Capitalizing on Trends

So, I don’t know if you’ve been watching it any, but I’ve noticed that lately there has been a rash of poker shows on TV. And I’ve also found that Hastings has felt the need to put a big poker display right in the front of the store, just so you can’t miss it when you walk in. And I’ve also noticed that almost everybody thinks they’re a poker professional now, playing online, on their cell phones, or with a group of friends late at night.
Poker has caught on, for whatever reason. Poker is the big thing right now. I’m not really in a position to take any kind of position on the game or its players, but since I’m a humor columnist, it’s perfectly legal for me to make fun of it.
The biggest thing that I find so funny about this poker craze is really the same thing that I find funny with every other craze. There’s something floating around that is unrealistically popular, for whatever reason, and people across the country are more than willing to lose tons of money on it. The consumerism fever has spread, and we’re all becoming a nation of chip-stacking card-dealing sheep.
I don’t mind this too much. In fact, I’m hoping to make a whole lot of money off of this idea. I don’t mean the poker idea so much, but more the idea of fads that grab our collective attention spans by the throat and don’t let go until it officially jumps the shark, just like poker is probably about to do, with the forthcoming release of “All In”, the new single-mom-who-happens-to-be-a-professional-poker-player sitcom starring Janeane Garofalo, whose name is playing utter havoc upon my spell checker (Janine Grovel? Jean Garfield? Jambalaya Gorgonzola?).
So what on earth am I blathering about? I’ll gladly tell you. I’m going to become a multi-billionaire by predicting, manufacturing, and capitalizing on the next big thing(s) in American culture.
For starters, as a backlash against the Las Vegas lifestyle embodied and embraced in the recent poker craze, Americans at large will feel the repentant need to return to a life of simplicity and virtue. The result? Massive popularity of all things Amish.
Entire aisles at Barnes & Noble stores across the country will be devoted to Amish literature, both fiction and non-fiction, with titles like “Love in the Time of Pure Sorghum Molasses”, “Amish for Dummies”, and “Amish Ted Maupin’s Tales of the Butter”.
Network TV will cash in on the Amish craze with new TV shows, including “The Price is Amish”, a game show centered on guessing the prices of various hand-crafted Amish goods, “CSI: Amish”, a crime scene investigation show with a crew limited by their disdain of all things electronic and modern, and “The Amish and the Restless”, a daytime soap revealing the intricate drama of the lives of a group of Amish youths and all the torrid details of their scandalous affairs. Will Jedidiah find out that Hezekiah skipped his milking chores? Will Mary’s dress fly up to reveal her impurely adorned ankle to all the barn working men? Tune in tomorrow, but only after you clean out the chicken coop!
Cable TV won’t be too far behind, either. ESPN will pick up the annual World’s Strongest Amish Man competition, which pits challengers against each other with events such as Turning On Electrical Appliances Without Feeling the Pangs of Guilt Associated with a Sinful Life, Milking 50 Cows in 10 Minutes, and Mending Fences Using Only Your Teeth.
But of course, like all fads do, the Amish craze will die out. The only children with the “Amish 4 Lyfe” t-shirts will be the dorky ones. The overnight success story of amishamishamish.com will come to a tragic end when the last 24 hour Amish webcam shuts off. Old Navy will start carrying t-shirts that say “I liked the Amish before they were cool”, and then everybody will know, the end has finally come, and it is now time for us, as a nation of easily persuaded market-following sheep, to move on to our next big thing: international Rock-Paper-Scissors competition. Sizzaz in tha HOOD!