For those who do not belong to my generation--Generation Y, the Millennials, the Echo Boomers, whatever the hell we call ourselves--you have not been granted license to comment on, criticize, justify, analyze or define what we do as a collective market demographic in any way, shape or form.
My opening statement seems harsh, but all too often in the press I have to listen to the commentary of sources who are interested in studying the behavior of all of us born between 1980 and 2000 and only sparingly finding those born within these decades to actually provide appropriate perspective.
All of this bile comes from an Orlando Sentinel story about the web-cam suicide of Abraham Biggs, a Broward College student who intentionally overdosed on benzodiazepine and opiates in front of an online audience. Click the title "They Just Like the Attention" above to read for yourself.
After reading the story, I immediately thought of the 1987 suicide of disgraced Pennsylvania treasurer R. Budd Dwyer, when he held a televised press conference to shoot himself with a revolver in front of the press and a live audience.
These stories are more different than they are similar, I know, but from the research I've done, the story of Dwyer's suicide never highlighted how his generation had "a penchant for sharing intimate details about themselves over the [television]."
The quote from 38-year-old Montana Miller, assistant professor of Pop Culture at Bowling Green State University, is disconcerting, if not downright insulting: "If it's not recorded or documented then it doesn't even seem worthwhile. For today's generation it might seem, 'What's the point of doing it if everyone isn't going to see it?'" As a source, her commentary is anecdotal, providing no factual evidence for the wildly broad generalization she has assigned to this particular group of individuals. And as a journalist, I would have no use for this source's commentary in the case of this 19-year-old's death.
I'm sure that many Millennials have taken flak from journalists and experts about how privileged we have been during our coming of age, what with our computers, iPods, cell phones, five-year on-going wars, four-dollar gasoline, our luxuriously high cost of education and high parental divorce rates. There's a lot to be jealous of, I know, but that's not our fault.
It was the hippies that created the internet. We just learned how to use it. Sure, the web, still only in its infancy, has revolutionized practically every facet of our lives in the last 8 years, and as a generation, we do have a strong dependence on it for information and entertainment.
But being quoted as saying that, as a generation, we would find a public suicide on the internet to be "not shocking, given the way teenagers chronicle every facet of their lives on sites like Facebook and MySpace," is wrong. It's undeniable that Miller, in her expert opinion, could have easily found sources born between 1980 and 2000, from an eight-year-old to a 28-year-old, who could provide plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Fun Fact: Wikipedia has a link to the video of R. Budd Dwyer shooting himself in the head. Will I not be shocked when I view it in this revolutionary 21st Century media outlet?
No. We watched two buildings fall in New York City. Duh. Everybody knows how passé that has become.
I also think my 11-year-old cousin, Jenna, would echo my callous dismissal of the melodrama that is broadcast public suicide.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Sapulpa Daily Herald printed its Wednesday morning paper without a story on the result of the 2008 presidential election.
Protesters outside the offices of the local newspaper in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, a town of just under 20,000 people according to the 2000 census, by the absence of an Obama story when the paper chose to run a paragraph about McCain's majority in Creek County.
Considering the historical enormity of this election and the man it has chosen to guide our country after two tumultuous presidential terms at the turn of our century, I have to agree with the protesters that believe the decision made by this particular news organization displays, at the very least, an unforgivable lack of news judgment and, at the very most, an act of institutionalized bigotry.
Publisher Darren Sumner, argued in defense of the paper's actions, or lack thereof, that readers of the Sapulpa Daily Herald's roughly 5,000 circulation weren't dependent on the paper's election coverage saying he was sure that they read about it, watched it on TV and followed it on the internet.
When one considers the money this little daily could have made by printing a historic front page for future reproductions, these actions, in sound business sense, are downright ignorant.
Protesters outside the offices of the local newspaper in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, a town of just under 20,000 people according to the 2000 census, by the absence of an Obama story when the paper chose to run a paragraph about McCain's majority in Creek County.
Considering the historical enormity of this election and the man it has chosen to guide our country after two tumultuous presidential terms at the turn of our century, I have to agree with the protesters that believe the decision made by this particular news organization displays, at the very least, an unforgivable lack of news judgment and, at the very most, an act of institutionalized bigotry.
Publisher Darren Sumner, argued in defense of the paper's actions, or lack thereof, that readers of the Sapulpa Daily Herald's roughly 5,000 circulation weren't dependent on the paper's election coverage saying he was sure that they read about it, watched it on TV and followed it on the internet.
When one considers the money this little daily could have made by printing a historic front page for future reproductions, these actions, in sound business sense, are downright ignorant.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Islam Is The Light
I work at Target. Why? Because I have rent to pay.
This Saturday, the day in which our sales are the highest, my supervisor put me to work in the toy department. This shift involves dealing with eight hours of screaming, ill-behaved children while digging through the stockroom for this year's Hot New Toy for their four-year-old sons and daughters.
And I think I found one I could fall in love with.
The "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo," from Fisher Price, has been annoying me for the past three months. Half of a department store aisle is reserved for stocking five boxes of these animatronic dolls, that detect customer movement and simultaneaously drone to the same recorded baby-cooing audio. The effect of this chorus of robot-infants is nothing short of terrifying when experienced without due warning.
Everytime I work in the toy department, I expect their batteries to have died by now, but they never have.
Their sound is so insidious that customers are now hearing terrorist propaganda in those voices. Get this, Fox News reported on Oct. 9th that Target stores in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma received complaints from outraged customers who had heard the phrase, "Islam is the light," in the doll's audio track.
But here's the damnedest thing about it: Those customers are right.
Every time someone sees Jesus in a pizza crust, hears Satan in a warped Beatles record and God from eating bread mold, I treat the phenomena like an exercise in distraction, and worse, a flimsy premise for escaping horrifying realities that have actually been explained, but are disbelieved nonetheless.
Two customers, one with a video camera, brought this to the attention of my boss, my coworker and myself and, like the natural skeptic that I am, I resisted validating them until I prompted the toy myself, after they had been taken them off our shelves and moved to the Receiving Department.
It was a weird feeling when I heard the startlingly coherent utterance in my own ears, some vaguely navigated emotion: total clarity within monumental improbability. Like going to Vegas, with one bill, and hitting the jackpot on the first slot machine you saw.
All I could say to myself, then, was: "Well, is Islam the light?"
Even two broken clocks, one with a video camera, are right twice a day. Fine. Okay. So what? Did I feel threatened by this realization? No. Did I feel its propaganda had infected my thinking in one way or the other? No. Did I comfortably go on with the rest of my life? Of course, because everybody, including myself, has more to be worried about than the topics of discussion among talking-fucking-dolls.
I consider this story to be really be about the most elaborate inside prank within the Mattel Corporation.
One that doesn't validate the prophesying of quacks and kooks unless you also validate the idea that creating a terrorist requires little more than to insert four words into a toy.
One that gives understanding of and clarity to our real fears by creating fake ones.
One that might be aimed at making the public actually look stupider for being right than they would for being wrong.
One that makes for inspired blogging at the very least.
If there is a good kind of terrorism, this would be it.
This Saturday, the day in which our sales are the highest, my supervisor put me to work in the toy department. This shift involves dealing with eight hours of screaming, ill-behaved children while digging through the stockroom for this year's Hot New Toy for their four-year-old sons and daughters.
And I think I found one I could fall in love with.
The "Little Mommy Real Loving Baby Cuddle and Coo," from Fisher Price, has been annoying me for the past three months. Half of a department store aisle is reserved for stocking five boxes of these animatronic dolls, that detect customer movement and simultaneaously drone to the same recorded baby-cooing audio. The effect of this chorus of robot-infants is nothing short of terrifying when experienced without due warning.
Everytime I work in the toy department, I expect their batteries to have died by now, but they never have.
Their sound is so insidious that customers are now hearing terrorist propaganda in those voices. Get this, Fox News reported on Oct. 9th that Target stores in Pennsylvania and Oklahoma received complaints from outraged customers who had heard the phrase, "Islam is the light," in the doll's audio track.
But here's the damnedest thing about it: Those customers are right.
Every time someone sees Jesus in a pizza crust, hears Satan in a warped Beatles record and God from eating bread mold, I treat the phenomena like an exercise in distraction, and worse, a flimsy premise for escaping horrifying realities that have actually been explained, but are disbelieved nonetheless.
Two customers, one with a video camera, brought this to the attention of my boss, my coworker and myself and, like the natural skeptic that I am, I resisted validating them until I prompted the toy myself, after they had been taken them off our shelves and moved to the Receiving Department.
It was a weird feeling when I heard the startlingly coherent utterance in my own ears, some vaguely navigated emotion: total clarity within monumental improbability. Like going to Vegas, with one bill, and hitting the jackpot on the first slot machine you saw.
All I could say to myself, then, was: "Well, is Islam the light?"
Even two broken clocks, one with a video camera, are right twice a day. Fine. Okay. So what? Did I feel threatened by this realization? No. Did I feel its propaganda had infected my thinking in one way or the other? No. Did I comfortably go on with the rest of my life? Of course, because everybody, including myself, has more to be worried about than the topics of discussion among talking-fucking-dolls.
I consider this story to be really be about the most elaborate inside prank within the Mattel Corporation.
One that doesn't validate the prophesying of quacks and kooks unless you also validate the idea that creating a terrorist requires little more than to insert four words into a toy.
One that gives understanding of and clarity to our real fears by creating fake ones.
One that might be aimed at making the public actually look stupider for being right than they would for being wrong.
One that makes for inspired blogging at the very least.
If there is a good kind of terrorism, this would be it.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Crisis
Today, my generation has reached a landmark. For years, our baby-boomer parents have griped about how "we" have it so good and how "they" had real problems to deal with in their day. Like waiting in line to fill their tanks at the gas pump.
Now, my peers and I can officially tell our parents' generation what part of our bodies they can eat because it has finally happened to us.
For me, September 12th was pay-day and my gas-light was on. The weight of the situation hit me as soon as I saw the party of vehicles patiently waiting for their turn at the 16 or more pumps provided.
As I waited patiently for the Chevy Tahoe in front of me, I realized that this particular customer probably has to spend twice as much to fill a tank twice as big as the 12 gallons I put into my '03 Honda Civic. She probably has to fill it up more than twice every two weeks as well.
The sheer number and frequency of fill-ups at the Avalon Park Mobile station made the pumps operate brutally slow. I counted an increase of ten cents over 2 seconds. After spending $47 dollars to fill my 12-13 gallon tank, it is accurate to say that the pump required a little over 15 minutes to displace 13 gallons of fuel.
Incredible.
I hope that this experience was only a fluke. Nevertheless, I still believe it to be important that in the 6 years I have been a licensed driver, the price of gas has doubled. Doubled! I've checked the math countless times. Our parents did not have shell out twice the scratch to fill their tanks by the time they were 22 and in college, but alas, nobody said that life, or the business of oil, was fair.
I feel better having blogged it though,
EAW
Now, my peers and I can officially tell our parents' generation what part of our bodies they can eat because it has finally happened to us.
For me, September 12th was pay-day and my gas-light was on. The weight of the situation hit me as soon as I saw the party of vehicles patiently waiting for their turn at the 16 or more pumps provided.
As I waited patiently for the Chevy Tahoe in front of me, I realized that this particular customer probably has to spend twice as much to fill a tank twice as big as the 12 gallons I put into my '03 Honda Civic. She probably has to fill it up more than twice every two weeks as well.
The sheer number and frequency of fill-ups at the Avalon Park Mobile station made the pumps operate brutally slow. I counted an increase of ten cents over 2 seconds. After spending $47 dollars to fill my 12-13 gallon tank, it is accurate to say that the pump required a little over 15 minutes to displace 13 gallons of fuel.
Incredible.
I hope that this experience was only a fluke. Nevertheless, I still believe it to be important that in the 6 years I have been a licensed driver, the price of gas has doubled. Doubled! I've checked the math countless times. Our parents did not have shell out twice the scratch to fill their tanks by the time they were 22 and in college, but alas, nobody said that life, or the business of oil, was fair.
I feel better having blogged it though,
EAW
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Hi. Let's be friends.
Today is the First for me and my blog. We thought about it for a long time, talked openly about our feelings with it and decided that we were both mature and ready. Mutually.
So on this first day, rather than comment on the Caylee Anthony story, I would like to take a paragraph to remember Be Your Own Pet, the Nashville punk outfit that could have been the best band you never heard. If their four years of service were only to put out one tremendous album (Be Your Own Pet, 2006), put out one not-as-tremendous album (Get Awkward, 2008), break a lot of microphones, and give this 22-year-old speed nerd a reason to get up in the morning, than it would have all been worth it.
God bless those wirey punks,
EAW
So on this first day, rather than comment on the Caylee Anthony story, I would like to take a paragraph to remember Be Your Own Pet, the Nashville punk outfit that could have been the best band you never heard. If their four years of service were only to put out one tremendous album (Be Your Own Pet, 2006), put out one not-as-tremendous album (Get Awkward, 2008), break a lot of microphones, and give this 22-year-old speed nerd a reason to get up in the morning, than it would have all been worth it.
God bless those wirey punks,
EAW
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