The Importance of Being Not Quite So Cynical
Much, much too late to be posting anything. But here I am. A couple of people on my friends list have linked to this Salon.com article, "An open apology to boomers everywhere," by Heather Havrilesky. And I wanted to post the link, as well.
"We ate Happy Meals while watching the space shuttle blow into tiny bits."
As someone born in 1964, at the very tail-end of the Baby Boom -- and as someone who then wound up spending most of her life with Gen Xers for friends (and who has, oddly, often been referred to as a Gen X author) -- this pleased me a bit. For years I have publicly lamented to so-called "Age of Irony," the knee-jerk cynicism, the default indifference, the automatic disdain, the eye-rolling, the inability to fathom earnestness. So, this is refreshing, even if I strongly suspect it'll take a whole lot more than the election of Barack Obama to wash away to stain. It's something I've never truly understood, but, then, I was almost an adult when Reagan was elected.
Meanwhile, I have learned that the greatest percentage of idiocy (loathsome chat, stupid names, etc.) in WoW seems to be associated with human cities. No idea why. Of course, I also have no idea why, in a game where you can play orcs, night elves, blood elves, trolls, Taurans (basically, minotaurs), gnomes, dwarves, undead, and Draenei (an alien race), anyone would choose to play a...human. Especially since Blizzard seems to have reserved the absolute worst voice-acting for the human NPCs. They all sound like Ned Flanders. And they're all built like quarterbacks. Even the women. Ah, well. it takes all sorts. Mithwen, my night elf, made Lvl 32 tonight. She now rides an enormous saber-toothed cat, which she has named Bounder. Mithwen has taken a few too many blows to the head, and, much to the chagrin of her sister, a Druid named Syllhar, is just a little simple. But she makes a hell of a tank. We've been slaughtering werewolves and zombies in Duskwood, south of Stormwind (hence my greater exposure to humans).
Okay, Caitlín, please go to bed.
"We ate Happy Meals while watching the space shuttle blow into tiny bits."
As someone born in 1964, at the very tail-end of the Baby Boom -- and as someone who then wound up spending most of her life with Gen Xers for friends (and who has, oddly, often been referred to as a Gen X author) -- this pleased me a bit. For years I have publicly lamented to so-called "Age of Irony," the knee-jerk cynicism, the default indifference, the automatic disdain, the eye-rolling, the inability to fathom earnestness. So, this is refreshing, even if I strongly suspect it'll take a whole lot more than the election of Barack Obama to wash away to stain. It's something I've never truly understood, but, then, I was almost an adult when Reagan was elected.
Meanwhile, I have learned that the greatest percentage of idiocy (loathsome chat, stupid names, etc.) in WoW seems to be associated with human cities. No idea why. Of course, I also have no idea why, in a game where you can play orcs, night elves, blood elves, trolls, Taurans (basically, minotaurs), gnomes, dwarves, undead, and Draenei (an alien race), anyone would choose to play a...human. Especially since Blizzard seems to have reserved the absolute worst voice-acting for the human NPCs. They all sound like Ned Flanders. And they're all built like quarterbacks. Even the women. Ah, well. it takes all sorts. Mithwen, my night elf, made Lvl 32 tonight. She now rides an enormous saber-toothed cat, which she has named Bounder. Mithwen has taken a few too many blows to the head, and, much to the chagrin of her sister, a Druid named Syllhar, is just a little simple. But she makes a hell of a tank. We've been slaughtering werewolves and zombies in Duskwood, south of Stormwind (hence my greater exposure to humans).
Okay, Caitlín, please go to bed.