#YOLO or #YONO

**‘Do you want to go Evolve tonight?’ ‘Erm. I dunno. I have a bit of work to do.’ ‘So?! Do it tomorrow!’ ‘Okay then, why not? YOLO!’ **

Conversations like these have cropped up several times during my stay at halls: ‘You only live once’. Whether you like it or not, ‘YOLO’ has parked itself firmly as a popular idiom of this decade’s youth culture. Is ‘YOLO’ really “the battle cry of a generation” as popular comedy band The Lonely Island suggest in their 2013 song of the same name?

The phrase first became popular following Drake’s delightful ‘song’, ‘The Motto’. Mr Graham (Drake) posits the wisdom of “You only live once: that’s the motto nigga YOLO. We bout it every day”. Needless to say I had to wash my ears out with some _Florence and the Machine_ after that utter garbage. I hope you excuse me if I don’t join in the rousing chorus of “nigga wassup wassap” or join Mr Graham’s escapades of “Fuckin’ women [because you] ain’t [have not got] much to do”.

{{ quote Last nights YOLO leaves you frantically trying to meet a deadline while nursing a hangover; todays YOLO saw you capitalise on a unique opportunity. }}

Although, despite the inherently racist and misogynistic context that baptised the phrase, ‘YOLO’ in itself is not that bad a philosophy. There are clearly two consequences of ‘YOLO’: a) Last night’s ‘YOLO’ leaves you frantically trying to meet a deadline while nursing a hangover; b) Today’s ‘YOLO’ saw you capitalise on a unique opportunity. I am not about to suggest simply thinking ‘YOLO’ will present you with an exciting and profitable opportunity…this isn’t Disney.

Far from it. But a bit more positive mental attitude will certainly not go amiss if we are to combat the recession-induced despotism of twenty-first century Britain. This is perhaps not just the latest teenage fetish but actually something we as a student community and even wider British society could benefit from. It bugs me when some would-be-elitists find the ‘YOLO’ acronym synonymous with a ‘lesser’ uneducated rhetoric. “It is Carpe Diem actually!” The underlying critique of class here, once again identifies how ideology is constructed so precisely, that now even a simple phrase is put into an arena of binary opposites.

As an English Literature student, I want to address the concern that something like ‘YOLO’ suggests ‘devolution’ in language. Now, I admire the eloquence of Shakespeare as much as my peers, but I feel some modern acronyms like ‘YOLO’ evidence some of the non-traditionalist and post-modern quirks that flourish in modern literature and texts. ‘LOL’ is in the OED after all…
So whether you’re a ‘YOLO’ or a ‘YO…NO!’—at least give the phrase’s basic interpretation a second thought.