Flo Rida

Last Sunday, my weekly attempts to finish work and remove myself from the hole I had procrastinated myself into were interrupted when a slip of paper slid under my dorm room door.

“Do you have what it takes to win a free Flo Rida concert for your school?” the small sheet challenged.

The paper was promoting GroupMe’s “Flo Finda” challenge, in which 10 universities across the nation (including the good ol’ University of Maryland) are going head-to-head in GroupMe-related challenges to see who can bring Flo Rida to their school.

Obviously, GroupMe must be a pretty cool, hip and trendy messaging app, because 1) they know Flo Rida and 2) the slip of paper included pictures of things all college students love, including emojis, basketball jerseys, money signs, bacon, tiny caricatures of Flo Rida’s face blasting off as if they were comets, basketballs hooked onto fishing rods and whistles, for some reason. [Ed. note: “Whistle” was a popular song off of Flo Rida’s 2012 album Wild Ones. That does not make these cartoons any less absurd.]

I turned the paper over and read the words, “Let the craziness begin.” As someone who loves craziness, I was a thrilled to discover that the only two steps one I to complete to acquire the craziest craziness there ever was were to 1) download GroupMe and 2) add my school as a contact. If that’s not craziness then I don’t know what is!

I had to know more about this. Suddenly, finding Flo Rida was my top priority.

Unfortunately, this challenge made it clear that Flo Rida is a sneaky little minx, and there’s actually a lot one must do to find him.

On the GroupMe Facebook page, I uncovered a YouTube video in which Flo Rida released his first clue for the challenge. This video seemed almost like a parody of itself, considering GroupMe had spelled Flo Rida’s name “Flo Rinda”in the title of the clip and Flo Rida gave his clue in the form of a “Flo Riddle.” Yes, just to make that abundantly clear, “Flo Riddle” was a term that a sunglasses-clad Flo Rida actually said out loud.

According to flofinda.com, this university is currently in eighth place out of the ten schools that are using GroupMe to hunt for Flo Rida.

Even if our school doesn’t win the Flo Rida concert, which at this point seems likely, I’m glad that some school will inevitably find Flo Rida. It’s a scary world out there, and even the most cunning and intelligent of “Flo Riddles” can’t save Flo from the harshness of the natural world.

Then again, maybe by some stroke of luck Maryland will win the challenge. I guess the only question left is, do we have what it takes?