So. What is this thing called “trending”?  There’s now news articles all about… what’s trending – which is, essentially, news about what’s news.  A giant echo chamber of people all talking to themselves about what they’re talking about… to themselves.

You know, people who talk to themselves are, in general, considered, well, crazy.

So I embarked on a little mission to find out more about this crazy thing called trending.  “Google,” I said, “what’s trending mean?”

According to the Urban Dictionary, which has a slightly irritated definition, “’Trending’ is a mutilation of the English language that means ‘currently popular.’ It derives from a sad misunderstanding of the verb ‘to trend’ as meaning “to become a trend.”

A “sad misunderstanding,” huh?  Take that, Justin Bieber.

Hashtags.org has a more defensive meaning, as though they know that trending is silly but want to justify the, ahem, trend: “A trending topic does not just signify popularity. It is also translates to a win for whoever is the subject of the trend.”

Trending, therefore, is desirable?  Does that mean this Bieber guy is on to something?

To find out how A. Catherine Noon is trending, check out her upcoming release of Sealed by Fire, available from LooseId by pre-order and out everywhere on June 24th.