Digital Aging

I stumbled upon this digital painting called "Last Men on Earth" by Wojciech (Voytek) Nowakowki, and I absolutely love it. He's an amazing artist, check out his website: http://www.voytek-art.com/

This particular image made me immediately think of 3 things: First was the collapse of Skyworld from Kid Icarus, the second was the collapse of Laputa from Castle in the Sky, and third was a more abstract swirl of philosophical images concerning humanity and its fate. To avoid seeming too dorkish, I'll just avoid all three of these images and talk about something completely different.

One of the English presentations someone did involved Pop Culture Jeopardy, with the generation gaps facing each other (the teacher against the whole class). Categories involved Game Shows, New York Times Best Seller List, VH1 Reality shows, the Digital Age, the 2009 Oscars, etc. Everyone in the class pretty much knew everything, except for the teacher...and me. I knew almost none of the answers, which did nothing for my self esteem. I tend not to think about how seperate I am from society, but events like these force the truth to surface. How am I supposed to relate to my peers if I don't even know what the heck a "tweeter" is? Its no wonder I have so few friends...

Well, what are my options?

1) Spend years in intensive study on every potential pop culture reference someone may make. Impossible! This pop culture thing is so rapidly evolving that if you don't already know everything up to this moment in time there's no way you'll ever be able to keep up! This must be why girls are always gossiping and texting - to keep up with current popular events so they don't lose all their friends. Sigh.

2) Fake it - make up pop culture references and hope they pertain. "Did you hear Brittney has flat feet? Seriously, she's like a duck!" Nevermind, that's a terrible idea.

3) Give up on ever understanding culture, and potentially ever having peer-group friends. Possible...very possible. Who needs these lazy, arrogant, backstabbing people as friends? Though I may be 18, I have the digital-age abilities of a 70 year old, and therefore should remain in that social group. Ah, who am I kidding...I do need these backstabbing friends! Its so weird that no matter how cruel teenagers can be to each other, I still feel a need to belong. I mean, I've seen people laughing it up and being totally friendly with someone, and the instant they turn their backs they say the nastiest things about each other. Like no matter how hard you try, there will always be something to damage your reputation, but you have to keep trying so you get a good reputation...It doesn't make any sense! We're all just tearing each other down to build ourselves up, but we don't seem to realize if everyone is busy destroying, nothing can possibly be constructed!

BAH! I give up! I'll just become a hermit who hates everyone.