Missoula trend goes viral #frosting

If you want to join Frosters Anonymous you'd better act like it's summer and have a camera to prove it.

Facebook users are posting photos of themselves playing golf, going kayaking and even sun tanning, but these pictures weren't taken last summer — they were shot last week.

Frosting is a new trend where people get dressed up in bikinis and swimming trunks and take photos of themselves doing things that are reserved for summer.

It all started when John Brownell's gazebo collapsed last Thursday after the storm dumped a foot and a half of snow on Missoula, and Brownell had to clean up the damage. That afternoon he grabbed his lawn furniture and started throwing it off the deck.

"I threw it in the snow and thought it'd be funny for someone to sit out there like it was summer," Brownell said.

That's when it hit him.

Brownell grabbed a robe, a cup of coffee, a Playboy and yelled for his wife to grab the camera.

"I went out there and tried to be really careful not to mess up the snow and acted like I was just enjoying the weather," Brownell said.

He posted it to a few friends on Facebook, all of who shot back their own.

Ryan "Shmed" Maynes was first. "John took a photo outside just to be funny, so I took one of me in my underwear on the deck and called it frosting," Maynes said.

Brownell's friend Colin Hickey posted his shot to his popular page called "Montana is for Badasses" and almost immediately it started going viral.

"What I didn't realize was that that page had like 60,000 followers," Brownell said. "I posted it and in like an hour it had over 100 likes."

Hickey then created the Facebook page "Frosters Anonymous" and right away people started posting their own types of frosting. There are shots of people lying on beach towels, building snowcastles with kids, barbequing and even "surfing" giant waves of snow in their underwear.

"There was so much snow [in Missoula] that I think people felt stuck," Brownell said. "I think this was a fun way for them to break out for awhile."

Over 4,000 people have liked "Frosters Anonymous." It was created six days ago and the momentum doesn't seem to be slowing down. People from other states as far away as New York and Alaska have started jumping in on the fun. Even news organizations from around Montana and blogs from all over the U.S. have picked up on the trend.

"It's crazy. It's just fun to watch," said Brownell. "I think it shows people from other states that Missoulians are kind of a wild bunch."

dameon.matule@um