I Wanna Be Sedated

Today’s post is a writing challenge. This is how it works: participating bloggers picked 4 – 6 words or short phrases for someone else to craft into a post. All words must be used at least once and all the posts will be unique as each writer has received their own set of words. That’s the challenge, here’s a fun twist; no one who’s participating knows who got their words and in what direction the writer will take them. Until now.

My words are: elections, blue, cows, stars, millennials. they were submitted by: https://wanderingwebdesigner.com/blog

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I haven’t been as into politics this year.

I’m burned out.

I’m burned out on even reading the word “elections.” I’m burned out on the whole “blue no matter who” chant and the finger pointing at millennials for every ending, badly run, overhyped, no longer valid industry and every real, serious, and necessary criticism of Democratic candidates. I’m tired of explaining that wanting and expecting better of our potential presidential candidates isn’t what handed us Trump, and it isn’t going to be what hands us Trump again if it happens that way. The bigotry, willful ignorance, hatred, and selfishness of America is partly what gave us that and what will do it again. The undercurrent that has always been a problem in America gave him to us. Ignoring those issues while we pretend everything is fine is what gave him to us. Always focusing on electability over policy, always excusing racism and sexism and abelism because Trump and his supporters are worse is at fault.

How fucking low are we going to set the bar? We just gonna make racism okay as long as it isn’t blatant Trump racism?

And let’s face it, the inability for so many liberals to face any criticism of the Democratic party gave us Trump, too.

I spent a couple days recently enjoying some episodes of a show (Maude) made in the early 70s that was incredibly progressive for its time and complained, largely, about the same problems we face now only then it was Nixon. And after Nixon, it was Reagan. So many of the same criticisms that Democrats make about Trump and act like it’s all brand new territory are the same things written into this show created in 1972 about some other asshole we thought couldn’t possibly be elected at the time because we underestimated the selfishness and hatred of our fellow Americans but also because we failed to see the problems in our own party and cut off any real discourse about them out of fear. For literally decades, liberals have spent all their time fingerpointing at the other side instead of using losses to grow and make necessary changes.

Who is Joe Biden if not another Hubert Humphrey?

I’m tired of being one of the cows grazing on the pasture of whatever crumbs of progressive policy white liberals use to tease marginalized groups. I’m tired of waiting to be inevitably led to slaughter when those politicians suddenly cater to the mythological moderate Republican who might vote Blue for the right person.

Democrats would be better off spending millions trying to prove leprechauns will give us all a pot of gold if we just remove that scary word “socialism” from the English language. Or is that what we’re doing now? Close enough, I guess.

Spoiler alert: those people don’t exist. There is no large group of voting Republicans that can be courted hard enough to turn the tides of the election while the entire political spectrum shifts further and further right to appease a demographic that has literally never won Democrats an election. The thing of it is the kind of people who can be swayed by a conservative masquerading as a Democrat don’t vote and don’t have a stake in any fight. None of the policies being discussed really affects them or their livelihoods. They aren’t the kind of people who will have to worry about losing protections or being kicked out of the military. There’s nothing to lose and nothing to gain by making such a switch. So why in the ever loving fuck do we leave our most vulnerable out in the cold to cater to people who won’t notice much of a difference and won’t give a shit no matter who wins? What kind of tactic is that and what does it say about the core of the Democratic party?

No candidate is going to appeal to millennial and younger leftists by using slang badly on Twitter and lying about when they used to smoke weed on a podcast. We don’t give a shit. Honestly. I could not care less about who smokes weed as long as they’re keen on making it legal for everyone and easier to get coupled with releasing offenders who were charged with weed related, non violent crimes while rich white people get richer off the industry. I’d like more LGBTQIA+ representation in the government, out and open and proud. But that’s not a trade off for someone who supports Medicare For All. It’s not a replacement for having actual convictions. It’s not a shiny item that will distract us from a history of gentrification and racism. Policy matters. Past voting records and policy initiatives matter. Having a real plan of action and not some super secret healthcare idea matters.

People get stars in their eyes about certain politicians and fail at all to be able to accept criticism of that candidate and join others in pushing for a better version of that candidate. It’s all defensiveness and denial and “DO YOU WANT TRUMP AGAIN BECAUSE THAT’S HOW YOU GET TRUMP AGAIN” instead of any actual conversation about where we can compromise and what sort of past voting records and bills can be forgiven. Instead of examining Biden’s past with the 94 crime bill, his support of segregation and his continued racist comments, any of these points are met with BUT TRUMP IS THE WORST. Sure, ok. But where does that leave us? Doing this in ’68 still gave us Nixon. Twice. Focusing only on criticizing the opposition leading up to the primaries didn’t work then. It didn’t work for Reagan. It didn’t work for George W Bush. And it didn’t work for Trump. So why will it suddenly work now?

Self crit and growth aren’t easy. I get it. Pretending we always have the high ground over the opposition though has made for a stagnant party that continues to push further and further right so that American liberals are conservative in the rest of the world. The younger generations may get on board with a candidate we don’t fully believe in just for the sake of harm reduction for more vulnerable groups, but the longer the Democratic Party does this, the more of us get jaded, the more we feel our votes don’t make a damn, and that means even fewer votes period.

We’re fucking tired. Jaded. Nothing to do, no where go oh. We wanna be sedated.

90210: My Generation, Baby

I have done quite a bit of reflecting over life up to this point in the last few years. I’ve become nostalgic for the days of my youth and filled my DVD library with cartoons from the 80s and 90s (When there's trouble you call DW. If you know what that's from, perhaps the two of us should get dangerous), and bought a number of toys I had or wanted when I was a kid. Yes, I sleep with Fraggle Rock characters on or beside my bed. So what? Yes, I have a Pound Puppy and still know all the lyrics to the Animaniacs theme song. And, I still have a crush on Raphael from TMNT.

Nostalgia led to reflection about my peers, and ultimately, I’ve become increasingly interested in the behaviors of these peers and in American culture in general—the drives and motivations of my generation or at least those so-called Millinneals born on the cusp of Generation X . Unfortunately, what I’ve found is a pervasive lack of humility, almost total self-absorption, a detachment from learning and knowledge, and rampant apathy. It’s not everyone, but it certainly seems to be a common, embarrassing trend. And, I’ve come to blame, at least in part, the primetime drama Beverly Hills 90210.

If you’re like me, you can open up your Facebook, Google+, Twitter, or whatever your social networking poison may be and find incredible amounts of bullshit. There’s constant complaints about every little change these sites make, for one thing. This basically amounts to griping about a free lunch which we all should know is a little absurd. In your feed, you’ll find relationship drama and hidden messages in status updates directed towards someone that the poster doesn’t have the guts or maturity to confront face to face. You’ll find people who make fake profiles to be able to escape unhappy relationships for awhile. Bragging about material possessions is as commonplace as gripes about not having enough material possessions. While, at least in my experience, someone with goals who is motivated to have a successful career, has a desire to learn, or has productive, enriching hobbies is very scarce.

I’ve also found that people my age, give or take a few years, seem to have very little success in relationships. I might know one couple who has been together more than a few years and is still happy, but more times than not people would rather be miserable with someone than learn to be content with themselves. Most people I know including myself are divorced, and the others fight constantly, do the breakup-makeup routine, or need antidepressants and/or drugs to achieve any sort of stability with one another. If you can't be happy, numb yourself until you don't care, right?

Here’s where the blaming begins.

Beverly Hills 90210 originally aired in 1990. I was born in ’81, so that puts me as a preteen/teen when the show hit its peak. The same is true for people near my age--20-somethings and 30-somethings alike. The show was marketed as  a primetime teen drama, the first of its kind. It’s since revolutionized television making these sorts of shows an entertainment staple for the last few decades.

The plot of the show focuses on a group of teens in “dramatic” situations set in posh Beverly Hills, California (as the name so creatively suggests). These kids are all attractive and live in upper middle class neighborhoods. These kids and their families have absolutely nothing in common with mainstream America. They do, however, represent an ideal which only succeeds in strengthening their appeal. The point, seemingly, was to have individuals who the common folk could look up to face a number of social issues such as unplanned pregnancy, AIDS, drug use, etc in an effort to help the viewing public cope with these problems more constructively in their own lives while simultaneously providing exemplary entertainment. The creators of the show really got this whole idea very wrong.

The characters of 90210 were supposed to be a very close-knit group of friends who all attended high school together. Apparently, said creators’ idea of close-knit friendship is vastly different from mine. I consider friends to be people who care for one another, strive to help each other, and who find enjoyment in each others’ company. To be considered “close-knit,” I’d say these friends would be as close or closer than family. On the show, these characters were constantly in turmoil with themselves. Friends became enemies and vice versa in an hour timeslot. Relationships began, ended, and became rattled with infidelity. Gossip was rampant, and the kids’ proved themselves to be spoiled brats. Not one of the characters that came and went over the years was someone a parent would want their child to idolize—something that was inescapable considering these are television characters who are beautiful, wealthy, and desired. In the season’s pilot, Brenda, the character played by Shannon Doherty, lies about her age to seduce a guy well into his 20s while she is just 16. The next episode shows the group to be extremely shallow and materialistic with Brenda in the lead. And the rest of the season involves characters who are liars, law breakers, and backstabbers. Then when the show actually tackles a social issue like AIDS, the discussion of safe sex only hints towards the entire group being sexually active, and by the end of the show, Brenda does sleep with Dylan (played by Luke Perry). In the very first season, girls were shown how to be vapid, manipulative, and sexually irresponsible at the very least. That’s not to mention the crimes, sex, scandals, emphasis on material wealth, lies, addictions, and more involving the other characters over the years. Nothing is taboo with this group from sleeping with your best friend’s boyfriend, to screwing your teacher, to breaking into a school to change grade with none of that coming with any real consequences

Is this really any different from daytime soap operas? No and yes.

Daytime soap operas have always been ripe with extramarital affairs, fights, backstabbing, manipulation, and overly dramatic bullshit. Everyone in the rather small casts would ultimately end up screwing everyone else unless the person was a known blood relative with no regard for anyone else involved. Consider Victor Newman on The Young and the Restless. He has been married to 8 different women sometimes multiple times and had various affairs with other women including with his own son’s former wife and the mother of his grandchildren. These shows are meant to be intensely dramatic for sheer entertainment value just as primetime dramas, but they’re on during the day and focus mostly on an adult audience, mainly housewives. Even primetime dramas like Dallas were focused on adults and had little appeal for younger generations.

With 90210 and the advent of teen dramas, the focus was drawing in a younger crowd, and they worked. Scores of young girls were able and more than willing to drool over Jason Priestly and Luke Perry while envying and copying the characters played by Shannon Doherty and Tori Spelling. The show aired after school was over and after homework was likely to have been completed but not so late as to concern parents about letting even their 10-12 year olds watch it.

Those early preteen and teen years —the years which my peers would have been watching 90210—are pretty impressionable ones. Personalities are budding, hormones are changing, and the brain is becoming more fully developed yet still not able to realize between an entertainment figure and a role model. Independence becomes more important as does the idea of romantic relationships. Being influenced by characters on a show like 90210 can make some major changes in the forming self. In my time reflection, I’ve seen how deeply that influence can cut.

I find I’m surrounded by a culture which approves of people keeping the tags on clothes to show off the brand and who are continuously trying to gain success and happiness through material possessions. Teen pregnancy has become a commodity which is glamorized on television. Teen moms make 6 figure incomes to act like complete white trash in front of a massive world-wide audience. Divorce rates continue to climb, and America continues to have the highest rates of depression. Children carry cell phones and spend their days eating spoonfuls of cinnamon for youtube videos instead of visiting museums. Jersey Shore gives us a glimpse of “reality” these days by proving people have become a real version of a 90210 cast. All in all, the things I see every time I open a social network are reminiscent of 90210 and the shows created in its image over the last 21 years.

So.

What can be done?

Not much I’m afraid, but really I have to send a big thank you to Brenda, Brandon, Kelly, Donna, Andrea, Steve, Dylan, and David. Thanks, guys, for showing us the art of being fake.