If you’re a basic bitch (let’s be honest, you are), you’ve spent the last couple of days waiting in lines out the door at your local Starbucks to get sugar-filled, radioactively-colored frappucinos that you’d never drink in real life but had serious FOMO about after briefly perusing Instagram. I wish I could say this was a one-time experience, but the unicorn frappucino was only the latest occurrence in a series of limited-edition unicorn-themed viral food trends we’ve all rushed out the door in order to consume. Unicorn macarons, doughnuts, grilled cheese, lattes, cupcakes, and chocolate bars are sadly only a few of the “magical” offerings that have come online in the last six months. In the minds of marketers, unicorn products are a gold mine, paid for by white girls willing to do anything for the ‘gram. For the rest of us, we’re left wondering when on Earth the rest of society is going to grow the eff up and stop caring about children’s items.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but my fascination with unicorns began when I was three and still managed to end several years before I found out about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I played with some figurines, colored them purple and pink in my coloring books, and then promptly moved on to Barbie, who I could con Ken into marrying and buying her a dream house (#goals). It was fun for a time, but ultimately unicorns lost their appeal because (spoiler alert) they’re not real. I thought I’d seen the end of them until Instagram likes became the holy grail of social media success, bringing us to today when we’re all buying $6 pink and blue mango milk smoothies because getting likes is more important than whether or not what you’re consuming actually tastes good, which is literally insane.
Let’s take a second to think about what it says about you if you’re one of the millions caught up in the unicorn obsession. That you’re willing to do anything to get Internet approval based on your Snapseed skills? That you’re caught in a childhood delusion and are experiencing a break with reality? That you’re so basic you can’t miss an opportunity to post literally the exact same thing that millions of other people are also posting at the exact same time? Literally none of these things are good. I know pink and purple pop on Instagram, really, I do. But at the end of the day, you’re whoring your feed out for likes to make yourself feel good while food marketers are laughing all the way to the bank.
I hate to break it to you, but you’ve been caught in a trap that marketing executives have laid in the hopes that you’d succumb to your basic instincts, and unfortunately for the rest of us who have to look at your posts on our feeds, they were right. That doesn’t feel so magical anymore, does it? You know what would really be magical? Is if we could start ordering food that tastes good again and stop making everyone else think that we have the mental capacity of small children. Do yourselves a favor, do all of us a favor, and chill the eff out about unicorns, ok? There’s a lot of magical things that can happen to you – marrying a trust fund baby or getting the most likes on your formal dress, for instance – but a frappucino is not one of those things. Save the magic for the big moments and let go of the neon food coloring eroding your intestines, and we’ll all be a lot better off in a much simpler life where what we consume actually resembles food again. Trust me..