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Be cool ... like everyone else
I picked up a copy of amNewYork this morning and checked out the special campus guide, which is basically a back to school section for robots and morons.
"Essential pop culture for college," begins with an oxymoronic title and declines from there. The article implores incoming freshmen to "memorize ... the pop culture phrases and quotes most overheard on college campuses." As if there aren't enough people constantly screaming "I'm Rick James, bitch!" already? Leslie Savan is having a good cry right now.
The guide moves on to unironically recommend the most mainstream of CDs (Counting Crows and Norah Jones but somehow not Bob Marley's Legend), DVDs (Sex and the City, Old School and Top Gun) and TV shows (Family Guy and The O.C.).
After pimping such fare (some which I like, but I'm hardly a tastemaker), the article makes the hilarious recommendation to "be strategically uncool" by ironically watching Matlock or Golden Girls.
But how do you tell the ironic crap from the unironic crap? I ask that seriously because that is advice freshmen could really use. An arched eyebrow at the wrong time could mean you have to transfer to another school.
On the opposing page is a feature on joints for late-night outings. More than half are diners and drugstores. Do they think that the students wouldn't have figured out the meaning of those huge neon "Open 24 Hours" signs? To cap it off, according to editors all the cool kids are eating ramen noodles and cereal, advice about as necessary to a freshman as "drink beer and screw with abandon."
Posted by Charles Star on 08/10/2005 | Permalink
Comments
All this advice about lousy music and poorly conceptualized irony leave me with one aching question: what are the cool kids doing? Outside of the obvious things like not listening to Nora Jones or watching Napoleon Dynamite, what are they doing. I've been out of college for long enough to be almost completely distanced from actual youth culture. So, have the kids come up with something to replace irony yet? I sure hope so, because re-commercializing my childhood is straining what few good memories I actually have of watching Transformers after school.
Golden Girls? What's next, ironically voting Republican. (actually yes, read Vice Magazine....)
Posted by: Rob Rickner | Aug 11, 2005 12:53:18 AM
I'm a college student...
this seems like a training technique written by a college student maybe appropriate for 2 years ago.
Posted by: Hillary | Aug 11, 2005 9:37:33 AM
Hilarious. Worry about parroting empty slogans, just don't think about the draft.
Posted by: Jim | Aug 11, 2005 12:38:30 PM
Maybe the cool kids don't go to college anymore.
Posted by: Chris | Aug 11, 2005 1:47:58 PM
Some of my college friends were trying to comfort me by telling me I wouldn't have to deal with kids like the ones in my High School once I hit college. If this article is right, then I'm going to dread college students too.
Posted by: Claudia | Aug 13, 2005 3:59:12 PM
Sounds like the idea of cool by someone who grew up in the '80s hoping to relive that wretched period. I work with teens, so I know lots of really cool kids. They like a lot of old stuff, video games, anime, hop-hop (underground), internet, etc.
Posted by: Antonio Lopez | Aug 14, 2005 11:25:53 AM
