We’re Not Worthy
Posted on 13. Feb, 2010 by Travs Epes in The Last Generation
I just spent an hour and a half browsing the web. I cleaned up my friends list on Facebook, sifted through various tech blogs evaluation/bashing the iPad, and fulfilled my daily pseudo-intellectual fix with some webcomics. As I flounder around this virtual stew, my English essay remains unfinished, week-old dishes grow a solid layer of grease, and I let an hour an a half slip away. And for what? I’m now moderately more in sync with tech culture, and in ten months I’ll have about eighty fewer people pretending to wish me happy birthday. In only an hour and a half, I’ve managed to pervert a device which could have connected me to something constructive. It would appear there’s a growing gap between what the internet promises and the product your ISP delivers.
We Are What We Eat
Posted on 25. Jan, 2010 by Travis Pillow in The Last Generation
The “environment dollar” is a pretty big dollar. The sustainability mavens have managed a coup, selling “green” and “organic” to hipsters and sorority girls alike – and probably their affluent parents to boot. The adherents of “hipster wisdom” tend to have privileged backgrounds and leftish politics. The former makes them the perfect target for any sales pitch, while the latter leaves them susceptible to appeals to conscience.
But behind the marketing coup is a real and growing anxiety about our mounting environmental calamity. People are driven to “organic” labels by well-founded concerns over the waste, pollution and adulteration that infect our food supply at every stage. Of course the solutions the marketers offer are mostly bogus, albeit highly profitable. A serious evaluation of our problems and the benefits of the products purported to solve them rarely fits their business model, so instead they wrap the products in emotional appeals to the customer’s as a person of conscience.
The Death of Hope?
Posted on 21. Jan, 2010 by Eric Chianese in The Last Generation
Hello, friends, Romans and readers.
So, it’s been about a month. A bit more, I think. No lame excuses this time and no bullshit. I’m going to level with you. Blogging just isn’t my top priority. Think of me what you will–I’m certain my editors will love it.
Why? Because I like to think of myself as [...]
The Blame Game
Posted on 29. Dec, 2009 by Travs Epes in The Last Generation
Welcome back readers. I know I said that this post would explain the Internet’s importance, but Eric’s talk of betrayal got my cogs spinning in a different direction (as I hope it did to yours). It reminded me of watching The Power Rangers when I was a wee tyke and thinking, “High school’s gonna be nothing but drinking smoothies and beating up bad guys!” There were plenty of bad guys, but I never did find those smoothies. It wasn’t until college that I got to questioning this crazy hoax.
The Great Betrayal: “Et tu, MTV?”
Posted on 08. Dec, 2009 by Eric Chianese in The Last Generation
Okay. So, where last we left off, I was promising to provide you a little bit of detail on what I consider to be a terrible fucking crime–The Betrayal of The Last Generation. Let me see if I can break this down for you. . . .Essentially, the Betrayal of the Last Generation went down like this: in our younger and more vulnerable years we were all fed a serious line of bullshit by movies, music videos and television shows. Like those two videos I just showed you. They taught us to believe in a very particular something. But really, I think I have a friend who can put this better than I ever could.
The Other Guy
Posted on 01. Dec, 2009 by Travs Epes in The Last Generation
This being my first post, I thought I’d keep everything simple and continue our thought train from last time. Eric revealed some painful truths explaining how we earned this name: Generation “Why.” All of our loud and incessant questioning seems to have given us a familiar infamy. We are blessed with the knowledge of countless causes for outrage, yet are complacent enough ignore any meaningful participation.
Generation “Why?”
Posted on 21. Nov, 2009 by Eric Chianese in The Last Generation
Generation Y, though, does have one thing going for it–the cute little play on words that forms the title of this entry. We, more than almost any group before us, asks “Why?” and was ask it incessantly and loudly. This is not wholly a good thing. Sometimes a generation has to act instead of just talk about acting–Generation X rarely ever picked up on this. We now run the risk of becoming, like that Danish Prince, “sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought.” Which is to say, we run the risk of making nothing of our talents and become ineffectual, empty and ghostly.
“Une Generation Derniere!”
Posted on 18. Nov, 2009 by Eric Chianese in The Last Generation
Honest to God, has it come to this? We all live plugged into our ear-buds and glued to our cell phones and hey–that’s great–the wonders of technology and all that. But we miss out on a lot because of it. I’ll bet somebody my first-edition This Side of Paradise that that 7 year old will never, of her own volition, make a piece of art, read a great book or contribute something of value to the human soul. Basically, our generation represents, to my mind, the last real shot at The Great American Novel and the making of real, genuine Art.
This blog is not going to be a neo-Luddite rant by any means. It’s more like a flaming viking ship, where we all have to get our jollies in before we die. Or maybe it’s like a lone voice of protest on an empty battlefield, with just one bullet in the gun. Maybe it’s me typing on my computer. Whatever. In this first entry, anyway, I just wanted to extend a greetings to all you wonderful readers out there (keep reading, our else I’ll have to find a new gig) and lay out the barest of bones regarding what the hell I intend to talk about.
