Spoiled Brats
I received a great rant in my email today (thanks for forwarding this, Tedd!). It applies to the kids of today, and I think it's great. [Jan 19th: It has been brought to my attention that this rant was written by none other than Ernie Cline.]
When I was a kid adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; walking 25 miles to school every morning, uphill both ways, through year 'round blizzards, carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse, where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time, after-school job at the local textile mill, where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death!And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way in hell I was going to lay a bunch of crap like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But...
Now that I've reached the ripe old age of 30, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. You've got it so freakin' easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in a goddamned Utopia! And I hate to say it, but kids today don't know how good they've got it!
I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have the Internet -- we wanted to know something, we had to go to the goddamned library and look it up ourselves!
And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter -- with a pen! -- and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the freakin' mailbox and it would take like a week to get there!
And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the goddamned record store and shoplift it yourself!
Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and screw it all up!
We didn't have fancy shit like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called, they got a busy signal! We didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the phone rang, you had no idea who it was -- it could be your boss, your mom, or a collections agent, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances!
And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics sucked!
Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination!
And there were no multiple levels or screens. It was just one screen forever!
And you could NEVER win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died!
That's right - harder and faster, till you DIED . . . just like LIFE!
When you went to the movie theater there was no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! If a tall guy sat in front of you, tough!
Sure, we had cable television, but back then it was only one channel - HBO and there was no onscreen menu. You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on!
And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning... D'ya hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK, you spoiled little buggers!
That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy! You're spoiled! You wouldn't last five minutes in 1984!
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This was written by a guy name Ernie Cline. You can hear him performing it on his website at: - Billy Travers, Sunday, January 19, 2003 |  |
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