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Entertainment/culture Personal Politics

Get off my lawn, you whipper-snappers!

Friday morning while doing some work in my office, I was treated to a discussion by the two hosts of a morning radio talk show. The talk was apparently prompted by a rather odd website, ihateyoungpeople.com, which asks:

We want you to create a video of yourself explaining what you hate the most about young people. It’s your chance to rant and rave and vent about the younger generation.

The most passionate and creative entries will be a part of a national cable television pilot… and all “appropriate” submissions will be posted on the I Hate Young People video sharing site

So fire up your webcam and tell us what bugs you the most about young people!

Be specific!
Be real!
And don’t hold back!!!!

The result is a bunch of videos of adults, mostly middle-aged and older, although some of them looked as though they were as young as in their 30s, kvetching about young people, including complaints about lack of manners, no respect for their elders, their sense of invulnerability, how they “don’t know anything that doesn’t come off the Internet or the TV,” and their lack of historical perspective. At least one of the videos has retorts by young people. Typical of the videos on the site is this one:


What’s really hilarious about this is that these are exactly the same complaints that adults have had about teens since time immemorial, and it occurs in societies that have never heard of the Internet. Particularly stupid is the complaint that young people “have no perspective.” Of course they don’t. They’re young. How could they? Perspective is acquired through living. If, as a typical college freshman today, you don’t remember any president before Bill Clinton or a time before CDs, DVDs, the cell phone, and the Internet, only maybe a decade or so worth, and most of those years you’re either a child or adolescent, how can you have perspective, other than what you read, which isn’t the same?

Moreover, I’m sure that none of the old people complaining on these videos ever showed disrespect to their parents or elders, right? I’m sure none of them ever made a lot of noise, played their music loud (you know, back in the 1960s), or did drugs.

I’m sure they don’t remember doing any of those things when they were young.

If I ever start sounding like any of the old farts on these videos, just shoot me. Or at least subject me to severe mockery.

By Orac

Orac is the nom de blog of a humble surgeon/scientist who has an ego just big enough to delude himself that someone, somewhere might actually give a rodent's posterior about his copious verbal meanderings, but just barely small enough to admit to himself that few probably will. That surgeon is otherwise known as David Gorski.

That this particular surgeon has chosen his nom de blog based on a rather cranky and arrogant computer shaped like a clear box of blinking lights that he originally encountered when he became a fan of a 35 year old British SF television show whose special effects were renowned for their BBC/Doctor Who-style low budget look, but whose stories nonetheless resulted in some of the best, most innovative science fiction ever televised, should tell you nearly all that you need to know about Orac. (That, and the length of the preceding sentence.)

DISCLAIMER:: The various written meanderings here are the opinions of Orac and Orac alone, written on his own time. They should never be construed as representing the opinions of any other person or entity, especially Orac's cancer center, department of surgery, medical school, or university. Also note that Orac is nonpartisan; he is more than willing to criticize the statements of anyone, regardless of of political leanings, if that anyone advocates pseudoscience or quackery. Finally, medical commentary is not to be construed in any way as medical advice.

To contact Orac: [email protected]

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