Pickup artist invades UK

By Megan Hurt

Upon seeing the hourglass near the Mining Engineering Building, sparkling hats and hearing about a mysterious person named Tynan who will speak on campus, students may be wondering if UK is being “Punk’d” by Ashton Kutcher.

And when students hear that Tynan, wearing his trademark glittered star hat, will ride around campus on his electric skateboard, they might definitely think UK is being “Punk’d.”

It’s not.

Tynan is a real person, who is being brought to campus by the UK Entrepreneurs Club to give a free speech to students Thursday at 8 p.m. in Memorial Hall.

So how do you describe someone who has done everything from dropping out of school to living off winnings from online gaming, explored the infamous underground tunnels of the University of Texas, almost got arrested for visiting the restricted areas of the French Catacombs and sold everything he owned to travel the world?

Even Tynan can’t decide on one specific title to attribute to himself.

“I’ve thought about what title to give myself. I wanted to have a title to give to people for this event (at UK), but I can’t pick one,” he said.

Tynan admits he does things that other people would say are outside the social norm, but he is more concerned with taking advantage of the world around him than worrying about what other people think.

“The world’s an amazing place,” Tynan said. “Every day I am excited about life. It seems like people stick to the same paths, like everyone else, but I try to find new things to do differently. I think it’s important to take advantage of being alive.”

Tynan recently embarked on a new adventure when he sold all his possessions, including his condo, and bought an RV, which inspired him to travel the world for the past year.

“I was a 21-year-old professional gambler, I had just bought a house and I was very materialistic,” Tynan said. “I had an entire room in my house devoted to junk I bought on eBay; all this stuff I didn’t need.”

He sold a lot of it back on eBay, but when it came time to move he still had too much junk. So, Tynan said he posted a listing on Craigslist.com for people to come pick up the left over items for free.

“At first, with people coming in and grabbing this and leaving with that, I thought, ‘I paid all this money for this stuff and they are just taking it,’ but then I realized it felt good getting rid of it. I had been overwhelmed by stuff,” Tynan said.

Tynan said he’s lived an extraordinary life, but he wants to give credit to his own attitude for making it happen.

“It’s my general thought that everybody gets the same opportunities in life. There are some degrees of advantages, but generally I think everyone has the skills to use in life,” Tynan said. “I certainly have had bad things happen to me, but I focus on the great things. When you get an opportunity, you should take it.”

Tynan admits dropping out of college worked for him, but he regrets how he spent the time he was in college and wants to encourage UK students to take advantage of their college years.

“I didn’t make very good use of my time in college. People tell you college is a time to prepare you for real life, but students should really use the time to live their life. Think of college as real life,” Tynan said.

Tynan’s topic will be “Living Life Awesome,” and he will present a list of interesting things in his life and let the audience vote on what he should talk more in depth about.