topic c, part 3: the fake headlines

that "reportage" on emo is pretty funny, indeed. it reminded me a little bit of the news clips featured in the filth and the fury (a few scant seconds of which can be seen in the only available trailer to be found on youtube).

what i find interesting, though, is that emo kids seem to have subverted their punk roots by becoming a threat to no one but themselves. i mean, no one's calling them the "antithesis of humankind" or suggesting they'd be "vastly improved by sudden death" (although i'm sure at least a handful of people actually feel that way).

and yeah, imperial, that frontline episode was great. i particularly liked how the show's reporter came across at times like a total artifact of journalism itself - wearing a rumpled corduroy sport jacket, asking questions like "isn't it true, sir, that you support programs that aren't news? isn't it true, in fact, that you like gossip and can relate to the kids with their ringtones and their secret instant text language?"

way to go, generational divide - way to turn the media against itself.

(sidenote to /a - i suspect hip-hop sucks in '07 for the same reason it did 11 years ago:

"... it's the money!"

but honestly, there's still good stuff to be found out there, so i'm feeling more optimistic about things than maybe i should.)

Topic C, Part 2: Hope I die before I get old. Oh, wait -- too late.

Great timing! Firstly, because I just saw a Frontline piece on TV last night that addressed the changing face of journalism (or, The Rise of THE BLOG), and secondly, because today is indeed my birthday.

I am turning 31, no longer on the Twenties-Thirties cusp, but I've felt "old" for quite a while. More than once over the past couple of years, I have found myself muttering, "What is up with the kids these days?" I'm not sure when and in what era I got stuck, but it happened just the same.

However, despite feeling somewhat distanced from an age group I was once in (and not so long ago, thank you very much), I don't think I'm quite as out of touch as whomever is responsible for these "lock up your children" news stories. I mean, seriously? Who's scared of emo? Was it ever actually threatening? Teenagers still connect with it, to be sure -- and maybe that's what's frightening parents, as always -- that there's a form of music to which their children deeply relate, which they themselves cannot understand, and thus even greater separation from their offspring is created -- but, Moms! Dads! Emo isn't even goth! Emo is kinda like the hair metal of my youth, except with a lot more crying.

It's funny that Frontline noted that even though most people still get their news from television broadcasts, younger audiences consistently turn to the Internet for their information (with nightly viewings of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, of course); for an "old people" news outlet, Frontline is certainly not oblivious to the shifting tastes of target demographics. In terms of these generations, I don't know onto which side of the divide I land. I suppose I've fallen somewhere in the divide itself, into some chasm in which I know that most of today's music isn't exactly made for me, but I still (somewhat secretly) enjoy "Dance, Dance" (I know, /a: for shame). It's a hole in which I'm so old that I listen to Big Tracks by choice, in a non-ironic way (with frequent, sincere, detours into Top Tracks), and willingly load such songs onto my MP3 player; but it's a hole in which I'm young enough to actually know how to operate an MP3 player, and it's a hole in which I'll never be too old for cake.

Topic C, Part 1: "Emos, or 'emotional people'"

I don't have the words...



Just wow. Has the generational divide ever been deeper? A yawning chasm never to close again? Not since Elvis' hips have the squares been so far off the mark (actually, the critics of Elvis were pretty on the mark - bringing a new, frank sexuality to the mainstream? Check). But by failing to recognize that some of what they report is in fact parody of the topic in question, they ruin whatever credibility a backwater local newscast might have enjoyed.

Things aren't much better in Rochester:



Emo is admittedly a strange beast. I don't pretend to fully understand it. I vaguely remember when it referred to Slint and Embrace and Minor Threat. I don't like Fall Out Boy; I do admit to occasionally falling for My Chemical Romance's "six songs in one" approach (in a sing-along-because-it's-on-the-radio sense). So yeah, I'm kind of clueless (not as clueless as Officer Maygra, mind you), but I'm pretty sure that when my daughter is old enough to have such interests, no youth movement to which she may pledge allegiance will be worth my wigging out to quite the same degree as the folks at WDAZ.

Rap music - which I was heavily into as a 15-year-old - genuinely frightened my parents. It was about black politics and empowerment and seemingly had very little to say to a white kid from suburban Ottawa. But I drew Public Enemy logos on my binders, and memorized the lyrics. I enjoyed it for several reasons, not the least of which was the danger it represented. It was exotic, and angry, and charged; it was the antithesis of my daily existence. The language was strong, the images sometimes violent, but my parents had the wisdom to let me draw my own conclusions. And now I am neither a militant nor a thug, but a free-thinking, often curious and (I hope) non-prejudiced lover of all music, someone who still loves hip-hop (but who wonders where the urgency went, the sense that the world could be changed - next topic suggestion: Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '07).

I'm a parent now, so I suppose I understand the confusion and fear involved here. We naturally want what's best for our kids, and the easiest way to imagine what's best is to imagine what we know. So here's a suggestion: know more. Ask questions. And don't assume the folks at WDAZ (or equivalent) know what the fuck they're talking about.