1.12.2007

A Truly Glorious Day for the Style Section

You may have noticed this in the comments of my last post, but today's Post features not one, but two articles by the official Why I Hate DC mascot, Laura Sessions Stepp. The first deals with the lack of tourists visiting the Treasury Department. Boring and lame. I'm only interested in what the Honorable El Ess Ess has to say about today's youth.

Bingo!

Sessions Stepp has decided to emulate the best scribe the Style section has to offer, Lisa de Moraes, and write about television. LSS won't just write about any program though. Oh, no. She wants to write about a PBS documentary about....wait for it....Generation Next!


Here's Stepp's stupid opening paragraph:

They've been called many things by the experts who study them: Generation Y and Generation Why?, Echo Boomers and Millennials, the Google or MyPod Generation (the latter a combination of MySpace and iPod.) Their test scores have been analyzed, sex lives examined and shopping habits catered to -- probably more than any other generation's.

That emphasis is mine. Geez, Laura. I would agree that my generation has been totally overanalyzed. I wonder where the fault lies? Oh. Here we go.

Laura, for the love of God, please leave the 16-25-year-old demographic alone. Please. Please stop telling old people that we break-up with each other over text message. Please stop making references to "freak dancing." And, please, for the love of all that is holy, please refrain from referring to me as a "Nexter." That is a seriously stupid word that you've coined.

(The worst part of this is that, no matter what, I am buying her book the day it comes out. I am feeding the monster.)

27 comments:

  1. Yup, it's pretty amazing the garbage the Post publishes these days.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think you should invite her out for drinks with you and your friends so she gets a real look at your generation. Maybe take her to a LNS event or the Hawk N Dove.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha! Rusty described someone else's writing as "boring and lame"!

    Ha ha! Whew. Ugh.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Take her to a CUA women's lacrosse party.

    ReplyDelete
  5. "But every time you think you've got the generation pegged, you hear another opinion that makes you realize you don't. Absent a central theme and an obvious progression of ideas, this can be a bit dizzying."

    She may have inadvertantly hit upon the real problem with all of her columns. She thinks American youth should have a central theme. And she's a bit dizzy.

    The rest of you commenters are way, way too eager to take out LSS.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Someone has to find this girl's MySpace profile.

    ReplyDelete
  7. You whippersnappers get off my lawn!

    -LSS

    ReplyDelete
  8. LSS has so much reporting talent that the Post Editors give her the privilege of writing Style columns.

    Pulitzer? Who needs a stinking Pulitzer. I wouldn't want to get my head blown off covering a story in Iraq or have some politician offering me sex in exchange for putting the kobosh on a Capitol Hill scandal.

    btw...Generation Y/Next/MTV, whatever the fuck you want to call them, are a bunch of suck-up ass holes who worship the consumer corporate and militaristic culture in this country. And...they love their parents. Fucking pathetic. At least members of my generation say "Fuck You" to Mom & Dad after we leave the house for good.

    Signed a spiteful Generation Xer.

    ReplyDelete
  9. "Generation Y/Next/MTV, whatever the fuck you want to call them, are a bunch of suck-up ass holes who worship the consumer corporate and militaristic culture in this country."

    Yeah, but every generation has those. LSS just focuses on them to the exclusion of all else whenever she thinks she's portraying "our generation." Thanks, LSS, for defining the 18-to-25 age group by its dregs.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Don't complain about being a "Nexter" at least you get a name. At a 29 I'm too old to be one of you myspace reading, text-message-break-uping Nexters, and too young to be a mopey, whiney X-er. Actually that last part is okay.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Where is Sporty Spice in the picture?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Hopefully off getting her teeth fixed.

    ReplyDelete
  13. For the most part generation y is lame as hell. Of course there are exceptions but most of these generation y fuckers are a bunch of fucking assholes (including myself) The beginning of the pussification of America.

    ReplyDelete
  14. In a way I am sort of glad generation x was able to enjoy the privilege of being the last to purchase affordable real estate in this area. Generation y and every generation that follows are going to be seriously fucked financially when it is their turn. But they dont see that yet or they dont care about that right now because they are all too busy chatting on myspace or uploading videos of themselves onto youtube. After all mommy and daddy just might go ahead and outright purchase a home for them as a birthday present.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Bravo Rusty you made WONKETTE with this one. KISS ASS.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Yeah all of generation-y sucks except for Rusty he is my baby daddy. :)

    ReplyDelete
  17. It's a shame...I WANT to like LSS's stuff because her husband was one of my college professors...but it's so consistently off the mark that I can't.

    ReplyDelete
  18. I miss the Spice Girls. Oh yeah Fuck this town!!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Love the blog. It is great to see more people in our generation speaking out about all the bullshit.

    Looks like you have really put alot of time and effort in to the page. Hopefully I can take some time soon and get mine looking a little sharper too. Keep up the fight.

    ReplyDelete
  20. The medium is the message. We've devolved from "Where's the beef?" to "Where's the hook?" in our ongoing need to name things and give them a spin within the media.

    ReplyDelete
  21. This photo really hits home Victoria Beckham's current boob job.

    ReplyDelete
  22. dear rusty,
    i am a survivor of a text message dumpage. but that was even before the facebook was invented.

    ReplyDelete
  23. WhyIHateDC: Great column. You are right on the money. These stories have been noted, criticized, complained about and ridiculed by serious journalists throughout the Washington area, with many complaints sent to the Post, yet...nothing happens. These ridiculous stories, with their horrible, childish stereotypes, keep appearing, like some disease! Point blank: It is terrrible, embarassing, childish writing, and it has not place in the Post. Really. No place in the Post. The harsh reality for so-called "trend" writers is that there is no "generation this" or "generation that" because, in journalism, you cannot peg an entire generation based on a few pop-culture things. That's all they are--things. Not everyone subscribes to these things, or to the same characteristics. Some young adults today may like tie-dye, the Dead and lava lamps. What does that make them? Some guys in their 40s may like hip-hop and text-messaging. What does that make them? BUSTED! You cannot catagorize an entire generation based on stupid pop-culture "trend" things. You literally cannot. The mistake LSS and other "youth" writers continually make is that they do this over and over--prompting nothing but vile and criticism. Unbelievable.

    ReplyDelete
  24. "These aren't young people who are strung out on cocaine or live to party -- the normal fare of TV."

    At least she was able to inadvertently pinpoint why the little dorks are so damn boring.

    ReplyDelete
  25. Some guys in their 40s may like hip-hop and text-messaging.

    Actually 40 year olds are about the right age for hip hop.

    Kids in their teens and 20's right now for the most part only know the lame corporate owned post 00's suit and tie major record label controlled hip hop.

    ReplyDelete
  26. The little dorks are boring. For the most part the entire generation Y sucks. Their music sucks too. Garbage.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Not only was it a stupid premise, the writing was just really bad.

    ReplyDelete