I always feel like…. somebody’s watching meeee.

May 27, 2009 is one of those days that are bound to occur in anyone’s existence where a couple unrelated events happened that both had a significant impact on my life.  Most important to me, it was the day I finally moved into my current residence and got my first real taste of freedom that I still very much enjoy today.  However, on that same morning almost exactly ten years ago, a few hours before a new bed and a fridge made my new home live-in ready… in my online world where I was drawing almost daily artwork in the form of small profile avatars, I created this:

God, my art was so shitty back then…

I was inspired to draw a unicorn for someone, and though that hideous beast that emerged from my beloved (and long lost) copy of MS Paint was quickly forgotten… Rainbow Donkey re-emerged a couple years later and became one of the most popular characters from the comic strip I used to run on The Nest for six years.  Capped off by Jennifer Olivarez’s amazing crocheted likeness she created for me in 2013, I gained an affinity for the mythical unicorn that is still very much a part of what I am today…

Like, everyone’s totally infactuated with Mitzi!

Six years does not seem like a very long time in the toilet paper roll of life.  But change happens practically overnight in the age where everyone is connected via Al Gore’s internet.  When I first drew Rainbow Donkey in 2009, most people were still using flip phones.  No, really… ten years ago PDA’s were the closest things to those life sucking smartphones we have now.  That’s how quickly they caught on because it seems like I’ve been the only person who still has one of those ancient hinged phones for a very long time…

I took this picture in 2010…. I swear!

Six years ago, unicorns were just….. well, unicorns.  They were this mythical creature whose legend had been around for centuries…. a horse with a single horn in the middle of its forehead who had an affinity for maidens (Well, who doesn’t?), and who occasionally might turn up in a Rainbow Brite or My Little Pony cartoon.  My pimping of the made-up species in the early-middle part of this decade stood out a bit from the crowd.  The Rainbow Donkey merchandise in my Cafepress shop, while certainly not unique, was….. well, more unique than it is now.  WAY more unique.

Oh, gee. Another unicorn themed item. How original.

For some reason, a couple years ago the popularity of the unicorn went from a slow simmer to a full out geothermal eruption of Old Faithful.  Unicorns became the ultimate hip trend to include on anything that could even remotely be marketed at girls.  Go in a store, any store that sells anything, and just try to make a trip down any aisle without spotting at least one uni-horned beast’s profile plastered on something.  It’s a bet you won’t win even with all of the lucky charms in the world…

Oh, goddamit! Didn’t this cereal already jump the shark with the purple horseshoes?

Six years ago, you’d have to look far and wide to spot a unicorn… just as it should be for something that is as real as a Kardashian booty.  It’s not like that in 2019 at all.  About a month ago, a new feature of snack cakes arrived in the store I work in… and as good fortune would have it, they dropped the thing right in an area where I was often assigned.  So for several hours of the night, I would have to stare at a whole bunch of these…

Unicorn cakes?  Is that like cow pies?

Unicorn cakes!  Seriously?  It was at this moment that I realized just how pathetic the corporate exploitation of this poor animal had become.  Unicorn was now no longer a noun, it was a fucking adjective!  I mean… it’s not just unicorn cakes, it’s unicorn cake mix, unicorn hair, unicorn bath bombs, unicorn slime, unicorn ice cream…. hell, probably even unicorn asswipe as well that will magically remove all those tough to reach dingleberries.  Unicorn has somehow become a flavor, a style, a color, and who knows what other type of subject modifier.  Noah Webster would be turning over in his unabridged grave if he were around to see this travesty to the English language…

Fuckin’ A.

What brought on this bizarre wave of unicornaphelia anyway?  As with most crazy hipster trends that generally come and go once everyone realizes how stupid it really is… the answer is “who in the fuck knows?”  But of course, being in before all of the copycatters out there… I’d like to think that maybe, just maybe, Rainbow Donkey indeed was the pioneer in whoring out his creature’s legacy.

Don’t you even think about taking all the credit for this, mister!!!

Just a little something to consider as you eat your unicorn cakes on your unicorn TV tray while in your unicorn jammies on your unicorn sheet set staring at your unicorn on a rainbow poster that says BELIEVE!  Yes, here in America, unicorns are now officially more popular than Jesus…

Sorry John, you just lost out to Unicornmania…

And please join me today in my annual fake celebration of my fake blogaversary!  Like every May 26th, WordPress will happily alert me that today is the 8th anniversary of the day I signed up with them, when it was really seven months later that I first darkened their door and started this waste of cyber real estate.  I’ll have plenty of fake unicorn party favors as well as a fake unicorn cake and maybe even an appearance by the fake Rainbow Donkey…