Trending

Trending is currently my least favorite buzz word. I think a large part of this is due to mainstream news organizations using it because they are paying attention to Twitter. I certainly don't want to disparage the power of social media given its role in the Arab Spring but, seriously, most of Twitter is drivel. Certainly, my Twitter feed is--I almost exclusively post songs that I have stuck in my head.

The problem with hating the word trending is that I really want a word that basically means what it does, because it is the closest to explain a phenomenon we all experience--when we just keep hearing about something. Sometimes, it is something we never heard of before but all of a sudden in a short period of time, from a wide variety of sources, it will come up.

For me, The Beatles have been trending for a month or so. I don't own any of their music, other than some on cassette tapes that I never listen to anymore. Because it'd been so long since I listened to them, I was a little dismissive of their music--okay but nothing I need to have handy.

I think the Trending started, appropriately enough, with Twitter. I saw a collection of Tweets asking, in various forms, "Who is Paul McCartney?' posted during The Grammys. My thought at that time was that I remember not knowing who Paul McCartney was, but I was six.

I've been in a few places that were playing their music over the last month. I talked to a cousin in Florida last night. When I asked him if he'd done anything for Purim, he said he'd gone to a service where they were doing Beatles music. Then, today, I went to see the Seattle Men's Chorus perform The Beatles: Come Together.

Like most trends, I suspect this one is nearing its end. I should probably buy some of their music while I'm thinking of it. I do enjoy it.