by Meghan Lewis

Ever since Drake resurrected the acronym “YOLO” in his popular song “The Motto”, the phrase has erupted as a critical part of nearly every young person’s vocabulary. YOLO has many controversial origins, but it is mainly believed to have started in a Florida restaurant. The acronym seemed to have been lost for many years (Marco…) and when Drake had the horrible idea of casually mentioning it in his new song, it was found once again (YOLO!). Ugh.

For those of you who do not know, which I’m sure is none of you, YOLO stands for You Only Live Once. There are a couple of different reasons why I am not YOLO’s biggest fan- mainly because it is overused and misused.

I first became familiar with the term before my junior year spring break. We decided to design tank tops with “#yolo” on them. We chose this because there is an actual store on the island of Captiva, Florida (shout out to all my Captiva spring breakers 2011!) with YOLO as the name. Things went downhill from there. Let’s just say I came home with a YOLO bumper sticker and the bad habit of instinctively regurgitating the phrase every other sentence. In essence, YOLO is like word vomit. It just comes out. Now YOLO is everywhere from O’Rear’s skit during Frosh Fest to the wall of third floor Donnelly (I quote, “Haterz are my motivatorz #yoloprobz #lawlz”).

Some have taken YOLO to a whole new level. A short British film is set to be released this year titled YOLO Therapy. Granted, some people have thankfully figured out YOLO needs to leave just as quickly as it came. For example, one boy decked out in YOLO gear at Rockhurst High School’s Blue and White mixer. Thankfully, the theme this year was “it used to be cool”. YouTube sensation “Kingsley” has also dubbed YOLO overexposed in one of his recent videos.

Not only is YOLO overused, it is misused. Sorry to target you, mystery girl who wrote on the third floor wall, but I don’t understand how haterz being your motivatorz has anything to do with you only living once. I also don’t understand why it is acceptable to use acronyms for excuses. In the words of Kingsley, “So you put pepper jack on your burger instead of American cheese, oh my gosh tell me more!” or “please tell me how making your bed this morning is giving you an invigorating and fulfilling life.”

All in all, YOLO is done. Dead. It has lived its one life and doesn’t need to come back. I have removed the YOLO sticker off the back of my car. So please, stop tweeting it. Stop Facebooking it. Stop texting it. Stop saying it. But hey if you don’t, it’s not like it really matters. YOLO.