I will preface this first post by saying that I hate pop culture. Truly, there is nothing I disdain more than my generation and the trends we have adopted. The fascination with the famous and their escapades both saddens and disturbs me. And what I can’t understand is why. Not why it disturbs me, I understand my own contempt for my peers, but why we choose to live our lives by the current standard of reality television and
E! news. When did it become acceptable to be a whore at 12? Why are 10 year old boys in the mall cat calling me and asking if I need a pimp? What the Hell has happened to the youth of America?
And who is to blame?
There’s a fantastic writer by the name of Chuck Klosterman, who wrote a fantastic book titled
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Go now, buy a copy, and read it. I’ll wait here for your return…
::makes a sandwich::
Now that you have read the book, you’ll understand why blame must be assigned in this particular instance, because to do nothing would negate the purpose of this blog/rant/dissertation on societal downfall.
I blame Disney. Here’s why:
When I was a child, I used to watch the Disney channel, and it was great. After school there were great cartoons, like
Tailspin, Duck Tales, and my personal favorite,
Darkwing Duck. In the evening, after dinner was consumed and homework was completed, we watched
Road to Avonlea, which we really weren’t interested in AT ALL, but since Disney offered a channel with no commercial interruptions, it was deemed appropriate for “family time,” a concept my mother loved and the rest of us loathed. So far, Disney seems pretty harmless (if you ignore the eventual love/hate relationship with Canada spawned during “family time” in my house.) And for the most part, Disney programming in the late eighties/early nineties, was pretty tame. There were, however, two shows which would ultimately lead to the whorification of America:
Kids Incorporated, and
The New Mickey Mouse Club.
Now, these two shows weren’t geared toward kids, they were marketed for the preteen audience that wasn’t quite ready for
Melrose Place, but was a little too mature for
Adventures of The Gummi Bears. And this wasn’t a bad idea, kids have to watch something, because T.V. is the best baby sitter, even for kids too old for babysitters. And even the premise behind the shows wasn’t bad, a group of friends in a sitcomesque setting who occasionally lapse into song and dance, usually bad covers of current pop songs and a few hair band power ballads (always my favorite part.) The problem, however, is two-fold.
Problem 1) This show didn’t hit just it’s target audience, it hit everyone who plugged their spongified brains into the Disney Channel on a daily basis, including much younger kids who didn’t understand some of the show’s content. They saw these older kids (and all children love to emulate their elders, especially those within a few years of their own age) going through typical preteen-angsty issues, and thought they were the height of cool. So of course they picked up the slang and trends of older kids, when it really wasn’t appropriate. Suddenly 9 year olds are concerned over their “relationships,” and play ground fights aren’t about who got the unbroken swing, but about who kissed whom behind the jungle gym.
Problem 2) The stars of these shows had NO IDEA how to handle their instant fame and fortune. Much like professional athletes, here we have a group of young people suddenly handed vast amounts of money and thousands of adoring fans, and they had no idea how to respond. When they were still very young, they were controlled by their parents, agents, and the Disney Corporation’s squeaky-clean image. But as they grew up, and reached a sense of autonomy and post-pubescent enlightenment, they went wild. Hand a young child a soft drink supercharged with sugar and caffeine, and they’ll down the whole thing in one gulp and proceed to bounce of walls and get a stomachache. Hand 16 year old girl a half million a year to sing and dance on T.V., and watch her blow it on cars, clothes, eventually drugs and alcohol, and watch her go broke faster than M.C. Hammer. And while these teenybopper icons were having their meltdowns, their adoring fans were watching in awe, and continued to aspire to be just like them!
Thank you, Disney Channel, for Stacy Ferguson, Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and my personal favorite, Lindsey Lohan. I feel almost sorry for Lindsey, who’s at any given time gay, straight, drunk, sober, crazy, sane, anorexic, bulimic, healthy, unhealthy, a man, a woman, a donkey, a banana, you get the general idea. No one knows what’s going on with that kid, because she has no idea what’s going on either.
And therein lies a large problem with our society and it’s addiction to pop culture icons; we’re following in the footsteps of the rich and unstable. When I was a kid (mind you, not that long ago) I was more concerned with the stability of my tree fort than which mascara complimented my tube top and mini skirt. I wasn’t asking my mother about the pill when I turned 12, and boys still had cooties when I was 8. The boys I grew up with weren’t concerned about ballin’ and playin’, unless you were talking about a game of football in someone’s back yard. And I feel sorry for kids today, who will never know the simple joy of running through the backyard on a summer night catching fireflies. They’ll be too busy texting their friends about the latest hook up, loitering the malls, the cat calling girls like me, not old enough to be their mothers, but old enough to think, “damn, where are their parents?”
This is how I know I’m too old for my generation. And this is why I hate pop culture.
