Everyone want’s bling these days. They don’t stop to think about how it actually looks. They don’t stop to think what impression it gives. They just want bling. Lots and Lots of Bling. This happens with Jewelery, Websites, Cars, even Church Worship services. It can lead to some pretty strange behavior. I’ll call this tendency in people “the Bling Principle” for the purpose of this article.

Take my church for instance. They have been wondering how to liven up the worship service for a while now. I’m walking into church tonight and there is a DVD with worship music, words, and live video playing on the big screens. All we were missing was the bouncing ball. Its a good example of what I’m talking about. Yeah the video looked cool. Yeah it was a good solid worship song. Yeah it had the wow factor. There was just one problem. No one looking at that screen was going to be thinking about worship. They were going to be mesmerized by the really cool video. Don’t get me wrong moving backgrounds can really help a song service when used and applied properly. But this thing was BUSY. Too BUSY. It was Bling pure and simple. Bling is about being over the top. It’s about saying “See, Look at me I’m cool too”. This really wasn’t the message our church was looking for.

Have you ever tried to tell someone their bling was a bad idea? You get an instantaneous defensive reaction. “Oh no, You don’t think that do you?” No one likes to be told their bling looks ridiculous. You can see the Bling Principle in action everywhere. Here are some examples I’ve come up with.

  • MySpace: If that site isn’t crawling with “Website Bling” obsessed people then I’ll eat my hat.
  • Corporate Software Purchases: What corporate manager want’s to be caught dead without the latest and greatest buzzword software paradigm of the year
  • Church Worship: Hey, look at me I have a band and a full Laser light show. Come to our concert, (I mean worship service), today
  • Computer Purchases: It can’t just be a machine to play DOD and UT on. It also has to have blue Neon lights and an etched logo of your favourite Alien’s visage on the front
  • Dating: Hey, check out this Hot Chick/( ehhhrr…. what do they call the guy these days?) I’ve got on my arm

There is only one person who carried off bling well and that was Mr. T. Everyone else just looks stupid or sad.

Can you list anymore places/examples where you see a lot of Bling?