Sunday, November 20, 2011

Culturally irrelevant, or just plain old?

I'll admit, I snickered a bit when I read Edith Zimmerman's NY Times article about feeling "culturally irrelevant" at the ripe ol' age of 28. I'm a full decade older than she -- in actual "life years" that's standing on the precipice of middle age, but my "internet coolness factor" expired years ago. I'm a dinosaur. I've gone past cultural irrelevancy straight to cultural extinction.

Granted, had I read this ten years ago, I'd completely agree. Twenty-seven, twenty-eight is about the age where you can no longer fool yourself into thinking you're still an adolescent. You start realizing that the brunt of popular culture is simply not for your consumption anymore. (Some of it is even, gasp, made by people much younger than you.) This isn't a bad thing. This is what Zimmerman said of her late-discovery (and bemusement) of internet phenomenon Kreayshawn:
[...] way back in May when I watched the video, wherein Kreayshawn brags about smoking weed and not wearing clothes made by fancy brands (for example, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Fendi) — it seemed like nothing new in rap as far as lyrical content went. Her voice was annoying, thin and smug. So I turned it off. Just some random stupid video that no one needs to know about. Case closed! (Brushes hands, moves on.) [...] 
So I went back to the Kreayshawn video I’d dismissed as ugly and stupid, determined to like it, sort of in the way a suburban dad flashes peace signs at his children to be hip. (I’m with it! Hip-hop!) And, quietly, alone in my apartment, I watched the video again, as if I were unwrapping a package I was afraid of. I watched it wanting to like it, I guess. And hey! Do you know what? I decided I did. I decided the video is actually pretty cool! The young people were right! (I’m 28, by the way.)
I  think her criticism of Kreayshawn is actually pretty accurate (and I'd like to add to it Kreayshawn's use of the "n-word" on her Twitter was inexcusable). This is a perfectly reasonable response for someone with a few more years of critical thinking under her belt. Maybe it's because I'm part of a generation that basically hated everything, I don't see a problem here.

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