Jesus christ, it's an update! Get in the car!
For those of you who do not get the joke in the title, I suggest you visit 4chan.org and ask about lions. That aside....
There is a danger of being a perpetual cynic like I am, and it is this:
If no one's around, you become a douchebag.
No matter how pithy, insightful, hilarious, or timely your observations may be, they become meaningless if no one else is there to appreciate them. Then, you're just another babbling idiot on a soapbox, screaming about how the world's end is fast approaching. I realized this as I sat at the King of Prussia Mall today, observing the flotsam and jetsam of American culture.
It started out innocently enough. An old high school friend of mine (Hello Chad, I know you're reading this) and I decided that it would be a good idea to hang out before I left Pennsylvania again for college. After stupidly forgetting we agreed on Monday at 2pm (and sleeping through the whole day), we met today at the most holy of grails for the consumer culture: the mall. Much hilarity ensued as we walked around debating and mocking the direction society is heading, particularly in the anime/manga fandom and on the internet.
In case you were wondering, yes, we are both gigantic fucking nerds.
No patron, store, product, or situation seemed safe from our barrage of self-indulgent, self-ironic, and self-effacing barbs of pure wit. When I say pure wit, I mean the one-hundred percent, unadulterated, high-test crap you usually get from a Colombian wit-lord (yes, wit-lord) at gunpoint. It was golden. It was magical. It was almost like a reenactment of Mallrats, minus the sappy romantic plotlines, nymphomaniac 15 year olds, and Jay and Silent Bob. It's probably better that way, because I didn't get my ass kicked by the creep from Fashionable Male. But I digress....
Two and a half hours later, we bid each other farewell and went our separate ways. I stayed in the mall and attempted to continue that wonderful feeling of shared cynicism I had gotten earlier. To my surprise, I felt like my wit and humor was all but meaningless while all by my lonesome. It just felt stupid and pointless. Why the hell should I point out how I'm the most colorfully dressed person in Hot Topic (not exactly a difficult feat, obviously) when there's no one else there to appreciate the zing?
I suppose it's related to a concept my friend brought up: the intellectual circlejerk. That is, you tend to associate and converse with people who share your interests and would tend to agree with you. In doing so, you only continue to affirm your own beliefs, since there's no opposing party to balance it out. Even worse, you fall into the trap of thinking everyone shares your beliefs, but in reality, only the select few you normally associate with do. All of this is true for your like-minded compatriots as well, so it becomes a vicious cycle of moronic encouragement. Your group then proceeds to spew your mindless views into the world (usually on the internet, again for like-minded people) and it only gets worse. If the circlejerk metaphor is unclear by now, I suggest you check out Wikipedia or Google "circlejerk", because I do not want to delve any further into graphic representation.
My point in all of this is that despite our best attempts to break free of our self-perpetuating social demise, my friend and I actually made it worse. Amazing, isn't it?
But enough of my intellectual bullshittery. As I wrote this, I was sitting near a hair accessory "store" (read: cart) in the mall, observing two attratctive young women, presumably my age. I assumed one was the employee of the establishment and the other her erstwhile sidekick. Both kept looking at me weird, probably because they thought I was writing about them. Arrogance! The question before me then was: Do I approach them and converse, leave them my number slyly, or do nothing and dream of what may have been? Did I dare be proactive and confident?
Answer: Not today. But hey, at least it was a first step!
Also, tomorrow is my last day in PA. Please call me on my cell phone if you want to chill or something. It's on my facebook. I really don't want to waste tomorrow playing N64.
There is a danger of being a perpetual cynic like I am, and it is this:
If no one's around, you become a douchebag.
No matter how pithy, insightful, hilarious, or timely your observations may be, they become meaningless if no one else is there to appreciate them. Then, you're just another babbling idiot on a soapbox, screaming about how the world's end is fast approaching. I realized this as I sat at the King of Prussia Mall today, observing the flotsam and jetsam of American culture.
It started out innocently enough. An old high school friend of mine (Hello Chad, I know you're reading this) and I decided that it would be a good idea to hang out before I left Pennsylvania again for college. After stupidly forgetting we agreed on Monday at 2pm (and sleeping through the whole day), we met today at the most holy of grails for the consumer culture: the mall. Much hilarity ensued as we walked around debating and mocking the direction society is heading, particularly in the anime/manga fandom and on the internet.
In case you were wondering, yes, we are both gigantic fucking nerds.
No patron, store, product, or situation seemed safe from our barrage of self-indulgent, self-ironic, and self-effacing barbs of pure wit. When I say pure wit, I mean the one-hundred percent, unadulterated, high-test crap you usually get from a Colombian wit-lord (yes, wit-lord) at gunpoint. It was golden. It was magical. It was almost like a reenactment of Mallrats, minus the sappy romantic plotlines, nymphomaniac 15 year olds, and Jay and Silent Bob. It's probably better that way, because I didn't get my ass kicked by the creep from Fashionable Male. But I digress....
Two and a half hours later, we bid each other farewell and went our separate ways. I stayed in the mall and attempted to continue that wonderful feeling of shared cynicism I had gotten earlier. To my surprise, I felt like my wit and humor was all but meaningless while all by my lonesome. It just felt stupid and pointless. Why the hell should I point out how I'm the most colorfully dressed person in Hot Topic (not exactly a difficult feat, obviously) when there's no one else there to appreciate the zing?
I suppose it's related to a concept my friend brought up: the intellectual circlejerk. That is, you tend to associate and converse with people who share your interests and would tend to agree with you. In doing so, you only continue to affirm your own beliefs, since there's no opposing party to balance it out. Even worse, you fall into the trap of thinking everyone shares your beliefs, but in reality, only the select few you normally associate with do. All of this is true for your like-minded compatriots as well, so it becomes a vicious cycle of moronic encouragement. Your group then proceeds to spew your mindless views into the world (usually on the internet, again for like-minded people) and it only gets worse. If the circlejerk metaphor is unclear by now, I suggest you check out Wikipedia or Google "circlejerk", because I do not want to delve any further into graphic representation.
My point in all of this is that despite our best attempts to break free of our self-perpetuating social demise, my friend and I actually made it worse. Amazing, isn't it?
But enough of my intellectual bullshittery. As I wrote this, I was sitting near a hair accessory "store" (read: cart) in the mall, observing two attratctive young women, presumably my age. I assumed one was the employee of the establishment and the other her erstwhile sidekick. Both kept looking at me weird, probably because they thought I was writing about them. Arrogance! The question before me then was: Do I approach them and converse, leave them my number slyly, or do nothing and dream of what may have been? Did I dare be proactive and confident?
Answer: Not today. But hey, at least it was a first step!
Also, tomorrow is my last day in PA. Please call me on my cell phone if you want to chill or something. It's on my facebook. I really don't want to waste tomorrow playing N64.