I've been suffering blog fatigue. Mostly because Grockit has been so damn much fun and so intense for the last 9 months. But, with our recent funding event and recent momentum, I was ripe for a "Gripe", and today I'm sharing a fellow Griper's Gripe from Tumbr -- Generation X doesn't want to hear it, which also ran under the title "GenX is sick of your bullshit" in Gizmodo. That's right. Gizmodo. You probably won't read this post or Gizmodo if you're 20 anything or 50 something.
To summarize the entry, Mat Honan has crafted a timeless rant on mainstream media and generational perspectives that stacks up to "F@!k the South" and other blogging milestones of the last decade. He basically reminds the world that the mainstream media is about as tapped into reality as it's readers. Which is to say, not so much. And, he subtly notes that the media basically chases demographic bubbles and completely ignores the marginal demos, because, we are by defintion, outside of the mainstream and, to generalize, more difficult to aggregate for ad dollars and (to the point of the blog), long suffering in the personal economics sense.
The last paragraphs are pitch perfect -- I can say this here, because no boomer or GenY reader will read this post beyond the 3rd paragraph. Like Honan's post, this blog is for readers with attention spans. It makes no appeal to adrenal glands or prurient interests, nor does it doggedly reinforce positive self-image. It's what my mother-in-law calls cynical because she confuses that word with sarcastic.
I finished Honan's quick read and immediately relived a last year full of ridiculous personal interactions with the idiot-generation immediately north of my age demo. Honan's post tapped into that odd surrealistic feeling I get after any interactions outside of my generational bubble.
There are times, mostly around the Holidays, when I feel like I'm living in a parallel universe created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker. That's not snarky, that's tragic. For Xers, life can take on absurdist warpings, wherein the outlandishly unaware and narcisistic temporarily inhabit your time and space to remind you of your own humanity through egregious displays of self-unawareness. Like an entire house full of Zaphod Beeblebrox.
For example, a particularly douchy boomer chastised me last Christmas for not subscribing to physical newspapers, again. It was like the third time I heard this, and because my wife had denied my very specific request for permission to break his jaw (it's really a very easy thing for me to do because I look like a clean-shaven yetti), I decided to quietly enlighten this snarky little fucker with a few app installs. And, so, I grabbed his fucking precious new iphone to install InstaPaper, NYTimes and other assorted news sources only to discover the asshole didn't even have an iTunes account set up?! Yeah, I know you need a minute -- either you're an Xer crying or giggling, or you're only casually following and not yet seizing on the ridiculousness of it all. Go back to the top of the paragraph and read it once more.
Why do these specific interactions make me want to laugh and lash out at the same time? As this instance happened, I poured some wine and said nothing, told no one, stealing knowing glances with my children, quietly shaking my head. Until just now. That whole episode just fell out of my suppressed memory bank just now.
Sadly, that kind of stuff makes me miss my Grandparents. I miss the way that my Grandpa used to just sit and stare at his kids like they were a bunch of dipshits, and steal knowing glances with his grandkids. All except his oldest Son, whom I'm pretty sure he treated just like his brother. My wife's grandfather did that too. He was an admiral in the Navy. He wasn't an idiot, nor was he an asshole. He even gave me a knowing wink and a nod one time -- as near as I could tell, he had similar instincts about boomers.
Now that I think about it, I can remember a lot of older folks grinding their teeth and whincing at their boomer children. I bet they passed around flasks and had a lot of inside jokes. I'm sure they'd have blogs if the technology was there 20 years ago.
Someday the human race will discover that irony and self-awareness are linked to a specific gene that skips generations. A recessive gene no doubt. Maybe they'll name it after Alanis Morisette. Finish that last line for me.
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