The Worst Generation

Tom Brokaw famously said that those who grew up during the Great Depression and went on to fight in WWII were the "Greatest Generation." That's a pretty incontestable statement.  But if every God needs a Devil, and every Ke$ha a Miley, allow me to submit a candidate for the "Worst Generation": my generation.  Gen-Y.

We're self-entitled, self-obsessed, and impatient, and we've earned none of what we take for granted.  We've collectively killed much of what was good in the world and have given birth to all that is destroying it.  (Goodbye Blockbuster and libraries, hello Snapchat, and jeggings.)  This is a generation that votes more for American Idol than for President, and that watches Jersey Shore more than the News.  We have no real-world skills (other than being able to name every contestant on The Real World) and our biggest hardship is not having wifi.   

So in the spirit of condemnation, allow me to wax superior against my fellow Gen-Y-ers like a grumpy, old man.  This is why we suck.

Grammar.  We have no working base of it.  We embraced text-talk and began such demotic abbreviations as "totes" and "obvi" and "probs" in our daily vernacular (Ya know, because we're so important and our time is so valuable that we can't afford to waste it on suffixes.)

Values.  We worship and emulate the lifestyles of Hip-Hop starts that substantiate their lives with night clubs, bottle services and...well, that's about it.  

Celebrities.  Utterly meretricious.  Those that we've made famous are the least deserving of the fame.  Frank Sinatra wrote, sang, told jokes, danced, and acted.  Celebrities back then were renaissance men.  Now we have stars like Kim Kardashian who became famous by filming sex, and maintains her fame by filming the insignificant lives of her family (which by the way, is far less interesting than the former).

Music.  What we listen to doesn't deserve this title.  We should call it noise.  The popular genre of "dub-step" most closely resembles a Transformer having its way with a dial-up modem.  Heavy club beats, ambiguous lyrics, and shallow themes are the way of the future.  Nat King Cole, Otis Redding, the aforementioned Sinatra; these greats would turn over in their graves if they heard our radio stations today.  Here's quite the deep lyric in today's mix: "And I was like, baby, baby, baby, oh.  Like baby, baby, baby, oh.  Like baby, baby, baby, oh..." repeat ad nauseum.  Further evidence of music's decline is the wordsmith, Will.i.am, who has released such songs as "Boom Boom Pow," "Ba Bump," "Bang Bang," and "Ring-a-ling."  It has finally happened: the beauty of The Beatles and the talent of Led Zeppelin have been replaced by onomatopoeia.

Drugs.  I would argue that we use drugs more than the hippies of the 60's.  Weed, shrooms, MDMA, Adderall, Ambien, and acid are all prolific in our generation.  (It's how we're able to enjoy such awful music.)  All serving as quick and easy fixes to nonexistent problems--no wonder Gen-Y is so attracted to them.

Television.  We demand it instantly, free, and without interruptions.  Networks tried to compromise with us.  Yeah, we'll give you on-demand shows for free whenever you want, but someone has to pay for it, so how about a few ads here and there?  We replied with a swift screw you! and began illegally pirating and torrenting.  Not a very amenable generation.

iPhones.  Both the greatest and the worst invention of history.  Put a 20-someting year old in a waiting room, and I'll give you $100 for every second it takes him/her to pull out their 5s and start tapping away.  Chances are you're not getting a cent.  Between unrelenting texting and obsequiously checking every social media platform available, our eyes are rarely away from that 5x2 screen for more than a few minutes at a time.  This incredible device has the ability to hold a thousand symphonies, subscriptions to every publication you desire, and shelves-worth of books; you can check your bank account, your stock portfolio, and (for the paranoid type) your home security cameras; you can do your taxes and video chat with your grandma in The Netherlands--things that would make Alexander Graham Bell's head explode--but instead we use them to play Candy Crush and check if we have lettuce in our teeth.  Well done, all.  Well done.  And speaking of...

Social Media.  For some reason, we have fallen under the impression that everyone wants to know what we're doing at every waking moment.  Go to a bar, and bros are posting pictures of their drinks #TurnUp.  Go to a restaurant, and girls are Instagramming their meals #FoodPorn.  Go to a freeway, and people are driving while perusing pictures of drinks and meals with hashtags of #TurnUp and #FoodPorn.  Kill me.

Politics.  What's that?  Those old dudes on TV talking about oil in some sandy Crapistan?  No thanks, "Glee" is on.  I'm hyperbolizing here, but there is a point to be made.  World events take far the back burner to our daily minutia.  Come election time though, we can't resist a good rivalry.  However that doesn't produce the educated votes that you want.  We don't vote for anymore, we vote against.  Whatever network has the loudest, most besmirching voice, we believe it to be the right one.  If you ask why a Gen-Y voted for Obama, he'll likely tell you something bad about Romney, and visa versa. The lesser of two evils isn't an optimal decision point.  Find something and someone in which/whom you believe, and vote for.

Books.  Harry Potter and Twilight.  I know there's only a limited amount of Hemingways that can grace the earth with their presence and every generation has its fads, but does ours really have to be books about monsters and magic?  These are fairy tales.

Google.  I'd bet in 20 years no one will actually know anything.  Whatever information we need, we can access in a matter of seconds from the infinite database in our pockets.  No one will have to learn foreign languages, remember math formulae, or know how many cups are in a gallon by the time we have kids.  (Oh my God...we're going to have kids.  One terrible generation breeding an even worse one!)  I'm not saying it isn't a good reference tool to have for a double-check, but it has ruined trivia night at the bar forever.

Perhaps I'm over-vilifying, but there's truth to my slander.  Being raised, spoiled with the greatest technology nerds can offer, has turned us into narcissists.  From our first Game Boy to our latest MacBook, we've only ever known privilege.  I'm not condoning going amish, but go camping sometime; talk to your grandparents and see what "great" is.  Realize that you're lucky and show some appreciation.  Or at least share your weed.  Nana is in need of a good high, and I think Duck Dynasty is on next.

Will Write For Food

If an ad agency is looking for a good copywriter, they needn't look farther than the beggars they pass on their way to work.  I've been noticing that their signs are more clever and funny than most ads I see.  How do you walk by "TESTING HUMAN NATURE" and not smirk a little to yourself?  Or see a satirical "Need money for drugs" without a chuckle?  (On second thought, that one might not have been a joke...)  This generation of the homeless has a sense of humor, and it's refreshing.  I would rather give a dollar to wit than to chagrin any day.

Those folks would make great advertisers.  They have the creativity, they write to evoke emotion, and they have a great selling strategy: stick to areas of high traffic and areas of high traffic (the former being somewhere like a freeway on-ramp, and the latter being somewhere like a Jack n' the Box at 2 in the morning), because that's where they get the most money.  Earlier today I saw a man on the side of the road with a sign that read: "Start work on the 17th.  Need help until then."  I would love to see him again on the 18th with a sign saying: "Start work on the 30th.  Need help until then." because that would mean that he knows what makes people empathize and give, and he's using it.  Brilliant.

Yes, it seems necessity is a great motivator.  With just the most basic medium--a piece of cardboard and a sharpie--they must make their living.  They have 1 square foot of space to make their case and convince a stranger to stop walking by and give them their money.  That makes for good writing.

Or at least I hope.  Maybe they once were copywriters and I should fear for my own future.

Of Gods and Mind Control: Why I Want to be a Writer

I’ve always been attracted to creative endeavors.  Not in the sense of creativity, but in the sense of creating something from nothing.  The idea of turning a thought into a tangible product attracts me more than anything else.  Whether that be someone composing a song, or a director turning an idea birthed in a haze of bourbon and weed smoke into a multimillion-dollar box office hit (looking at you here, Judd Apatow), the ability to create is godlike.

There’s a powerful aspect of legacy behind it as well.  Long after the architect dies, evidence of that original thought will live on in the skyline of the city, movies and music will remain in the Internet’s ether forever, and barring any future book-burnings, a writer’s creations will also stand the test of time on their shelves.  If the work is good enough, these creators become immortal.

But for me, more of the allure of creating lies in the mystique of it.  We see the result, the finished product, but it all starts with an idea, and the source is a vast unknown.  I’ve had an idea for an ad come to me weeks after reading the magazine article that first sparked the thought.  The brain takes in everything you see, read, notice, and hear, and if you’re lucky, it’ll marinate into the Big Idea that is exactly what you weren’t looking for.  But it’ll do this whenever it damn well pleases.  (On many a night I’ve had to will myself out of the comfort of my warm bed at 2 in the morning to write down some line that emerged from the creative subconscious before I forget it by morning.)

Writing has the ability to make people cry and laugh, physically react, to a mere string of words on paper.  That’s power.  To hear 60 seconds of some dialogue and be so moved as to have an emotional connection is to be taken hostage by its writing.  Scriptwriters, stand-up comedians, copywriters—these people have the power of mind control.  That’s why I want to be a writer.

That, plus you can drink at work.