Our Culture

I don’t know if it’s human tendency or just human laziness to sum up a socio-cultural period in a few basic concepts, which may or may not represent the whole. But it sure as hell is human something. We do it, and I doubt our kids will be any different.

In America, a relatively new country, we have had our share of major recent events; it has been quite a chapter in our collective history. Like every other generation, ours has been both battered and lifted up by the tides of time. It’s really quite a story, when you think about it. But that’s for the history books. When my kids look back at my generation, what will they see? Will they see a tattered, burning, but remarkably intact banner flapping in the high winds of the past?

Nope.

When we look at previous generations, we consider a few things: how they dressed, how they talked, what was cool, and what they liked. And usually, we laugh about it. Will our children laugh, do you think? Will they fail to understand our times and circumstances, and remember only the silly things?

Nope, again. They’ll probably get it right, and still find us freaking hilarious. Or, at least, yours will. The first time my kids give me some lip, I’m putting all their toys in a box in the front yard. The box will say: “Joseph Jr.’s Free Stuff! Please Take and Enjoy!” I’ll also only refer to my children as “Mouth to Feed” or “Tax Write-off” until they bring me the pelt of a lion they’ve slain with their bare hands. I want to set high standards.

But that isn’t really my point. My point is, what will future generations remember about this particular decade?

How we dress: From what I can tell – which might not be very much – there are two schools of fashion right now. There’s the Retro camp, where you wear clothes that seem to say “I jumped Marty McFly, stole the De Lorian, and drove it to a dumpster from the early 1980’s”: Pre-faded, fitted jeans, because you don’t have the time to fade them yourself, and old school Puma knock-offs that will never see any break dancing. And from the shoulders up, you do your absolute best to look like a member of the Beatles. But the most important part is to own some crappy vinyl, emphatically hate the Republican party, and generally never look like you’re having any fun. Ever. The fastest way to look fashionably retro: (1) steal some of your dad’s old clothes from when he was skinny, (2) wear them, (3) punch yourself in the crotch, (4) hold that expression and walk around listening to your iPod. Of course, the other side of fashion is to be Metro. This is really more of a uniform, preferably for the young and the willing (to blow money on clothes). You need some shiny shoes, and then some dark jeans. Then, a shirt with stripes. Finally, add a blazer, because not only is it snazzy, but it also makes you look way more like Tubbs. Finally, unload an Exxon-Valdez-sized amount of gel into your hair and pay $20 for a drink at a club where none of the women want you. The look you’re going for is a combination of “idiot businessman” and “the sort of douche that bought a Segway.”

(Of course, all of that is for guys. I won’t really comment on how girls dress, on the grounds that there are way too many fashions, I don’t know which ones are “in,” and it would take much too much effort to find out. The only thing I can comment on is those fur-lined, stylized Eskimo boots that some girls wear. They make you look really… smart. Like Einstein, but more willing to do coke off of a frat guy’s hairy chest.)

How we talk: It would be cliché and overbearing to say that we are killing the English language. This language has survived any amount of permutation and slang; there’s no reason we shouldn’t expect this to continue. I will say, though, that we’ve walloped the English language in the head with a shovel, or at least gotten it really drunk as a child and then taught it the ABC’s in entirely the wrong order. The mere fact that I can say that we have “retardified” the language should be proof enough. But there are plenty more examples – for instance, every single time somebody says lol, brb, or – and I swear to God I’ve heard this – stfu. And how about the word “crunk?” If I were a foreigner, new to our hallowed shores, I would guess that word meant one of two things: it’s either some wonderful, American gadget that I don’t know about, or it’s a euphemism for pooping (note: this would be awesome). And as a native, I still have no idea what it means or even how to use it. Honestly, if I had to pick the three main sources of influence on modern American slang, it would be the internet, bad hip hop, and Dave Chappelle when he makes fun of bad hip hop. And that is depressing as crunk.

What we do: When I say ‘what we do,’ I refer to trendy practices. For instance, in the 1950’s, from what I gather, high schoolers used to drive souped-up cars to the diner, where they would wear each others’ varsity jackets and go steady. Occasionally, they would race cars in dried out river beds, dance a lot, and try to kiss a barely attractive Sandy underneath the bleachers. Also, hair gel abounded.

Well, I guess we have some of the same things. We just hip-ified them, right? We hang out at Starbucks, even though we all sneer about how commercial it is. “Going steady” has sort of given way to “getting with somebody on Craigslist, and being happy when they don’t slice off my head and wear it as a hat.” River-bed racing has moved onto the streets, where it’s even stupider. Also, cars are way faster, so people get killed more violently, which is either better or worse, I can’t really tell. We still dance, only now it’s so we can either simulate doing it through our clothes, or look like somebody jammed an active espresso machine up our bums. And Sandy is still pretty mediocre-looking, but she’s now in a tube-top, short shorts, spike heels, and is around twelve -years old (replace “kissing” with “nailing during lunch period”). We still use hair gel.

But you know what will always be cool? Following your dreams. Hey, chin up, kid. Just be yourself.

What we like: With the exceptions of hip hop and the ever-more disenfranchised metal scene, we have music that is really into being moody and disaffected, because, man… just… psssh, you wouldn’t understand. It has all the goth impulses, but none of the goth power chords or entertaining corollaries, such as really bad poetry, sad clown faces, or spiked underwear. Our children will look back and think, “You guys loved to complain, but you didn’t have the common decency to look like evil, learning-disabled mimes.” The indie movement would be so much more acceptable if they all dressed like Kiss, instead of acting like a twice-removed hippie generation on Prozac.

You know what else we’re into? Being green. Ever since Al Gore used the wipe, bounce, and bars transitions to win a Nobel Prize, our society has become pretty green-conscious. Which is nice, even though we suck at it. When our kids ask us why we as a people didn’t, you know, give private industry or anybody with real scientists incentives to find a sustainable energy alternative, instead of depending on fringe researchers, sporadic funding, and alarmist political morons with no understanding of science at all, we can say … well, it won’t matter what you say then, because the future is going to be exactly like “Waterworld,” so we’d all be about 4 seconds away from being killed by a maniac on a jet-ski. And then he’s going to take all of our cigarettes. So just save your breath.

Finally, we love reality TV. If anything embodies our crippled, knock-kneed, carb-avoiding cultural zeitgeist*, it would have to be American Idol. It’s loud, it has a lot of lights, and all the contestants generally use other peoples’ material. Our parents’ culture gave us things like Led Zeppelin, Andy Kaufman, and Krush Groove, godammit. The fact that we’ve produced things like Kelly Clarkson to bequeath to our children is probably a sign that we deserved to lose the Cold War. “Sorry kids, no modern Beatles. But Britney Spears’ various body parts finally got their own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! Eh? Eh?”

Oh man. Did I just criticize, like, a bunch of stuff? Crunk.

*I have become obsessed with this term/concept.