Posted by
Andrews on Thursday, July 24, 2008 3:40:17 PM
My three year old has developed a fondness for Thomas the Tank Engine and periodically takes over my computer to watch Youtube videos of Thomas. Of course I end up watching over this for the entire time he is on line, as there are endless pornographic and violent Thomas videos, not to mention Lego pornography, foul mouthed cartoon redubs, and so on.
Now, I was a teenager, probably worse behaved than most, so I am hardly shocked that teens would create silly videos mocking childhood icons. That is to be expected.
What shocks me is how many thirty and forty year old men and women are doing exactly the same thing. Has our society really become so infantile that forty year old men can dedicate a lot of time to their facebook account? Or spend a lot of effort on "you tube poop"?
Now as someone with an obsessively updated blog, I suppose I am open to the same criticism, but I see a bit of a distinction. While I have allowed a bit of my personal life to drift in from time to time, I am hardly spending my time putting forth a juvenile "look at me!" message. It seems to me that there is a distinction between writing erotic Xena fan fiction and discussing politics.
I am sure some will disagree. So feel free to berate or agree as you see fit. I will still continue to worry about a culture which turns Tila Tequila into a celebrity for having more "social networking friends" than anyone else. To have made acting like a fourteen year old girl the highest aspiration of men and women in their thrities, forties or older is just sad.
POSTSCRIPT
I don't mean to insult fourteen year old girls, and perhaps my impression is a bit dated, as it seems many fourteen year old days are expecting their second child, but I can't think of a better analogy. The obsession with having the most friends, with being liked by everyone, with "networking", with idol worship and with trivial signs of acceptance that the internet engenders remind me of nothing so much as those giddy little, horse-obsessed, chattering, giggling girls of my youth.
Perhaps I should change it to twelve year old girls, rather than fourteen, but you get the idea. In any case, whatever age I pick, surely someone will be offended by the comparison, so I will just leave it as it is.
UPDATE
I suppose my main complaint is that the internet has made a hero of the arrested adolescent. It has been the problem of the US for a long time that we
idolize youth, but fortunately, for the most part, youth did not want to associate with their elders, so
our youth obsession always acted at a distance. Now, with internet anonymity, adults can associate directly with youth, and can become every bit as juvenile as teens. It has made of us a nation of incredibly immature adults, and jaded teens. Which I doubt anyone can consider a good thing.