Embrace Electronic Bling

According to this eHow article entitled "How to Wear Gaudy Jewelry":

Bright green baubles, earrings that look like rocket ships and a bracelet bigger and louder than Texas all qualify as gaudy jewelry. Gaudy jewelry is flamboyant, obnoxious and a heck of a lot of fun. Just because the jewelry is gaudy doesn’t mean you can’t wear it with flair. Some stylish tips will help you wear gaudy jewelry better than those chicks on the fashion pages.

Are you kidding me? There is nothing you can do to wear rocket ship earrings stylishly. Nothing. Well, the article disagrees with me and goes on to mention five ways to wear gaudy jewelry and look good:

1. Be selective: That's right. The first rule of wearing over-the-top fashion accessories (like big green baubles) is to be "selective".
2. Stay minimal: Um...how much flamboyant and obnoxious jewelry is too much?
3. Keep the rest of the outfit simple: Like anyone is going to notice that, in addition to yellow banana earrings, you are also wearing a hat made of fruit.
4. Keep the rest of the outfit matching: Good thing that the bananas on your hat match those dangling from your ears.
5. Stay in the same era and style: In what era was it fashionable to wear necklaces made of semi-transparent giant marbles?

If over-made-up ladies wearing fake, tacky rubies the size of Canada isn't enough, the menfolk have gotten in on the act. They don't call it "gaudy jewelry", they call it "bling", so it's cool. According to the Urban Dictionary, bling is:
1. Any shiny thing which distracts morons such as rappers.

2. Often takes the form of jewelry, may be expensive but is commonly cheap, used to give the impression of wealth.

3. Gaudy over the top hideous and wholly unnecessary.

Amazingdata.com says that "Rappers Look Like Idiots with Bling" I suggest that you to check out the site, just for the colorful pictures.

But badly dressed women and rappers with bling are not the end of it. In the information age, bling has merged with tech.

In February 2007 Wired reported that the Rubiks Cube, the intelligent person's game, now comes with flashing lights and sound effects. Glitzy, but not too bad. However, this November 2006 Businessweek article highlights some of that year's super-expensive electronic bling: diamond-encrusted laptops, gold-plated TVs, and earphones that cost more than the sound equipment they connect to.

However, my idea of "electronic bling" is a little different. Using the first and third definitions of "bling", above, I define electronic bling as being electronic gadgets worn or displayed for the sole purpose of showing off.

You indulge in electronic bling if:

• You have two or more mobile devices hanging from your belt
• You use your smart phone in public places to surf the web
• You use any type of video chat on a mobile device
• You sit in cafes with your laptop open, sipping lates and typing loudly
• You use your GPS to guide you to places you know perfectly well how to get to
• You wear a cyborg-like Bluetooth ear-piece, even if you have left your phone at home
• You own a tablet computer of any description

Electronic bling equals gadgets for gadgets' sake. If you are a tech nerd, if wearable technology is an improvement on your current fashion "look", if you aspire to be singled out among your peers as an uber-geek, come towards the bright, shining LED array and embrace electronic bling.

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