Huuuula Hoop or Hula Hoooop

While I was eating my lunch today, I had a packet of Hula Hoops. One of these cylidrical tube shaped potato snacks was not like the others. It was long. At least two regular crisps in length.

Rather than just eating and enjoying it like a normal human being, I looked at it and laughed. My brain came up with: ‘is this a Huuuula Hoop or a Hula Hoooop?’

Instead of leaving it there, I thought it would be a funny poll to put on Instagram. I’d enjoyed the thought, so I thought other people might too.

We all know that Instagram can be wonky in terms of how it works and who things are shown to, but I’m not here to discuss that - like everyone else, I have absolutely no idea how it works and it’s not worth wasting time guessing at it or buying into someone else’s guesses either. Nobody knows how Instagram works.

I posted a quick throwaway poll on my stories asking ‘What is this?’, with two answers:

• Huuuula Hoop

• Hula Hoooop

At the end of the poll, the final results were 31% and 69% (nice) respectively. Most people believe that it’s a longer hoooop.

I discussed this with my friend Amy, who instantly said ‘the hoop is regular size - it’s not a bigger hoop, it’s a bigger hula’.

My reaction was that it’s a bigger hoop, but then delving into that, I realised that she was absolutely right. The hoop, a circle of determined size, has remained the same.

When you hula hoop with your body, the hoop remains the same size, and the hula is the side to side (front to back?) motion, which moves the hoop.

If you were to plot a professional hula hooper on a graph, the hoop is the X axis (horizontal, a circle on a flat plane) and the person doing the hula motion is the Y axis (it can move up and down the body - could be hula’d on the neck, chest, waist, legs, etc.)

Now consider the lengthy Hula Hoop on that same graph. It is only ever one width (X axis) and generally the same height (Y axis). It makes more sense to plot the height (or length) of the Hula Hoop on the Y axis, like a reconstituted potato bar chart.

With some logical thinking and a short conversation, my opinion on the matter has changed. I agree with Amy’s view that this is a Huuuula Hoop, rather than a Hula Hoooop.

I know that this is completely irrelevant crisp (snack?) based meandering, but I’ll shoehorn in a broader life view here:

Take time to think about what you believe, speak to people with different opinions, and come to your own conclusions instead of just following the loudest people.

NOBODY KNOWS HOW INSTAGRAM WORKS.