Craig Considers The Social Media Generation

TKC NOTE: Tonight, our pal Craig Glazer shares some rather thoughtful insights on the impact of social media on American culture and relationships. Take a look:

Bye Bye Baby Boomers

Well folks, it’s finally happened. Generation X couldn’t do it. Generation Y fell short. Now the Social Media Generation has scored the knockout punch. It’s their world, baby, we’re just living in it. If you are forty-nine to sixty something, you are a Baby Boomer. While we still rule the financial world, we’ve been kicked to the curb by these Facebooking, on-line, ever-Tweeting, and social media monsters.

I know, I know, a couple generations that followed us Baby Boomers tried, in so many ways, to find that new ‘thing’ to take over. They came up with a few new drugs like ecstasy and ice. Marijuana got stronger and home grown at a high level. Clothing styles changed ever so slightly, but overall, remained much the same as it had in the sixties, seventies and eighties. They expanded TV and Film to more and more stuff, but basically the same. The two big changes were reality TV and the music changed to hip-hop and rap. Gee, thanks. What talent. Glad we don’t have to put up with people who can really sing or act anymore.

Nightlife remained pretty much the same as it did in the Boomer generation, meet at bars, get drunk and high, dinner, dancing, man, do I love that DJ. Now, it’s all come CRASHING DOWN!


Today, if you didn’t read it on-line in the last few days, it never happened and won’t be remembered, whatever it is. The social media has destroyed the arts, for the most part. Rock and roll is dead. Anybody can be a star on Youtube, so we don’t need real movie or TV stars any more. ‘Man, Cindy did a song about how cool birds and cats are and it got over a million hits on Youtube! Wonder how much she made?’ I can assure you, not much. Thirty days later, no one will know who she is. And she won’t be on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, oh sorry, I mean Jimmy Fallon. Doesn’t matter, no one watches late night television any more anyway. People are too busy tweeting, or being on Facebook and playing computer games. Nightlife. That’s been cut down to a chosen few people who still insist, for whatever reason, on dealing with the real world. Ladies Night, Cheap Drink Night and beer specials no longer create a line at the door of most nightclubs. In fact, other than a handful of bars and nightspots in most major cities, weeknights are dead. By the way, that’s true even in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, I know, because I am there all the time. Friday night’s are half as well attended as they used to be, and Saturday’s are still the busiest nights, but they are a far cry from what they used to be.

Why? Everybody meets on-line. You can meet that young lady you’ve been chatting with on Facebook Thursday night at Starbuck’s. Make sure you don’t stay out too late. Even the hip-hop and rap clubs have taken a big hit. Only a small handful in Kansas City are successful.

The worst news, the Social Media Generation has taken away our history and culture. History for the most part is no longer a big item in school. Remember when you were in school and the Civil War was at least one or two chapters in your history book, as was World War II? Now they are half page entries at best. Vietnam’s a paragraph and Korea is a line or two. The only time our Social Media Generation hears about famous Americans like Davey Crockett, Daniel Boone, General George Custer, General Douglas MacArthur, Bat Masterson, President Andrew Jackson, Sergeant York, or Audie Murphy, just to name a few, is if they show up in a franchise fantasy film as a bad guy, otherwise they are completely forgotten about along with some of their equally famous contemporaries.

Now the big shocker, and if you don’t believe what I’m about to say, go test it on college graduates even in your own family. You will find what I am about to say to be a hundred percent true. College graduates cannot tell you who commanded the Union Army (General Grant) or the Confederates (Robert E. Lee) they do not know. If you ask them what color uniforms the North and South wore, they do not know. Less than five percent can tell you who the ‘bad guys’ were in World War II (Germany, Japan and Italy). The majority cannot tell you who bombed Pearl Harbor or why PT 109 and JFK are connected. I can continue this example list, but it will only frustrate you further.

The social media has made things faster and easier but it has also taken away history and the importance of the past and stolen the thunder from all aspects of American life from entertainment, to politics, to day to day news. Today’s stars are generally people who create controversy with missteps in media, politics and sports. Today, Lindsay Lohan is a household name, she has done almost nothing of merit in her acting career and is now more famous for her legal mistakes than anything else. Sadly, the people who recognize her couldn’t recognize Audrey or Katherine Hepburn. Meryl Streep will join that group in the next couple of years.

I asked my wait-staff aged 18 to 24 the following questions. Who is John Wayne? Four of them didn’t know, two thought he was a country western singer. Who are the Beatles? Three didn’t know, one thought they were a football team and one heard of them because her mom used to listen to them. Finally, and my favorite, you know Paul Newman died recently. One of them responded, ‘Really, the salad guy died?’

Final thought, I’ll take the sixties, seventies eighties and nineties over today.
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