Reality, Fiction, and the $178 Rick Owens Fidget Spinner

Trends are, wow, they are always happening. Like, at any given moment in time, there are at least three new trends emerging. Some trends, much like one of those rather tragic insects that only live for 24 hours, will desperately try to spread their seed before dying a quick and unceremonious death. Sad. Others, like the pinstripe or the phrase "OMG," will manage to embed themselves so deeply in the cultural lexicon that they become real things that people do not make fun of or even really notice. Brilliant stuff. Absolutely wonderful.

Another thing: Trends can come from anywhere. Anywhere. The streets of Gay Paree, the app Musical.ly, the mind of MattyBRaps, the parking lot of a high school, or the board room of Capitol Records, where I suspect they are certainly trying to come up with a #SwishSwishChallenge. Isn't that great?

One very big trend, which I am sure you've noticed, is the fidget spinner. They are everywhere. Everyone's making them, and that allegedly includes American fashion designer Rick Owens.

The "White Rhodoid Writhe Revolver"—rhodoid being French for acetate—is allegedly available on SSENSE for US$178 (AU$240), according to Reddit. But if my brief correspondence with an actual representative for SSENSE is to be believed, such a spinner is not actually available for sale. It's what you would call a "scam" made with "Photoshop." Which ruins the fun of this a bit. But dance with me, if you will, please dance we with me on the border of fiction and reality.

This spinner, if it did exist, would not even be the most ridiculous iteration of the spinner. Not at all. It wouldn't even be in the running. Total non-starter. People are making fidget spinners out of eggs now, literally eggs. They are doing make up tutorials with spinners, they are making phone cases with attached spinners. "Fact" and "fiction" are not really applicable concepts here—do you see that? Thanks to the internet, every trend in the world is seemingly colliding at breakneck speed, and that alone is enough to try and keep track of. And boy, is it exhausting.

Every day you think, "This is it—peak spinner" but then no, it is not peak spinner, there is still more spinner to come, like when you're on that steep incline of a rollercoaster and you think, it must be time to drop now, it must be, but still, still, you creep higher and higher. Is it exhilarating, or is it horrifying?

Here's what I'm trying to get at: it does not matter if the White Rhodoid Writhe Revolver is actually real, because it is real enough. And by that I mean there are now enough living people in the world who think Rick Owens is currently selling this spinner on SSENSE, and now, for those people, there will be one more name on their Spinner Ledgers. Yet another grievance, edging them closer, ever closer, to the critical tipping point where they consider spinners to be annoying and over, because too many people are involved.

See, the more people jump on the pile, the faster this trend will die, much like a classroom full of excited kids all trying to pat a companion dog, then smothering it. Just smothering it. Do you see? This fake spinner still has a very real contribution to the death of spinners. "Reality" has little bearing on the world.

UPDATE: Oh shit! The kid who originally photoshopped this emailed me! His name is Tim Owe-Young, and I can confidently say he is lit, he is squad, and he is most definitely bae. Wish it were real. God bless.