The May 27 Round-Up, Smells Like Teen Spirit (and Canada?) Edition
Meanwhile Allie and Sarah Kate explore performance anxiety and anger, respectively.
Hello Readers!
Last week’s Millennial Round-Up was such a big hit, we decided to do it again but this time with our Gen X forebears. For the generation that said, “here we are now, entertain us,” here we go…
First, remember The Real World, MTV’s “true story of seven strangers picked to live in a house and have their lives taped, to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real”? After its 1992 debut, The Real World helped launch a thousand reality TV shows. The inaugural cast came back together for a reunion which was interesting (and also made our almost-40 editrix feel old).
The guy who first coined the term “Generation X” recently wrote an op-ed about Canada’s vaccine roll-out and the way once again, his generation gets the shaft. To quote Troy Dyer quoting Starburst, it’s “bursting with fruit flavor.”
In response to Coupland’s op-ed, Canadian write and professor Andrew Potter (no relation to Harry) explores how Gen X was the last truly free generation (well, except for The Real World and reality TV, see above).
The New Yorker was just nowhere near the Gen X neighborhood, but they recently published a great piece on the challenges of animal translation.
Finally, Vice (a Canadian media outlet founded by some Gen Xers in Montreal) has a great channel on YouTube called The Story Of, in which it explores the stories behind songs such as Sisqo’s “Thong Song” and Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles.”
If you like The Real World, consider signing up for or sharing The Wheel(house) World, the true story of nine people who write together and have their words published. Less drama, but really good content. We’re bursting with fruit flavor.
How do you turn from an anxiety-riddled writer into a swan? Check out this piece from Allie Bullivant:
Performance Anxiety Without Viagra
What I Learned at Oxford
The night before my first day at Oxford I couldn’t sleep.
Most of my classmates couldn’t either, but I didn’t know that at the time.
After orientation I wandered in a cloud of anxiety through University Parks. The grounds were already cool with the arrival of autumn, I could see my breath, and the sweater I’d brought with me – per usual in the English weather – wasn’t cutting it. I stood along the wooden bridge over the canal and examined the meadow grass swaying under light rain.
There along the bank a lone swan dove into a slick of pond scum. It shook and floundered under the surface, a flailing tuft of feathers and madness.
There was no grace in its movements. No regal manner. Despite that it belonged to the Queen, as all swans in the UK do.
I felt an immediate and intense affinity for that swan in University Parks.
How do you turn from a repressed church lady into Julia Sugarbaker? Check out this piece from Sarah Kate Neall:
Unbecoming
Firing my inner church lady
“Unbecoming” was a word my Southern mom and grandmother used tongue-in-cheek, yet still powerfully. The word captured behaviors that were both immoral and unattractive. Whining for candy at the Bi-Lo grocery checkout (gluttonous, irritating), saying you needed something you merely wanted (hyperbolic, spoiled), arguing with food in your mouth, shouting of any kind. “Unbecoming” actions made you look bad and made life hard for people around you; the unique danger of behaving “unbecomingly” as opposed to “poorly,” “dangerously,” “ungratefully” or just plain “badly” was the implication you were being watched. It meant your audience — the warm glow of their attention, always a source of life and meaning —could sour on you. Leaving us with an occasional babysitter, cash for pizza on top of the piano, my mom also called out, “Y’all be sweet!” Not good, compliant, obedient, or rule-following— but sweet. Pleasing to the palate, nice to be around. She would often tell my bickering sister and me, “Now, don’t be ugly.” Later, I joked, “What if I can’t help it?”
Sometimes one of these phrases — unbecoming, be sweet, don’t be ugly — works its way up to my amygdala. I’ll have a hateful thought, and I’ll hear the swift click of closed-toe pumps in the hallway of my mind: “Well, that was unbecoming,” says a rather starchy Presbyterian Sunday School-teacher voice. I’m crouched and ready, prim and judgmental, to let myself know if I am at risk of losing my audience. Typically this just means I’m petrified of shit-talking. I treat all my texts as if they’ll appear in open court. My inner church lady is there to remind me, “Don’t be ugly.”
Well, we’re Audi 5000. We hope you enjoy this unofficial start to summer (and all the white pants). We’ll be back on Tuesday, June 1 with a sure-to-be excellent piece by Stephanie Phillips.