In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Kids These Days.

Jill

Everyone should read this very excellent piece by Edith Zimmerman.

I guess this may all just be a roundabout way of saying, “I saw something that made me feel old, isn’t that crazy?” To which you say, “No,” and also maybe, “That song sounds terrible.”

Then again, the Internet is a new kind of barometer for keeping track of exactly how old you feel: how many things you don’t get, how many mini-Internet worlds you can’t find the door to; exactly how many crickets in the world you can no longer hear chirping. Unlike in generations past, when (I imagine) you just kept doing what you and your same-aged friends did, and aged into obscurity in comfort on a cloud of your own tastes and generational inclinations, until you died either thinking you all were still the coolest or not caring anymore about being cool, these days the Internet exists in part to introduce you to all these things you didn’t know about, but in part to remind you how much there is out there that you’ll never know about. The Internet is basically like being at a house party and trying to find the bathroom and opening up a door to a room where a bunch of kids are playing a game or doing a drug or having an orgy (metaphorically) or something and you get all flustered and say, “Oh, my God, I’m sorry!” and they all look at you like, “You pervert,” and you quickly slam the door shut. Everywhere you go on the Internet there are rooms you don’t understand, people playing games you don’t know the rules to, teenagers doing drugs you’ve never heard of and can’t even pronounce. And you just walk through the halls of this house party, aging in fast forward, until you open the one last door at the end of the hallway and it’s Death. Ha, ha.

Again, this may be just a truly long-winded way of saying I saw a video that made me feel old.

Don’t even get me started on this. WHY. (Although I do kind of covet her various motorcycle jackets and her bodysuits and her amazing high pony).

42 thoughts on Kids These Days.

  2. I enjoyed this article but it got me thinking about how it seems everyone in the US is obsessed with their age. Maybe that’s just part of the capitalist machine but it’s sad that someone at 28 considers themselves “over the hill”! I don’t think this is a new phenomena as I just read “The Beautiful and Damned” by F. Scott Fitzgerald (published 1922) and Fitzgerald describes the same obsession in the early, Twentieth Century. He wrote it as satire but everyone should check it out, great read!

  3. Ha ha.

    I’m so out of it that that article was the first I’d ever heard of Kreayshawn. Sometimes, via the magic of the Internet, I learn about cool “new” bands. And then through that same magic, I learn that the “new” band has been around for 10 or 15 years. Boo.

    I like to blame living out of the country with very limited media access for two years for severing me forever from pop culture, but the longer I’m back (It’s been seven years now!), the less valid that excuse is. One thing, though — and this goes off what Rich said about this being a particularly strong obsession in the U.S. — is that I don’t really feel that bad about being “old,” in part, I think, because of that time spent out of the country. I still like new, interesting music if it’s new and interesting to me, but it’s not really important to my sense of self that I be up on things.

    But I still liked the article.

  4. I just think that if you have time to be a scenester after thirty, you either live in NYC or LA or have something going on in your life that needs looked at.

    Yes, I’m being judgmental. Scenesters.

  5. At 15 I wanted to know what it was, and whether it mattered or not. At 20 I wanted to be a part of it, and it mattered a lot. At 25 I was maybe in it a bit, and I liked it that way. At 30, I was sick of it, and I didn’t want it to matter anymore, but it sorta did. At 35, I was off doing my own thing, maybe succeeding a bit at it, and it didn’t matter at all. Now north of 40 I’m pretty sure that it’s something that’s just there, and I figure I’ll use it when I feel like it, and seek ever broader, ever blander, ever more universal cultural relevancies. Too many choices result in too much unhappiness. I deliberately circumscribe my world and lower the lid on my horizons. It’s not depressing – it’s liberating. That’s the paradox. Blah blah blah. Thanks for tolerating my solipsistic riff.

  6. One of the things I like about being an old bag is that I sincerely don’t care about this stuff any more. Or a lot of other stuff. It’s very liberating.

  7. Ten years ago, I probably would have said the same thing — felt the same dread at “getting older,” and feeling out-of-the-loop. Then I read the article and realized I’m a full ten years older than the author. Echoing a lot of the sentiment here: at some point you really do stop caring about trying to latch onto whatever the new, hip thing is.

  8. Yeah, I gotta say, one of the best things about being in my mid-thirties is that I don’t have to waste brain space on knowing about crap I never liked to begin with. When I was young, I did not like grunge. In fact, I thought grunge was stupid. But it was the height of grunge, and even though I had no interest, somehow I knew all about the bands and the style and who was in them and so on, and I did not care. Now I don’t even know! If a friend says “He looks like Some Celebrity,” I can say “Never heard of him. Who’s Some Celebrity?” and know that my friend might find my social obiviousness amusing, but that’s it. I just don’t have to care about knowing about things that I don’t like.

  9. I like the article and the uncomfortable house party metaphor.

    ..As a side note – she must have a high-powered Bedazzler for all of those jackets.

  10. It’s weird, but whenever I walk by a row of celebrity magazines and have no idea who is on the cover, or when I turn on SNL and don’t recognize the host, I feel old. Also, in bars, when I’m talking to someone who seems to be my age and then I notice a ring on their finger, I feel really old. I think the underlying thing isn’t so much not wanting to get old as wondering why I’m not famous yet, why I’m not married yet, etc. Our society assigns certain landmarks to certain ages and when we fail to meet them it seems like we’ve failed in general.

  11. Seth Eag: It’s weird, but whenever I walk by a row of celebrity magazines and have no idea who is on the cover, or when I turn on SNL and don’t recognize the host, I feel old.

    I take a sort of perverse delight in that kind of thing. It’s hard to explain. I think it’s that I’ve always felt that many of those people were useless wankers who didn’t deserve my attention, and now I’ve reached the age at which they actually don’t get any of it! Victory is mine! And then I get to feel superior to the loads of people who do recognize these alleged celebrities, which is also pleasant.

  12. @EG You’re right, of course. Nobody should ever, ever pay attention to that stuff. Life is infinitely better without, but, still, I guess they have resonance in our lives whether we like it or not. I feel like I’m missing out on some conversation…but, yes, a big part is also just having better things to do now.

  13. I have just realized I’m a crotchety old crone, because my first reaction at getting to the end of this nicely written NYT piece was “Snow White is the one with the mirror, not Sleeping Beauty!” And then I realized many things transcend time, and that those fairy tales were made up hundreds of years ago and are still part of culture. And that Kreayshawn and that Australian rapper chick very likely won’t be.

  14. Haha. Yeah, no, Florence. People all over the country feel they have to be hip after 30- which, by the way, is not automatically an age when it’s mandatory for people stop going out late to clubs, etc. Also, the author specifically states she is 28, and one of Jill’s tags for this post is Ageism. It reads to me like your comment falls tidily under the category of ageism.

    I really don’t think it makes you a scenester per se to want to listen to new music. I’m 38, and I get bored easily. I crave newness- it reflects my ADD and my valuing of creativity. I don’t necessarily want to listen to the same stuff 10,000 times, and I’m not clear on why that in of itself means there’s something wrong with me.

    On the other hand, it’s pretty evident that our culture values youth to a goddamned freaky degree. To my mind, it says something very troubling about our fear of death and our fear of vulnerability- something fucked up given that death is inevitably part of life and that age has actually made me and most everyone I know well a lot less emotionally vulnerable. Eh, the only way around this is to have confidence in who you are on your own terms. When I was 15 and read Sarte’s “No Exit,” it sounded kinda silly. Since then, I’ve discovered that there’s a lot to the notion that hell is the need to be defined through other people’s eyes. Fuck that shit!

  15. I knew I was getting old when I started reading collections of “creepypasta” and saw how many of them were about Sponge-Bob and Pokeman. I realized that those things, which I consider to be “new”, are actually over a decade old, and the young adults today grew up with them. The kids on the cutting edge of culture now were born when I was in high school and college. Man…

    I don’t REALLY think I am old. 33 is NOT old. But I think that the internet had sped things up so much. But then again, the Internet ALSO allows like minded people to come together and share space with people who are like them. So I fully expect to be able to live in a bubble of late-GenX nostalgia for the rest of my life while receding further and further away from the Hip and Cool.

    And one day, dear children, there will be people who look at Sponge Bob the way you might look at Care Bears and I looked at Howdy Doody. As not for whom Saved by the Bell tolls, it tolls for thee…

  16. I made myself feel old by insisting on going back to school for another degree when I was 27. A guy asked me what was wrong with me–not jokingly–because he said everyone my age is done with school already, even PhDs, so was I just stupid or a late starter or what? Maybe he was just negging. I dunno. I know what he said wasn’t true. I’ve met people my age and older, of course. Usually they’re grad students, but sometimes they’re undergrad too.

    Buuuut the vast majority of my classmates are 18-21 or so. I heard one listening to Ace of Base and had that, “My god! You were 2 when that song came out!” kind of reaction. In my head, I mean. I did t say it. Another classmate was schooling me about a comic I read when she would have been six or seven. I just let her go on, but it was obnoxious. And then all these teens who just discovered Calvin and Hobbes … when Calvin was a staple of my childhood. So weird. So old.

    But I look 19, so it’s okay. And no one has to give me any respect, either, apparently. I get to feel old and relive the worst parts of being young all over again. Fun.

  17. Okay, perhaps it’s because I’m only 26, but I went to go watch the video fully prepared to be all “ugh, kids these days and their music”, but… I really liked it. And downloaded the album. And it’s playing now and I may possibly be rocking out.

    Please don’t hate me.

  18. Odd. It might be more amusing after application of mind-altering substances.

    However old and decrepid my body is and will be, I will always feel like a slightly lost 18-year-old. I’m beyond the point of expecting to know about every obscure big thing (had that fun a few years ago), but I’m always up for a new mind-blowing entertainment experience. I can settle down and complain about what “the kids” listen to when I’m dead… though I have been guilty of lamenting the present state of pop music, mostly due to the emphasis on perfectly lifeless production.

  19. Florence: I dunno, I live in the Midwest, and I’ve met an awful lot of people past 30 who still go out to concerts, or will make a day of it if there’s a music festival going on. We’ve got scenes and concerts coming out of our ears here, and most of the nearby clubs have reasonable prices. Reasonable= $10 or less.
    For the record, I’ve only heard of Kreayshawn once or twice. I don’t really pay attention to rap. I do appreciate how easy it is to plan a night out by checking Facebook and the calender. It’s kinda cool to get an alert saying X is playing at bar C tonight, and go: oh, yeah, that’s in my backyard! I can totally go. Alternatively, it’s nice to know when a band has to move to a different unplanned location, so you don’t get disappointed by turning up at bar D and find that Y had to move to club E.
    I’m only two years younger than the author, but I second Seth Eag in saying that getting wedding invitations or hearing friends talk about their husbands, make me feel old. But, ya know, I plan on being an old maid, so all I really want in life is my own apartment.

  20. As not for whom Saved by the Bell tolls, it tolls for thee…

    You’re awesome.

    Also – feeling old? Have a kid. If you’re one of those people who will be capable of suddenly seeing the world through their eyes, you’ll feel decades younger. Standing at the store and deciding between “that lion themed baby bath towel, to go with his name” and “that baby bath towel with Batman on it” is not conducive to feeling old.

    I’ll come home and the first thing I’ll hear as I’m taking my boots off is my husband – who’s a big, bearded, mean-looking Russian guy in his late thirties with tattoos and the ability to gulp down a bottle of vodka in an evening and be left standing, for the sake of context – cooing stuff like, “And now the little green dog is coming to us for a visit!” He doesn’t sound like an adult either anymore. It’s just not possible right now – and it’s actually kinda cool.

  22. Natalia: Also – feeling old? Have a kid. If you’re one of those people who will be capable of suddenly seeing the world through their eyes, you’ll feel decades younger.

    Word. It may not be hip, but I spend more time watching Yo Gabba Gabba and feeling good that I know the “There’s a Party in my Tummy” song more than I do who the newest, coolest, obscurest indie band out there is, which I used to be ALL about. Because, dudes, THERE’S A PARTY IN MY TUMMY (so yummy! so yummy!).

  23. So I fully expect to be able to live in a bubble of late-GenX nostalgia for the rest of my life while receding further and further away from the Hip and Cool.

    And one day, dear children, there will be people who look at Sponge Bob the way you might look at Care Bears and I looked at Howdy Doody. As not for whom Saved by the Bell tolls, it tolls for thee…

    ::stands on one foot with both arms extended out and up in the GenX salute:: Wax on and wax off with your totally bitchin’ self, baby-brother-man. I’m 41 so for me it’s less Care Bears and more Gary Gnu — the very first gnews show guaranteed to contain no gnews whatsoever, and possibly where Fox got the idea since pretty much everything bad that is happening now seems to trace roots to the 80s. But we’re both dancing in the dark, this much is true, so cue the sax solo, put on your red shoes and dance the blues.

  24. auditorydamage: However old and decrepid my body is and will be, I will always feel like a slightly lost 18-year-old.

    I think there’s something to this, actually. I do think that many people, if not all, have age set-points. I felt like I was in my late twenties (say, 28), when I was a teenager, and when I reached my late twenties, I felt perfectly right, and now that I’m in my mid-thirties I still feel like I’m in my late twenties if I’m not paying attention, and am always surprised all over again when I remember I’m in my mid-thirties (usually unpleasantly, unfortunately, because what usually reminds me is some article about how everything in your life sucks after 35 if you’re a woman).

  25. I’m 22 and I don’t know who Kreyshawn is. (Also, what a stupid name…)

    I did see her video on The Hairpin, though, but there were so many bright colors that it made my brain melt a little.

    Maybe I’m just boring.

    I did feel cool and with it when I discovered Oh land, though!

  26. This article could not have come at a more appropriate time in my life. I just turned 26 and so many of my friends have recently been talking about their “1/4 life crisis”. This accounts for a realization that our world seems to be moving faster than it ever has and short or being unemployed, nobody really has enough time to keep up. i have been a self proclaimed music geek for years and I constantly find myself behind the times. On a recent vacation I attended e “dub step” show. Um… what? It was like standing in the middle of a giant electronic mix tape with bass levels that made me feel old. All kinds of teenagers and early 20 somethings in minimal neon clothes vibrating and sliding around in what I suppose counts as dancing. I felt very old. Mostly because my back hurt when I woke up the next morning.

    I wanted to mention one other thing. I’m in the military and it is really common for people to be married and have kids before they can legally drink. Granted this also contributes to military families having one of the highest divorce rates in the world. I’m 26, single with no intention of getting married any time soon (or while I’m still in the military for that matter) and I am constantly attending weddings, baby showers and the resulting divorce drama.

    Sorry I’m dragging this out but I have one last little piece of information that might at the very least, garner a few laughs. I recently had to counsel a soldier (counseling is like a written warning for bad behavior) because in the past year he has been married and divorced 3 times! His response was this, ” Sarge, I’m 22, I’m supposed to have a family by now…”

    OUCH.

  27. I’ve just about conceded that, for me, my musical tastes peaked somewhere around 1997. What makes me constantly aware that I’m 31 and not 21 anymore is that I live very close to a university. Undergraduate college students are always present. I overhear their conversations on the bus or walking the neighborhood and often feel absolutely ancient.

    I think to an extent I would like to be up on the current trends. But now I have very different priorities. I think that’s entirely normal and to be expected. If I intended to have kids someday, I bet I’d at least have some notion of what was popular. This would be for a very good reason, though.

  28. “Huh what is that you say? I am uncool?
    yeah umm sure okay whatever I’ll just be over here having fun. ”
    me since 16

  29. James H: Sorry I’m dragging this out but I have one last little piece of information that might at the very least, garner a few laughs. I recently had to counsel a soldier (counseling is like a written warning for bad behavior) because in the past year he has been married and divorced 3 times! His response was this, ” Sarge, I’m 22, I’m supposed to have a family by now…”

    One of my roommates in college decided that her life was a failure if she wasn’t married by 25. It woulda been funny if it hadn’t been damn sad.

  31. I started my undergrad last year when I was 27 and certain classes are completely filled with 18 year olds which doesn’t make me feel old per se but definitely wiser (put away your damn phones in class! Get off Facebook! Pay attention!). Although last night in one class the lecturer (whose probably my age) made a Shaggy/Boombastic joke and only 5/150 people laughed. And it was pretty funny. That made me feel a little old…

    re music tastes though, I don’t see the desire to seek out new music being necessarily tied to youth or scenesters. Isn’t it comparable to reading new books/authors or other art forms? Hipsters and scenesters don’t have dominion over going to shows and seeking out new artists (even if the artists are appreciated by scenesters,too). I hope to keep going to shows as long as I can, regardless of age.

  32. Shoshie:
    Also,IhavetotallybeenwatchingoldepisodesofAreYouAfraidoftheDark?Youjustyouwishthatyouwereascoolasme.

    The one about the monster in the pool made me afraid to swim in an indoor pool for years.

  33. Shoshie: Also, I have totally been watching old episodes of Are You Afraid of the Dark? You just you wish that you were as cool as me.

    Oh jeez, there was one episode where a little girl moved to a new apartment and befriended the old lady who lived next door. Then one day the girl met other kids and didn’t visit the old woman and when she went the next day, the apartment was empty. Turns out the old woman had been dead for years! And then the ghost flew at her and was like “yesterday was the anniversary of my death oooooh-ooooooh (ghost noise)”. That shit traumatized me.

  34. One thing we forget in our quest to be young and stay sharp and remain relevant is the benefit of age. I just had an interesting conversation with someone maybe six years my junior who accepts the “razor blades in candy” thing as having, like, happened (so then the nice media and/or people of the government made rules about only take candy with a wrapper on it, etc). There are also people who are in college now who don’t know that we weren’t always in a war, or that flying home for the holidays did not always mean getting patted down and taking off your shoes. I like getting older because I own a tiny piece of history.

  35. At 50+. I find this thread simultaneously amusing and depressing. As the old saying goes, I have ties older than all of you. Or at least I used to.

  36. @xenu01:

    Very true. I find it amazing what a difference only a few years can make. My wife is only 5 years younger than me, and she doesn’t remember deposit soda bottles, barely remembers dial telephones, has always had a VCR and cable, etc. That’s just 5 measly years!

    I like the idea of owning a piece of history. I saw the Challenger disaster. I saw the Iron Curtain come down. I owned several Wacky Wall Walkers. I AM a part of history.

  37. These three things make me feel old: when I was a child, the 1930’s were as recent as the 1980’s are now. And: I knew people who knew people who were alive before 1820. And: I’m old enough that it was something of a shock to me when I started knowing people who were young enough that they didn’t remember the Kennedy assassination.

  38. Many of the younger net savvy people I know have no idea what the phrase All Your Base means. Sad that I had to link to Youtube as the MIT page with the swf files went dark in 2008

  39. James: You are not the only one that doesn’t understand dubstep. I am convinced that one cannot understand dubstep without being on several hallucinogens. That said, I recently made the decision to embrace my inner metalhead. If I go into the pit at concerts, I find bruises days later that I didn’t have before, and I’ve narrowly avoided a concussion at one really lively show. I suspect some of my problems are due to my short stature, but I really hate waking up with my neck or body being one big ache.
    Also: “supposed to have a family at 22?” Lolwut.

  40. Um, Lady Gaga hair and clothes, Nikki Manaj rapping style, Eminem voice-doubling. Did I miss anything?

    Then again, I was stunned when I learned that “Don’t Cry” wasn’t originally written by Guns and Roses.

  42. HATED this article. HATED IT. Not because she should know who Kreayshawn is (although those of us paying attention to music wish she would have used a different example, Kreayshawn is so wack). But because it was so utterly joyless and resigned to becoming boring and lame and grey t-shirted at the “old age” of 28. I’m 35 and love life and stay in touch with pop culture because it’s what I’m into and it’s my job (ostensibly hers, as well, thankyouverymuch) and I LOVE LIFE and GO TO FUN PARTIES and DANCE ALL NIGHT and still also manage to live an adult life living with my boyfriend and cooking food and whatnot. Sure, I’ve made the conscious decision to never have children (I’ve always envisioned myself as an Auntie Mame type… can’t wait to become a drag queen at 75) which obviously allows me this lifestyle. But after reading this, I actually feel sorry for Edith.

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