I have this suspicion
that I might be the voice of my generation. This is not good news.
It started when I was live tweeting
The Walking Dead the other night. It’s something a lot of people do, at least a
lot of the people I follow on Twitter. You just tweet your reactions to the
show. So about halfway through the episode there was this scene where one of
the main characters had gotten their shoulder popped out of joint and another
character was straining to pop it back in, and I tweeted, “Healthcare.Gov is
still down, eh?”
Lame, I know. Doesn’t really mean
anything. This comment was re-tweeted 76 times. 76 people thought that was
worth sharing with the world. I couldn’t believe it. I was aghast, in fact.
So, the next day I tried a little
experiment, only this time on Facebook. I posted a comment that said, ‘Ken
Cuccinelli looks like the evil rat in Ratatouille that kidnaps Remy and tries
to stop him from achieving his dreams.” Within four hours, this comment had 156
‘Likes’ and 21 comments, most of which said something like, ‘Ha’ or ‘I never
noticed that, but that’s so true!’
Here’s the thing. There is no evil
rat in Ratatouille that kidnaps Remy. I made that up. I don’t think Ken
Cuccinelli looks even remotely like a rat. Not only is that comment vapid and
mean, it’s completely made-up. But good lord did it get attention.
I don’t even follow politics! All I
know about Ken Cuccinelli is that he is a Republican. That is it.
I know what you’re thinking, that
just because people respond well to the dumb stuff I say in social media, that
doesn’t mean I’m the voice of my generation. That I’m making a bit of a jump.
How about this, then—I was at Starbucks last night, and when I ordered an
espresso the guy at the counter asked me if I wanted a single or a double I
slapped the counter and said ‘Double Down!’ Not only did the Starbucks worker
laugh, a guy sitting a nearby table laughed and said Starbucks should make
shirts with that logo on it. Are you kidding me?
What kind of generation gets me as
its voice? I have nothing to say! Every word that comes out of my mouth is
either the result of blind panic or a hot burning need for acceptance. Is that
who we are, as a people? How is that possible when we’re coming out of two
really nasty wars? In the 50’s they got JD Salinger as their voice, and he
might have secretly been kind of a creep in his real life, but at least he has
a point of view. At least he meant some of the things he said. All I do is
bitch and moan.
I guess you could make the case that
‘Catcher in the Rye’ is bitching and moaning. But have you read ‘A Perfect Day
for Bananafish?’ That story is amazing! And it means something!
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