Once upon a time, I thought I was edgy. I've never exactly been a poster child for the counter-culture, but I spent a good chunk of my youth assuming I was destined to turn heads, push envelopes, and shatter ceilings. Thanks to the ridiculous movie "Pump Up The Volume," I used to wear a pin on my jacket unironically that said "TALK HARD" and thought I was cutting edge. Look out, status quo -- here comes Shane to challenge your norms and push your boundaries.
And here we are, some thirty years later -- and maybe now I'm starting to realize that I'm actually a prude.
I don't ever like to admit that I'm getting old, but the reality is that society has started to outpace me when it comes to challenging the norms. Instead of my pipe dream of confronting convention and offending the masses, it's the masses that are starting to offend ME. Instead of surfing the pop culture zeitgeist, I'm one of the people running from that wave like it's a tsunami about to drown my entire generation in a sea of ick. I fear it's just a matter of time before I buy a cane to shake at the neighbor kids while telling them to get off my lawn.
I don't blame myself for this and I don't blame society. I simply blame time. The job of pop culture is to scare the bejeebers out of the generation that preceded it. In the 1950s, the mere thought of Elvis shaking his hips on national television was enough to cause an uproar. In the '60s, the haircuts of the Beatles made our grandparents fear the world was falling off a moral cliff. In the '70s, punk rock arrived in a rage-fueled flash of shock and awe. In the '80s, we all hid our 2 Live Crew tapes from our parents, some of whom were dragging musicians before Congress to berate their corruption of the innocent.
I've always tried to remain open-minded and roll with the changes. But this year, I may have finally reached the limits of my tolerance. The other day, I caught myself saying a decidedly old-man phrase: "What's WRONG with people today?!"
As regular readers know, I'm a newspaper guy by day and occasional club DJ by night. When you think about it, it's really the ultimate dream hobby. When I go out for a night on the town, I don't just get to pick all the music on the stereo -- I get PAID to pick all the music on the stereo. It's fairly ideal.
Well, it WAS, until this generation came along and mucked it all up. See, I'm one of those nice DJs who plays requests and tries to keep up with the charts and pop culture trends. But here's the thing: Shh, don't yell any young folks I said this, but most of today's pop culture trends are ridiculously terrible. Not all of them, mind you. There are dance songs released every week so good they make my armhairs tingle. But club kids in our neck of the woods don't wanna hear any of those. They just want to hear the filthiest hip-hop songs in my collection.
When I was younger, I thought that we, as a generation, had reached the pinnacle of delightfully rebellious filth. Madonna was SO scandalous. 2 Live Crew dropped four-letter words so casually you'd have thought it was polite dinner conversation. By and large, I was okay with it. It was shocking, it was exciting, and most importantly, it made my parents upset -- which meant it HAD to be cool, right? When I was in grade school, they held a PTA meeting where our parents were told not to let us listen to Blondie because they were a bad influence. Instantly, Blondie became the favorite band of almost every kid at my school.
But nowadays, the most requested songs at my gigs are SO filthy and SO shocking that they're just kind of... icky. The scandalous songs of MY era were, at the very least, somewhat alluring and titillating. The stuff I have to play nowadays is just kinda gross. I've honestly read anatomy textbooks that were sexier than the X-rated singalong anthems of today's youth.
A couple months ago, I DJed a sponsored party I didn't know was an all-ages event. There were REALLY little kids in attendance, but it didn't stop the majority of requests that night from being filthy trash. I finally found a radio edit of the most requested song and threw it on. So many of the words were censored, people couldn't even tell what song it was. For five minutes, I was onstage laughing while the song went, "Shake____________________________ hands ________________________ now ____________________ for __________________________________me." Everyone just looked confused.
It's not just music, either. I like to stay informed, which is why I subscribe to a wide variety of breaking news alert services. Whenever something exciting happens in the world, I get text alerts so I don't miss a thing. The other day, I looked at my phone to find no fewer than 4 breaking news alerts. Ooh, what could possibly be happening? More conflict in the Middle East? An update from Trump? Did cancer plead not guilty and vow not to rest until it found O.J.'s REAL killer?
Nope. Instead, I had four breaking news alerts to tell me that Latin crooner Ricky Martin had... well, he was a surprise performer at Madonna's concert, and he... umm... well, I can't tell you what happened to Ricky Martin, because this is a family publication. Let's just say, he was onstage with Madonna, and he was... clearly excited to be there. Let's just say Ricky was most definitely livin' la vida loca.
I can't stress enough how little this matters to me. But what concerned me was that no fewer than FOUR news organizations felt it an urgent and important enough development worth texting me over. Okay, ONE of those organizations was TMZ, but still. (And let's give TMZ their props. They're pondscum, but they had O.J.'s death eleven minutes before any other news outlet. Respect.) Regardless, it alarms me that I received more text alerts about Ricky's Martin than I did about Iraq bombing Israel and putting us at risk of WWIII.
Have I lost my edge? Am I just turning into a fuddy-duddy prude in need of a cane to shake? Or has society descended into a such a void of bad taste and idiocracy that I've lost my will to stay hip? There may be only one thing that can save us. I'm looking at you, Taylor Swift. Your new album drops today, and society needs your wisdom. Guide us, oh mighty queen. And if you go back on tour, whatever you do, don't let Ricky Martin onstage.
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