it's like, hegemonical or whatever?

[Hoser McRhizzy]

It's most definitely a truth-claim, that much we know, but we're hard-pressed to say what the parameters might be.  And we're not alone. 

That phrase, "I don't know, it's like, ironical, or whatever" has baffled a decade's worth of anthropologists!  The most they've been able to pin down is that it has something to do with Alanis Morrisette and pissed off high school English teachers.  But all this time we've known it means more, contains worlds, indicates fascinatingly imprecise somethings. 

When I look too closely, it's the grey goop anti-GMO(or)nanotech people kept warning us about.  It thinks it's a Mainstream, and has a devoted press continually rebranding it as such, but it's just grey goop, eating away at the communication of people and ideas.  Absentmindedly ravenous and fascinated by itself.  Then I look away, and it's

A plugged-in 40 year old 20-something walking down the centre of the sidewalk, head down, adjusting her/his ipod with one hand, earbud in one, cell in the other, parting the sea of increasingly unreal others.  So... connected to everything except the exact physical location they're inhabiting, save for the odd shoulder check. 

What that connection that connects her to that fashionable connectivity might be made of?  Well, that's not as interesting, not as shiny as our new cultural black hole, the Ever-Tween.

The Ever-Tween is 30 years old, has 20,000 Friends, is 30,000 in debt and describes herself as moderate.  He's signed 100 online petitions for and against various things, but would never go to a protest (except maybe one like those American comedians threw to make fun of protesters.  That one was like, ironical, or something we're not sure of yet).  She's entirely capable of Having An Opinion about that new thing that just happened before she's finished reading the first three words of the news article.  He's planning his retirement around winning the lottery and sneers at the word union.  She's trying not to smile because it causes wrinkles.

All this filler, seeing patterns in that vacancy.  Everyone seems to think it Means Something.  You know, there's a hoard of tenure-humping meme-chasers currently insisting that it might Mean Something wonderful...

When everything I see looks like everything else.  What's that called again?  And why does it feel so fucking sticky?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

 

Down here, we call evertweens "drones", and I'm reasonably certain it's legal to push them into traffic.  Especially when they're hipsters or furries.

We should devise a test for this sort of thing.  A questionaire that tells you if you're one of these, or in danger of becoming one.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Hoser, you've described my ex-boyfriend. 

[Jenne]

I made the realization not that long ago (this past Spring?) that most white guys I see and know in my life/around here in SD (semi-educated, vanilla tastes in everything, watches sports just for the hell of it, music tastes leave much to be desired, taste in dress negligible but still somewhere along the "I pay attention to what's new out there") tend to be douchebags.  They fall somewhere in the category of ever-tween if they're unmarried.

The married ones just seem like jock-douchebags.