Have you ever noticed how the things people say change with each generation?
Each one wants to be unique, and in an attempt to be unique they repeat what the generations before have done.
They make up new slang words, they listen to outrageous music, they dress a little oddly... okay, a lot oddly in many cases.
These they do to be original.
And in so doing, they are anything but.
They are predictable.
They become a whole generation of funny looking, funny talking weirdos with weirdo music.
Just like every single generation that has gone before.
The kids in the 1920's?
They wore fox skin coats, straw hats and listened to racey ragtime music.
The 1930's?
Well heck yeah! Prohibition, Flappers, Speak Easy's... the kid's were partying and placing bets and smoking and drinking... everything THEIR parents warned against.
The 1950's?
Have you seen Rebel Without a Cause? Okay then, Grease?
Hot Rods, smoking, drinking, scandalous pants on girls, boys wearing t-shirts instead of dress shirts and Heaven Forbid! No Hats!
Do I even have to mention the Flower Children of the 1960's?
Free Love, Drugs, The Rolling Stones, Woodstock, Communes...
Hip, Cool, Neat, Rad, Gnarly, Hot, Bad, Awesome... these all mean something is GOOD.
And all have been used, and re-used, since the 1920's...
Wowsers!
Mayhaps each 'NEW' generation isn't as original as it thinks it is?
The only real problem I have with this show of originality in the NOW generation is...
The language.
Do we really need to say the F-word every other second?
Is it really necessary to say S--t to every thing?
I admit, I need to clean up my language... but I do say things like Wowsers! and Holy Cow! and JiminyChirstmas! and Shoot-shucks-darn!
So frequently in fact, that many people at the ball fields say they can always find me on the sidelines, they just follow my expletives!
I like all music- pop, rock, rap, jazz, country, classical, big band... well- no Screamo please... but the language of cuss words, slandering womanhood, raping, pillaging... is not a show of how original this generation is, but rather, how ignorant and illiterate they are...
Definitely NOT the way I would want the world to see me and my fellow Generation Nows.
Perhaps the rap groups and the gang bangers will mature and stop cussing, killing and bragging about it...
Or perhaps, they will all die out and the well-read, literate individuals will be able to step in...
If there's anyone left, that is.
2 comments:
Hilarious. And it reminds me of a story: when I was working in TV, there was one editor with a particularly foul mouth. For someone reason, they assigned someone from THe Christian Network to work with him. When she complained about his foul language, he said "That's not foul language! That's f-ing television!"
I was watching re-runs of The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show the other day and they used "gad zukes", (k, not totally sure how to spell that). I started laughing. Haven't heard that phrase since I was a kid and my grandfather used to say it.
I know some things really need to change but I think that most of these "trends" or phases are just the kids of that era trying to find themselves. Build an original identity even though, like you say, it's not all that original. It's been done before and just modified with each new generation. Fads, fashion trends come and go, change and return. Look at bell bottoms for instance. They made a return decades later.
I can't wait for the return of legwarmers. ;)
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