How To Defuse A Ticking Timebomb
by Brodie Bruce
I’m not sure if I’m the only one, but I’m noticing a trend among the young people of today. They are all anti-establishment, anti-police, listening to nicely packaged rap metal that so succinctly sums up their frustrations with meaningless lyrics screamed over a guitar riff that sounded ten times better when Page Hamilton played it back in 1991. (If you don’t know who Page Hamilton is, don’t feel bad, he’s the guy who revolutionized metal with a band called Helmet, but doesn’t get any props for it. Go buy Meantime.) Now normally I would be proud of these young kids, with their Che T-shirts and anti-establishment views, but this time something is different, something is worrisome. The problem is that all of this youth frustration isn’t from watching a society capable of making sure nobody starves fail miserably at providing the bare minimum of human dignity to its less fortunate members. The Youth Anger Movement was bought down at the mall for $124.99.
It
seems that some very clever marketing teams have figured out that kids will buy
stuff that pisses off their parents (what a news flash). So they put together
the Youth Anger Movement Package. Available only where better fashion is sold,
this package contains:
A
baseball hat to be worn backwards
One
Limp Bizkit CD
One
Pair of oversized jeans
One
Piercing
One
tube of Hair Dye
One
Pair of Osiris skateboard shoes (stitched exclusively by a 6 year old living in
slavery somewhere in Indonesia)
One
set of Instructions on how to look pissed off and have people believe you.
So
why does this trend worry me? It’s because the system that these kids are
pissed off at is the same system that is selling the package. It’s no longer
“no one understands me—I am a distressed teenager” it has become “ The
system understands me so well that it’s figured out how to sell me
everything—from awkward teenage sexuality to misplaced adolescent
aggression.”
I
made a shocking discovery the other day. If you play the last Limp Bizkit album
backwards it repeats in a cool soothing voice “Strive for middle management”
Yes
the system is tricking the youth of today into a simple life of mediocrity by
using reverse psychology. This wouldn’t be so bad, but I was hoping that these
kids would be the foot soldiers who, under my careful command, overthrow this
oligarchy and set up a new healthy system of humanitarian socialism! Damn you
Fred Durst!
Oh
yeah…how to defuse a ticking timebomb:
Take two Percocets and go to bed…things will seem better tomorrow.