101) No One Likes Youth

My last post focused on a few negatives of aging.  This time, I would like to talk a little about youth.  Last week at lunch I talked with coworkers about movies.  I made a comment about how comedies coming out today seem to gravitate toward raunchiness, not like in the old days when Steve Martin and Tom Hanks made thoughtful, wholesome comedies.  A young person at the table scoffed and said, "Tom Hanks doesn't make comedies.  He only makes serious movies."  Got me thinking about the things young people do that annoy me...making me feel very happy to be aging!

• Movies:  I think this one is and always will be tough for me.  I work with several young people who have not seen any movies.  And I cannot wrap my head around it.  I have noticed that it is mainly girls who have this problem but I am not sure if this is because girls have this issue more often than boys, or if I only work with girls, so I am only seeing the young girls who have not seen any movies.  But, how can someone in this world grow up not having seen or even heard of movies such as: Bill & Teds (both their excellent adventure and their bogus journey), SpaceBalls, Dances With Wolves, Big, Harry and the Hendersons, Scrooged, Good Will Hunting, Robin Hood (Disney Animated Version), Lonseome Dove, The Goonies, Bull Durham, Spies Like Us, Weird Science, The Neverending Story
• Vocabulary.  Young people shorten every word for some reason: Totes, Obvi, Bullsh, Bougiee
• No attention span: I listen to stories all day long that completely change course mid story and no one has trouble following along except for me.  For instance, a young girl walked into the kitchen and started a story with the phrase "I can't believe I wore a white shirt the same day I brought pasta and red sauce...and ended the story with I almost went to LSU but New Orleans is too dirty" (Even though LSU is in Baton Rouge).  Without pausing she said she couldn't believe she wore a white shirt the same day she brought pasta and red sauce because she she is a messy eater, especially with pasta red sauce because she likes extra sauce because that is where the flavor is, and when she made this one last night she used paprika which she normally doesn't use but she went to Cafe Brazil recently who used Paprika on something but she can't remember what it was, and she often likes to get Brazilian food, even though Cafe Brazil has no Brazilian food and she tires of Fogo De Ciao, but there is a surprisingly good steakhouse in Lubbock even though there were no Brazilian food restaurants in Lubbock, because it is a college town and she liked college even though she applied to OU and Tech, but they are essentially the same type of school with lots of country boys, but she almost went to LSU but New Orleans is too dirty.  I seriously can't keep up.
• Using too many letters at the end of words when typing emails or facebook: wayyyyyyyy cool, love themm, heyyy, have funnn, move arounddd, moving todayyy - all examples taken from facebook
• Many young people I talk to have never heard of music from any other time period.  This includes 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's.  I ask if they like music and they say yes, very much.  I then ask what they listen to and they cannot give me a straight answer.  A girl sitting close to me said she listens to everything and different stuff.  I asked for her favorite artists and she could not give me one.  Instead she told me a handful of songs she likes.  Its like once the internet happened, people cannot waste time listening to an actual album.  
• Complete disregard for sensibility, followed by complaining:  This one is complex and I see it in many forms.  I see it most with food.  The girls I have worked with will skip lunch because they are "too busy" and then be completely starving at 2p, so much so that they have to get something fast, so they walk to a nearby restaurant where they order a sandwich and cookie and bring it back to the office.  They will sit the sandwich down near their computer because they have so much work and they won't eat it.  The sandwich gets too soggy for them to eat (after 15 minutes it is too soggy) and so they throw it away, eat the cookie and then at 3:30 they are starving again.  At this point they go to starbucks for marble cake and a latte, or they go to the basement and get a candy bar.  Throughout the day they complain about always being hungry and about how they always seem to gain weight.  
• The higher pitched trailing off of syllables often attributed to Valley Girl style speaking.  This has been happening for decades, and is usually attributed to high schoo/college age girls.  However, I would like to say that I hear this in the work place from boys and girls over the age of 25.  Also, I watch a show on HBO called Vice, which is a documentary style show.  The young guy interviewing a Korean National trying to escape the oppression of her country (which for her was being sold as a sex slave) spoke just like a high school valley girl.  I don't understand this.