally, simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I don\u2019t care about the children. I don\u2019t like them. Once puberty hits all the brain development ceases regardless, so we may as well coddle the youth away from debilitating addictions under the guise of autonomy. Any time Aspen goes viral for virtue signaling, we all win.<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s one thing I know about teenagers, it\u2019s that they looooooove cotton candy flavoring! Also their MP3s and Neopets! But not as much as tobacky! Let\u2019s pretend to save them by taxing clueless rich people 70% on a pack of Marlboros til we have more money than we know what to do with! Let\u2019s build new offices across two blocks of prime downtown real estate! Let\u2019s win council seats so we can get free tickets to Food & Wine! The only keys on my laptop not caked in dust is SHIFT + 1! One sentence is a lie \u2014 go!<\/p>\n

Shit man, I had to sell my dead cricket collection to the Thrift Shop just to buy a Black & Mild the other day, and I don\u2019t even smoke. Until we get fair laws on underage consumption, I will protest by continuing not to smoke (tobacky just cracky).<\/p>\n

SB (Anti): I feel like vaping is a lot like fracking: it\u2019s advertised as a safer way to do something but experts really aren\u2019t buying it because there\u2019s way too many chemicals involved. You don\u2019t even see the plant you\u2019re smoking. That\u2019s why I stick to flower. Sure there are ashes and resin to deal with but I trust that more than whatever the f\u2014 they put in those Potent Pineapple pens.<\/p>\n

Clearly I\u2019m anti-smoking but let\u2019s be honest, how would you feel if Don Draper or Humphrey Bogart pulled out a vape pen rather than a heater? Cigarettes are gross but so is vaping. Fancy lighters and cigarette cases are classy until you watch your friend hack up tar to the point of vomiting the morning after a long night out.<\/p>\n

Also, I hate to belabor a point I made in a previous column, but competitive vaping is one of the most useless talents I can think of. Here, inhale as much mystery chemical smoke as possible and blow it out your ears so the cancer can spread to your entire skull. It\u2019s pretty much free advertising for the vaping industry and poor life decisions.<\/p>\n

Electric scooters<\/p>\n

BW (Pro): Which scenario would cause more carnage, electric scooters that are allowed only in the road or electric scooters allowed only on the sidewalk?<\/p>\n

These things are great. You don\u2019t want people drinking and hopping behind the wheel of a car? Perfect, let them ride off into the night and see how far they get before the death wobbles set in.<\/p>\n

Have you ever ridden one of these things? They FLY. I used a scooter to get home during a Texas downpour in the very early morning after grabbing it out of some random apartment complex\u2019s bushes. Sorry to whomever was planning on using that to get to work; I needed it more than you at that moment.<\/p>\n

People moan and complain because scooters don\u2019t \u201clook good\u201d and that it\u2019s sooo difficult to maneuver around one perched alongside a building. These also are the same people who incessantly grandstand about climate change and parking spaces and gridlock outside the Entrance to Aspen but shut down any attempts to fix it because they\u2019re too geriatric and highfalutin to consider anything moderately unsightly.<\/p>\n

In the warmer months, everyone should be required to leave their car at the Buttermilk lot, hop on a scooter and cruise 45 mph the rest of the way into town. No traffic jam and it\u2019s environmentally friendly. \u201cSOME PEOPLE NEED TO SHOP AND BRING THEIR KIDS!\u201d a mom will scream at me. Well, A) That\u2019s why God invented Amazon and B) We\u2019ve already established how I feel about your children.<\/p>\n

SB (Anti): Death by scooter, an actual thing that happens to bitcoin-pinching millennials, might be the worst possible way to die from an embarrassment standpoint.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you hear about Autumn?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, fall comes once a year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNot the season, the girl. Autumn Sanders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, what happened?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was riding a Bird leaving a Rockies games and got flattened by a Geo Metro.\u201d<\/p>\n

Imagine getting that phone call from the hospital. Do you even tell people what happened or call it a generic car accident? Just walk to the New Belgium tasting room next time.<\/p>\n

Also, there aren\u2019t actual scooter stations so kids can strew them along the street like shoes in the hallway after school. Bums in San Francisco have gone as far as to defecate on the two-wheel terrors, probably in protest of people riding them on sidewalks. Imagine e-bikes on the Rio Grande Trail but four times as crowded and swap out old people for self-absorbed, cellphone fanatics.<\/p>\n

Go-Peds, aka scooters with gas motors, were popular in middle school but were eventually banned. I don\u2019t understand how switching them from gas to electric makes them legal. Also, while we\u2019re talking scooters, freestyle Razor scootering is right up there with competitive vaping for useless skills.<\/p>\n

sbeckwith@aspentimes.com<\/a> bwelch@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes it can be difficult to decide which facets of popular culture you\u2019re willing to absorb straight into your very sense of being and which ones will end up on the wrong side of history, like \u201cWhat Does the Fox Say?\u201d and please please please god oh please \u201cBaby Shark.\u201d This week we\u2019re discussing three […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2447851","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-25 12:12:36","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2447851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2447851\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2447851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2447851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2447851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}