By Ben Fogler
I’m ba-aack. Hey everybody, it’s me, Ben Fogler. You’re probably wondering, where has he been? He practically disappeared off the face of the Earth! And the answer to that is, I was trapped under a mountain of school-related endeavors. But luckily, my schedule has cleared up, I am no longer trapped under the mountain, and thus my hiatus has come to a close, yes God!
She responded, “Well I’m so glad you asked! I’m going to Spanish.”
My friend and I, we have a habit, a running bit, if thou wilt, of taking words and then giving them pet names, so I mused, “ah, Spanny-span.”
Not to be outdone, Erika Nuts mused right back: “Spanch.”
“Spanch!” I gave a little chuckle. Spanch was a funny one. What a word! It felt so unique, like it wasn’t just a derivative of “Spanish,” like it had its own meaning.
Spanch. I rolled it over in my mind and was transported back to the party culture of the late 2000s-early 2010s. Spanch, it seemed to me, would have been integral to the partying experience. I think it would have been something that everyone knew about, but nobody quite knew what it was. It would have been applicable to every partying situation, sort of a staple of the time. You could wear it, drink it, dance to it, dance on it, dance around it, and you’d wanna get dancy if you had some. Spanch was material but also a mindset. You’d never leave the house without it, but there would also be a ton of it at your destination. So ambiguous! I think the best way to explain Spanch would be if you replaced a bunch of the words in a Kesha song with it:
“Wake up in the morning feeling like P. Diddy,
Grab my Spanch, I’m out the door I’m gonna hit this city,
Before I leave, brush my teeth, with a bottle of Spanch,
Cause when I leave for the night, I ain’t coming back…”
Or:
“Got that Spanch on my eyes,
Spanches ripped all up the side,
Looking sick and Spanch-ified,
So let’s go oh oh, let’s go!”
The really interesting thing about Spanch is the duality of its many meanings. For example, one might say, “I’m going out tonight. I’ve got my Spanch on real tight and I’m ready to party. I love to dance!” And you’d know they were about to get super turnt because they were wearing a Spanch. But then, when they’re at the party and things are getting mad crunk, maybe they’re feeling a little tipsy and they wanna get wild. They’d probably rip that Spanch right off and say, “My Spanch is on the floor and I’m ready to move! I love to dance!” Now you know they’re about to take it to the next level. See what I mean about duality? If one puts on their Spanch, they’re ready to party, but if they take off their Spanch, they’re really ready to party.
I think there’s also a little bit of musicality to Spanch. In the late 2000s it would have been a defining trait of EDM and Dubstep. You might approach the DJ at the club and be like, “Hey deej! This song is popping, but can you turn that Spanch up?” And of course they’d oblige, because the crowd goes nuts when they hear that Spanch. Or perhaps it would be more of an instrument one might play that would instantly up their cool factor. For example, your friend would come up to you and say, “Hey, are you going to the rave tonight? Jerry’s gonna be there, and I hear he plays the Spanch like nobody’s business.” And you would have responded, “Well I wasn’t gonna, but now I have to if Jerry plays the Spanch.” Jerry was just some nobody to you before, but now he’s basically a god among men because of that Spanch.
Above all, Spanch is a mentality. To really have a good time, you can’t just wear a Spanch or groove to a Spanch or play the Spanch. You have to feel the Spanch-tasy. I’d like to coin that, actually. To visualize the difference that feeling the Spanch-tasy makes, think about Dua Lipa doing that pencil sharpener dance move in 2018 vs. Dua Lipa’s dancing now. Dua then was totally Spanchless, and Dua now is Spanched up the wazoo.
There really is no definitive answer for what a Spanch is, and I think that’s the beauty of it. No matter what situation, Spanch can be applied. Spanch is you. Spanch is me. Just like Slim Shady in Eminem’s outro to “The Real Slim Shady,” there’s a little Spanch in all of us (let’s all stand up). Spanch isn’t anything really, but Spanch is everything (everywhere all at once starring Michelle Yeoh). Spanch is an icon of the 2000s, but it’s also timeless, like Shrek.
Anyway, I’ve just been reading 1984 by George Orwell for English class, and something I find fascinating is how The Party rewrites and alters history until nobody knows what really happened anymore. I think it’d be great if we could do that but instead of doing it for political reasons we just rewrite history to include Spanch. Not because I have any agenda, I just think it’d be kinda fun. And what’s the harm? I personally believe that if we just added a little Spanch to some of our less proud moments in history, we’d feel a lot better about them. Like how about, “Breaking News: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Condemns Jan 6 Insurrection: “The utter lack of Spanch that day was atrocious.” If Nancy had said that, all the insurrectionists would probably have gone, “You know what, she’s right. What we’re doing here is wrong and totally bonkers. We’re sorry.” And then they would have gone home with their tails tucked between their legs. Literally, for that guy with the horns.
That’s just one example of the positive effect that Spanch can have on people. I’m serious, it’ll change your life. So let’s hear it! Three cheers for Spanch!