The Dog Days of Summer

During the dog days of summer here in Arizona, my desire to venture outside and do anything meaningful lessens greatly. The monsoons used to provide some diversity and excitement to the blast furnace days of late August and early September. Not this year. With that, I turned to my computer for some stimulation and to catch up on popular culture during my indoor hibernation. Of course, remaining up to date with current trends is no easy task, and it does have its dark side. For example: trying to figure out who the Kardashians are and why I need to keep up with them in the first place, for starters. Many of my fellow Luddite geezers feel the same way concerning popular culture and typically respond in a snippy tone, “So, what’s so popular about it?” This attitude is especially conspicuous in retirement communities where folks are often not eager to be on the cutting edge of trendy, hip activities unless one counts pickle ball. Today’s newest technology can be mind boggling for those of us who grew up without remote control TV’s,  never wore a bicycle helmet, and spent much of our childhood hanging on for dear life, barreling down the road in the bed of our father’s pickup truck on our way to the local Dairy Queen.

Despite the negative view of popular culture by my peers, I turned to the internet hoping to find something interesting to keep me in touch with the pulse of the nation without going outside. I did learn that cooking meals with our dishwashers was all the rage these days. Really. There are tons of YouTube videos on the subject. The videos state: “Sure, Instant Pots are cool, but have you paused to appreciate your dishwasher? Cook dinner and wash your dishes at the same time.” Wow, who comes up with this stuff? Inbetween games of solitaire and watching cats on ice videos, I discovered additional uh, peculiar trends: TikTok. These 15 second videos showcase the most bizarre corners of the internet including hundreds of gummy bears singing an Adele song; Kid-fluencers – four-year-olds make seven figure salaries unwrapping toys on YouTube and modeling clothing brands on Instagram; Pet-ternity leave – the newest perk for working adults is PTO when you adopt a new fur-baby. Up next, cat-mitzvahs, dog debutantes, or Mardi Paws; Semi-permanent tattoos – Millennials can’t commit to anything these days. Introducing: press-on tattoos that will last longer than a shower but disappear in time for Grandma’s birthday dinner.

I admit, many in my Boomer generation may spend hours watching mindless cute cat videos on social media, but it beats solitaire, TV soap operas, or singing gummy bears. Oftentimes though, just trying to figure out how to answer our smarter-than-us smart phones, is a problem. Swipe left, or swipe right?  That alone is why many of us keep our land line phones.  (For millennials, Google ‘older than dirt’, for what a land line is). Further, I ‘ve noticed many in my Boomer tribe rarely turn on their cell phones, and if it ever is on, the odds of them answering or returning a call, is far less than Kim Kardashian dropping out of public view and becoming a nun. What’s more, don’t even dream of receiving a text from one of them. To sum it up, it seems Boomers, on the whole, are content remaining clueless about current trends, and they intend to keep it that way. So, *put that in your pipes and smoke it, you smarty pants young whippersnappers.

*Google: geezer speak.