August 05, 2014
Or are they?
I”m writing this from the Philippines. On the surface, Americanization is well under way here. There are five malls within walking distance of my condo. Everyone speaks English. American pop culture is big here, and even poor people have cell phones. There are half a dozen universities in the city proper teeming with eager teenage girls. Yet the country still retains its unique character. In the malls and public places, Filipinos are cheerful and social. You don”t see them using their Samsung Galaxy S3s unless they need to call a friend or cab. From my apartment, I can watch kids playing just outside the compound gates, whereas their American counterparts are sullenly mashing buttons on a video game controller.
It’s obvious from just a few days outside the U.S. that whatever malaise is afflicting my generation runs deeper than addiction to Steve Jobs” overpriced toys. While real, the digital crack pipe that Americans are attached to is a symptom of a more serious social problem. When young women are so fearful of contact with strangers that they”ve invented “personal space boxes“ to use on the subway, when musicians have to beg their fans not to spend their live shows endlessly Tweeting blurry pics of the stage, when the only time people can show any kind of emotional vulnerability is when they”re blackout drunk (and thus freed from personal responsibility), can anyone blame the Rooshes of the world for what they do?
This is what makes Poosy Paradise a great book: it details the depressing nature of our sexual Kobayashi Maru. There are exceptions, but for the most part, even those who win end up losing. There’s no golden vaj at the end of the rainbow, no happily ever after, just the endless drudgery of meet “n” bang. Narcissists tweaking each other’s dangly bits as a stress reliever between babbling into their handheld twit machines. The worst aspects of promiscuity and prudishness married in one gruesome Satanic wedding.
If this is my generation, I don”t want to be part of it anymore. Are you Gen-Xers adopting?
