Jan 22, 2013

Millennial Milking: The New Irony and the Stupidity Fad



I don’t care what anybody says – the Baby Boomers ruined America.  They appropriated and then bastardized the objectivist thinking of existentialist philosophers to say that selfishness is a virtue, and it’s all been downhill from there.  The distinction between the rebellious liberalism of Woodstock and the excess of the Reagan Era is really just the cynicism that naturally comes with age.

Generation X, for their part, took Socrates one step further – if the only true knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing, then surely the wisest among us will make a conscious decision to just stop caring.  And Gen X-ers were really good at not caring about stuff.

Now we Millennials are coming into our own, and man, what a mess.  The Millennials are probably not the stupidest generation, but they seem to want to look that way.  There are countless examples, but one of the best is milking.  A descendant of planking and Tebowing, milking is the latest in a series of fads that involve people taking pictures of themselves doing stupid, pointless, or nonsensical things, often at notable locations, and posting them on the internet (presumably to show their friends and acquaintances just how stupid, pointless, and nonsensical they know how to be).

Planking involves lying flat, like a plank.  Tebowing involves getting down on one knee in prayer, like Tim Tebow.  Milking, naturally, involves pouring milk over your head while fully clothed, commonly with a deadpan expression on your face.  So you can see why this would be all the rage.

One question that immediately comes to mind is, why milk?  Is there some significance to the use of milk as opposed to any other liquid?  Evidently not, as milking is already losing ground to its more excessive and wasteful cousin – porting, which is just milking with red wine instead of milk.  But whether some hip young moron is insulting the dairy industry by wasting milk or ruining his shirt with a fine red wine is beside the point.  I’m much less concerned with milking in particular and more concerned with the fact that doing stupid things has become a fad.

Now, some would argue that it’s circular or rhetorically unfair for me to categorize milking, planking, Tebowing, and porting as “stupid” in order to support an attack on Millennial culture.  Ok, but by “stupid” I really just mean worthless, pointless, uninspired, wasteful, irrational, and lacking in any sort of creative merit whatsoever; I think “stupid” is a fair enough shorthand for all of that.

I think that supporters of milking (idiots, as they’re commonly known) would likely argue that milking – like the other stupid -ing’s – is an exercise in irony, and that by not understanding that fact I’m proving that milking is effective.  After all, irony only works if some people don’t get it.  That’s a fair point in the sense that every generation has its own unique sense of humor, which will naturally involve redefining the concept of irony (the Baby Boomers really lucked out, they had Steve Martin to do this for them).  But just because you’re being ironic doesn’t mean that anyone who criticizes you doesn’t get it.

If you’re a savvy milker, you’d next argue that milking is ironic because it’s so stupid and yet is treated as a completely serious endeavor.   In other words, my argument that milking is stupid is both completely valid and an unknowing endorsement of the act of milking (thereby making me the real idiot, or so it would seem).  Ok, now we’re getting somewhere.

The Millennial Generation’s concept of irony apparently hinges largely upon contriving absurd situations for no reason other than to address them with unflinching seriousness.  So what’s cool about milking is that it’s a stupid activity that’s conducted seriously, and anyone who points out how stupid it is only bolsters its validity as an expression of whatever it’s supposed to be an expression of.  So what is it supposed to be an expression of?  Irony is a powerful rhetorical tool, but only if it’s to accomplish some worthwhile end.  And that’s what I’m really getting at when I say that milking is stupid.  It’s deliberately stupid in an ironic sense, but it’s deliberately stupid for no reason in a literal sense.  And that just makes it stupid.

So milking is cool, and milking is stupid.  It’s cool to be stupid.  Sarah Palin knows it, Larry the Cable Guy knows it, and the Millennial Generation knows it.  Stupidity is a fad.  Where the Baby Boomers decided that it’s virtuous to live for yourself, and the Gen X-ers decided that it’s smart to not care, the Millennials have decided that it’s cool to be dumb.  And not just to be dumb, but to be proud of how dumb you can be.  So proud that deliberately pouring milk over your own head and posting photos of it to be viewed by everyone you know is a generally accepted means of demonstrating your worth.

There are two basic schools of thought on the conception of the Millennial Generation as the “Me Generation” – the generation of individuals who think that we all want to see pictures of what they ate for lunch, updated in real time.  The first school of thought is that technology and social media have changed the way that people interact, and in doing so have actually changed the social nature of people – Facebook and Twitter have actually taught us to be self-centered.  The second school of thought is that people have always been this way, but technology and social media have given us an ability to act on it that we never had before – Facebook and Twitter have simply exposed us for who we’ve really been all along.

I tend to lean towards the second school of thought.  I don’t think that the Millennials are so different or any worse than their predecessors, but they sure are making themselves look that way.  I guess if you really dissect it, milking is a means of acknowledging and embracing the reality that the Millennial Generation finds itself dealing with by taking what are now accepted behavioral norms to an extreme.  As Eminem put it, “I am whatever you say I am.”

It’s human nature to give in to your self-absorbed inclinations when you know you can get away with it.  The Millennials understand that, and rather than fighting it they’re pushing the boundaries by going beyond posting pictures of what they did last night or what they ate for lunch.  Rather than giving you details that you don’t care about, they’re just hitting you over the head with pictures of themselves drenched in milk for no logical reason.  In that sense, milking is a commentary on the excesses of the ego and the role that we’ve decided to allow social media to play in our culture.  It’s the Millennials saying that they understand the absurdity of certain aspects of their own popular culture.

So maybe milking is the Millennial Generation’s way of showing the rest of the world that they’re in on the joke.  Or maybe they’ve just realized that anything is more interesting than a picture of what they had for lunch.  Either way, it’s still really stupid.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss


Well, the deed is done.  Big O has been sworn in and officially begins his second term today.  He made a relatively unremarkable inaugural address, and the Republicansare crying foul.  Shocking.  It’s a little bit backhanded to criticize the guy who you’ve labeled as the most divisive President ever for failing to reach out to his political opponents.

Speaking of failing to reach out, Mitt Romney refused an invitation to attend the inaugural ball (I probably would have too if I had his money -- he can stage is own inaugural ball and only invite people who didn't just kick his ass in a national election).  Besides, the joke’s on Obama – not only was Beyonce lip-syncing, but Yo Yo Ma wasn’t even playing that cello.  And apparently Justice Alito wasn’t too thrilled by the whole affair, either.

Jan 20, 2013

Superfrauds: Should We Care When Athletes Cheat?

Lance Armstrong has admitted to doping.  In an interview with Oprah (who else?) that aired on Thursday, night Armstrong comes clean once and for all, thus cementing his place in the history of cheating.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.  This time last year, Lance Armstrong was an All-American Golden Boy.  He was the squeakiest of the squeaky clean, a guy who parents would hold up as an example for their kids.  Not only was Armstrong an Olympian and Tour de France Champion, and the international face of the professional cycling, but he did it all after beating cancer.  He went so far as chastising those who insisted that no one could seriously compete in professional cycling without using performance enhancing drugs, and suing a British newspaper that raised allegations that he had doped.  It turns out that Lance Armstrong is the Cheating Champion of the World.  And he’s not just a cheater, but also a bald-faced liar.

So now we all know the truth – Armstrong is not superhuman.  Like Bonds, Sosa, McGwire, and the rest of baseball’s cheater’s club, he’s just a juiced-up dope fiend.  In hind sight, it’s not so shocking.  We all probably should have known better than to think that an ordinary man could accomplish unbelievable feats through purely natural means, no matter how talented and hard-working he may be.  That takes the magic out of sports, but those guys never asked us to peek behind the curtain.  When you demand the truth about your heroes you’re asking to be disappointed.

Lots of people are understandably upset to see an American hero revealed as being, basically, just like the rest of us.  Maybe not everyone would cheat to win or lie to get rich, but some people would.  In fact, lots of people would, and until you’re actually confronted with the opportunity to do so at the professional level it’s hard to know how you might react.  That doesn’t make what Armstrong did commendable or even forgivable, but it puts his actions in a realistic perspective.

And let’s not forget the good that Armstrong has done in the real world – the world where being able to ride a bicycle super fast has little practical value (I guarantee my 2005 Nissan Altima could beat Armstrong in a race, and my car isn’t even on steroids).

Through his charity work, Lance Armstrong has raised nearly $50 million for cancer research.  He’s also raised awareness about the disease, and brought hope and inspiration to countless people.  If it weren’t for Lance Armstrong, the sport of professional cycling would be virtually ignored in the United States (you know, more so).  And through endorsement deals, he’s been a boon to the economy.  (There’s some talk that Armstrong should have to return some of his endorsement money, which completely ignores the risk that a sponsor takes when it pays for a celebrity endorsement).

So Lance Armstrong cheated and lied.  That’s the wrong thing to do, and there’s no doubt in my mind that he did it for purely selfish reasons.  But a lot of good, honest people benefited from Armstrong’s lies.  That doesn’t excuse his actions, but it raises interesting questions about how the rest of us are entitled to react.  Can we condemn Lance Armstrong?  Sure.  Can we demand that our athletes compete on an even playing field?  Absolutely.  But in doing so, we’ll have to accept that the is no Superman.