COLUMN: The new kids on the block
In a recent upper-level political science class, my professor began making references to the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky scandal and stopped to make sure that the class was aware of who Monica Lewinsky was. My professor often plays this self-ridiculing, “not with it” card during lectures about his lack of knowledge of modern pop culture.
It’s a funny gag and we always seem to reward him with one of those semi-obligatory classroom chuckles but the true gag is that its not really a joke. As we roll our eyes and say “yes, professor, of course we have seen ‘Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure,’ ” there is a sub-textual depth as each of us wonders to ourselves how many students in a 1000-level course would have no idea what we were talking about.
This year’s freshman class is well past the 1990 birthday line, and while a few year’s difference would not seem to separate the goats from the sheep I believe we have already passed through a generational shift.
I have seen it so many times: someone makes an off-hand reference to the “Back to the Future,” (Original) “Star Wars,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” and even “Lord of the Rings” trilogies only to be met by a chorus of blank stares. I’ve suppressed many a shudder as someone around me refers to “Hallelujah” as “the Shrek song.”
I admit, I’m out of touch. While I could name all five spice girls and rank them in hotness – Sporty, as a matter of fact – I don’t have the slightest idea what the Jonas Brothers’ names are – is there a Nick? – and if it hadn’t been for the idiotic blundering of the Canadian Olympic Committee playing it during their opening ceremonies, I would’ve had no idea that Miley Cyrus sings “Party in the U.S.A.”
But beyond my own failures to keep up with the times, the times have changed nonetheless. There was once a time when an afternoon off meant 3-on-3 basketball in someone’s driveway. Now, most guys I know sit alone in their basement apartments with a head-set on, “pwning n00bs” for hours while their body begins to eat itself from malnourishment. Frankly, if the above sentence describes you, you’re getting pwned by life.
I took an afternoon and looked through the Statesman archives from 1909. I read news stories about individual undergraduates’ summer plans, saw advertisements for fountain pens – what you “can’t make it through the semester without” – and found that our 1909 men’s football team soundly beat Ogden High School. Fast forward to last Wednesday, and we read that ASUSU is considering dropping $21,000 on an app that will allow us to seclude ourselves further into the shiny glow of our smart phones rather than walk to third floor of the TSC and deal with an actual human being. One comforting thing about that 100-year-old paper was the S.E. Needham Jewelers ad. At least there are some things you can always depend on. I mean that, thank you Needham family, for all that you do for USU.
In “The Social Network” J.T. makes the statement that “we lived on farms, we lived in cities, and now we’re going to live on the Internet.” The new generation does just that, they live on the Internet. They live on their iPhones, they live on Facebook and they live on Twitter. In one day they send more text messages than they utter full sentences.
What worries me is that instead of using their iPads to find out what’s going on in the world around them, they’re watching YouTube videos of women getting hit in the face by watermelons, and, well, porn.
I know that there are many among the new generation that are upstanding, civil, conscious, forward thinking, intellectually competent individuals. I also fully acknowledge that among my own generation are many blithering idiots. Still, I look around and see the steady decline of our culture into a cesspool of of trolling blog-posters. There’s nothing we can really do about it though; it’s their generation now and they’ll do with it what they will. Us aged and decrepit can only sit back and hope it doesn’t get out of hand.
Benjamin Wood is the editor in chief of The Utah Statesman. He can be reached at statesmaneditor@aggiemail.usu.edu