The Kids These Days...Just Don't Get It

I am old... and by today's standards, being just a couple years shy of 40 means you are equivalent to a dinosaur. Oh, I knew I was getting older but I was going to be one of those 'cool' old dudes... I still go to rock concerts, I love playing video games even that zany Guitar Hero and I am extremely tolerant to the youth...letting them crank their music, crazy piercings, colored hair, baggy pants...etc. don't bother me (that much) - heck, we all had our 'fads' in our younger days. But what I was fully unprepared for as I have unwillingly aged is the fact that the media, and more specifically the 'quality' of media, that these kids have been exposed too has essentially skewed their 'senses' to the most simplistic thoughts possible...kids no longer need to 'know' anything...the humor these kids are exposed to today is just pratt falls and fresh from the bathroom wall. Oh and sure, there was plenty of that when I was a kid as well, but it wasn't the sole source of humor that it seems it is today. Here is a couple of examples to illustrate my points...

About 3 years ago I had a project for a college intern I thought would be great... it was simply to go out and rent some DVD's that had some somewhat short yet humorous video clips that could be played back during a down time of a sporting event. I even threw out the example of the John Belushi speech in Animal House where he states "Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?" Of course, a classic, funny part from the movie where I thought anyone over the age of 18 would recognize and relate too. When this intern came back a week later with a pile of DVD's and the time code of the humurious video clips, I was excited to see what was in store. At first glance I was a bit perplexed... I saw a pile of DVD's with no movie that I had ever seen...Cheaper By The Dozen, some movie starring The Rock were just a couple of titles I can recall. Well, I thought, I might as well see what we got and proceeded to seek out the snippets from each of the movies that this intern so diligently went through. It didn't take me long to realize that unless you had actually watched any of these movies NONE of this video clips were even remotely funny. That is because the movies of today all mostly suck...whereas I could likely grab a copy of Caddyshack, easily extract a 1/2 dozen or so video clips and regardless if you have ever watched the show or not, would find the humor in those video clips. This intern had a stack of movies he clearly felt were hilarious, I hadn't seen one of those flicks nor did I find any of the 'funny' parts even remotely comical. Sure, it may be due to lack of just not having seen a lot of movies but I thought to myself as I viewed the clips, "If this is suppose to be funny to someone it must not take much to make them laugh."

Another example... I have followed the recommendation twice of my friend's nephew who just recently graduated college. The first was his recommendation to see the movie Borat. His exact words to me after seeing this movie was: "This was the funniest movie of all time and I didn't stop laughing for the entire show! You have to go watch it!" And so I did... oh sure, it was mildly amusing but overall funny? No, I don't think so. And funniest movie ever?!?! What, have you only seen one other movie? The other recommendation he recently gave me was to watch a show called "Kenny vs Spenny" (I think that's the correct title) which aired on MTV...and right there, that's the difference between him and I... I watched MTV all throughout the 80's and saw music videos, he has probably watched MTV since the 90's and may have seen a handful of actual music videos but he is up to date on the Real World Cast. I watched this Kenny vs Spenny show for approximately 3 minutes before seeing that it is just a Jackass type show where you have people that are purposely doing things to themselves that they think others will find funny...with oftentimes the climax being someone bleeding, puking, pissing or shitting themselves with hilarity at it's max if all 4 inflictions could somehow occur.

I am not sure who I should blame for the youth being so dumbed down by the media and accepting such low-brow humor. Is it the media for producing the crap or the kids for actually watching the crap? Probably both and I still fail to understand why the kids would even bother watching the shit that they do and I fully understand that the 'old' folks when I was a kid probably felt the same way, but in our defense the humor may have been close to the gutter whereas the humor of today is swimming and feeding within the sewer system.

As I had mentioned some time ago, I think it is a sad statement for the kids of today when I say "Was it over when the German's bombed Pearl Harbor?" and instead of getting witty Animal House reference in reply, I get a quizzical look and a response of "The German's didn't bomb Pearl Harbor you moron." I can only simply shake my head and know that I am not only old but am clearly of a different generation.