What a Fool Believes

In David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, the characters reside in a time when the naming rights of each calendar year are purchased by corporations. There’s the Year of the Whopper, the Year of the Trial-Size Dove Bar, the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, etc. What’s great about this idea is that you could totally see it existing. It already does in regards to arts venues (the Kodak Theatre in LA) and stadiums (Dr Pepper Arena in Frisco, TX). Soon it will for public transit stations and even new monkey species, so it’s just an eventuality for calendar years.

In Infinite Jest: A Reader’s Guide, critic Stephen Burn poses that the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, when most of the story takes place, is 2009. The only year to follow the Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment, is the Year of Glad, which would be 2010. We at WaFB thought it would be fun to assemble a list of products that would be contenders for 2012, and then determine which would be the winner. (In case you were wondering, we didn’t determine a winner for 2011, but, clearly, it would have been the Year of the Robertson Training Systems Bulletproof Knees Manual.)

The Contenders:

Community: Six Seasons and a Movie

Die-hard fans of the beloved sitcom are going to realize that blog posts and petitions are not enough. To get NBC’s attention, and that inexplicable, globular mass that’s watching The Big Bang Theory, they’re going to have to take a cue from the Occupy Wall Street movement and band together. Purchasing the year would get that attention. Of course they’d still have to pay for it. But Community fans are smart and savvy—I should know, I’m one of them—so to get those funds they could create a Kickstarter. If the couple-million viewers all pitch in a buck, that should cover it, and NBC will respond by narrowing down the show’s vague return date to the season.

Forever Lazy Soft Fleece Lounge Wear

Do you know the Snuggie? What the fuck am I talking about? Of course you know the Snuggie. It’s the blanket that doesn’t “slip and slide like a regular blanket”—because regular blankets are like greased pigs and wet Bon Jovi albums. It’s the blanket you can wear! With sleeves! In colors like strains of weed—“Purple Haze”, “Crimson Red Microplush”, “Clouds”! When you’re at home, watching TV or talking on the phone or holding a masturbathon, it’s sweet surrender, but when you’re at the big game or shopping, you look like the one from Heaven’s Gate who missed the spaceship but is certain your Nike-sporting brethren are returning any day now. Forever Lazy Soft Fleece Lounge Wear is the next generation Snuggie. You can still loaf around the house all day, but now you can also go to the big game and only look like an overgrown infant in a hooded onesie with footies.

Google’s Android Ice Cream Sandwich

Google is such a powerhouse. They’re clearly bent on world domination so they have to be in the running. Their soon-to-be-released tablet operating system is the obvious choice—especially with a name like the “Ice Cream Sandwich”. I bet they wrap it in a cute little package just like an actual ice cream sandwich—that waxy white paper with just a touch of gluey-gooey cream clinging to it after opened. I bet they offer an app that gives you a map of all the businesses in your current location that sell ice cream sandwiches. I bet they’re gentle when they become self-aware and tase the life out of you in one lightning-quick, pain-free blast.

Marshmallow

“Marshmallows Are the New Cupcakes.” The obligatory foodie trend. When playing Chubby Bunny—a game whose winner is the one who can stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth and still say “chubby bunny”—will cost $100 at Magnolia Marshmallowry in the West Village.

Mitt Romney for President

After the flashing billboard behind the Ball in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, it’s the logical next step for GOP’s everyman: “Electionyearing”. It will blanket the year in bland, but we’ll all be thankful that Rick Santorum couldn’t afford it.

Monster High Ghoul Spirit Action Figure Doll 3-Pack: Draculaura, Cleo de Nile, and Ghoulia Yelps

Since Tickle Me Elmo sent parents charging through stores like bulls in Pamplona, the hot new toy has become a part of the culture. Toy companies will naturally enter the fray, hoping one of their toys as the year will ensure massive sales. Monster High—Barbie dressing up as a Tim Burton character—is a popular line of dolls by Mattel that pose the questions: Isn’t getting into Bauhaus and cloves and Victorian style in high school too late? Shouldn’t one know the romance of darkness and the allure of death at the age of 8?

New Album by Madonna (on Interscope Records)

The show of starpower/the grab for relevance. By the summer we’ll wonder: How will this be Gagafied next year?

Trojan Vibrations Mini

Trojan Brand Condoms have been pushing this “personal massager” that makes your hair look like a wind sock for awhile—I can’t make it through one commercial break of VH1 Classic’s Metal Mania without one. It’s time for them to expand their marketing plan. I think they’ve captured enough fans and protégés of Eddie Van Halen’s tapping technique.

Virgin

Richard Branson’s got space flights. A year is nothing to this guy. Hell, that might be a problem: no challenge. For Branson to slap his company name on the year, there’s going to have to be a race around the world in a hot-air balloon filled with tigers or a trip across the Atlantic in a yacht on fire to win the naming rights.

The Winner:

The Year of the Forever Lazy Soft Fleece Lounge Wear

If the Mayans are right and we’re done for this year, we’re not going to go out in an Ice Cream Sandwich Terminator bang but a whimper of flesh succumbing beneath soft fleece. Submission starts here. No need to leave the couch.