Continuing upon the epic success of our last video blog, Waldo and I have now attempted to set a new standard for trendiness in America today. Because Impact is trendy, and we want everyone to know it.
If you are going to be a freshman at Texas A&M or Blinn this fall, this one is for you. If you are not, I honestly do not know what you are going to get out of the next six minutes, but you are welcome to stay.
The Epic Idea That Got Rained Out
We had a really epic idea for the blog this week. It was epic. You are going to have to trust me on that, because it was raining outside all day and we never got to shoot a single frame of it, so instead we filmed on the same couch we filmed the last one on.
This is going to sound like a small thing but it is genuinely the most useful lesson in this entire video. Whenever you commit to putting something out on a schedule, the weather is going to take a swing at you eventually, and the only two options you have are to skip a week or to make something else. Skipping a week is how a series quietly dies. So we made something else, and the something else turned out to be one of the dumbest and best things we shot all summer.
700 Freshmen And Counting
Waldo opens the video doing paperwork. Real paperwork, actually, because part of his job as a leadership trainer over the summer is processing the signup letters that come in, and there is a genuinely alarming pile of envelopes on the coffee table next to him.
The number as of filming is over 700 freshmen signed up, which is up from the 450 we mentioned in the last blog about two weeks ago. He also reads one particular signup letter out loud on camera, complete with the name and hometown of the freshman who sent it, and that poor guy becomes a running gag for the rest of the series.
What Does Trendy Even Mean
I show up wearing glasses, which prompts a solid thirty seconds of Waldo asking me why I am wearing glasses. The answer is that I am being trendy. I am a nerd. I have also got my trendy shirt on, the one with the birds and the tree roots on it, which is basically a tattoo except it is a shirt, so it counts.
Waldo decides he can get trendy too, and he can get trendy fast, which involves me physically helping him out of his Impact polo on camera while he yells that he cannot breathe and cannot see. He comes out the other side in a tie dye shirt and a bandana. He explains that he is what some people around Aggieland would call granola. He slacklines. He plays guitar. He prefers to not wear shoes.
Which brings us to the shoes.
Waldo’s Homemade Shoe Line
You know TOMS, the shoes where the company gives away a pair for every pair you buy. Waldo has launched his own competing line, and the business model is that for every pair of his that you buy, he will give a pair to himself, because he needs them too. We all need to be trendy.
He then presents the full catalog, one item at a time, each of which is a thing wrapped around his bare foot:
- The camo one, made out of a bandana. It feels, and I quote, like you are just wearing a bandana on your foot.
- The yellow spring one, which is arguably a summer color, and which feels like paper and tape.
- The plastic grocery bag one, which he insists is waterproof and which is very obviously not good for sneaking up on people.
- The Nike ones, which look exactly like Nikes because they are his Nikes with a sticky note on them.
He does concede that they fall apart after a walk, but points out that normal ones do that too and they go back to the earth essentially, so really this is a feature.
Come To Impact
So there you go. We are trendy, we are cool, we are in, we are hip. If you are a freshman coming to A&M or Blinn in the fall and you have not signed up yet, and this video has not convinced you, then I want you to know we are just going to keep making these until it does.
Check out our last video blog to catch up, and for something considerably more serious than any of this, go watch Impact’s Testimonies. More information is at impactretreat.com, and the music is by Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com.