Oooeeeerrrr -- young people!!
Jan. 21st, 2025 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
garoteOutside the cafe today I heard a bunch of kids in their early 20’s reminiscing about the "good old days" of being ten years old, talking about console games, bumper cars, candy bar fundraiser campaigns in school, and lemonade stands.
"Bruh, I made 120 dollars selling lemonade in one day. I sat outside with a guitar, bruh. In a chair."
"Nice bruh!"
"I was, like, learning how to play and I thought I was real good. So I’d make up songs about lemonade. And so many people walked by. One guy gave me a 20 dollar bill for a cup of lemonade, bruh."
"Haha! What!"
"I was like, what do I even do with this money? Can I take this? Bruh, he walked away without asking for change. I don’t even remember what I bought with it."
"My Dad’s friend is like, a gardener at Disneyland, bruh."
"You mean, a dream maker, or whatever they call them."
"Yeah bruh. He has a special card that’s green. All the normal people get cards when they go in, but his was green."
"Yeeeah!"
"He took us on the Toy Story ride when it wasn’t open for the public yet, bruh. It was so amazing, bruh, I was like, oh my god, I’m VIP at Disneyland.
"Ballin’ bruh."
"I was so ballin' bruh."
The speech patterns are so weird! I was packing up my bike so I heard a lot of it, and I wanted to make some kind of friendly comment, but I had no idea what to say. "Bruh, if I made 120 dollars at your age, I would have gone to Fry's Electronics and bought a hard drive."
(Long, confused, pause.) "Okay, sir."
It’s like ... a thousand hours of urban influencer prattle and braggadocio, flattened down and then used as a strainer, to create this very specific dialect, and so help me I know these people are smart - they’re Berkeley suburban kids, basically raised in luxury, with every resource at their disposal - yet I hear that dialect floating out of their mouths and I want to deduct five hundred points on the "reliable", "dependable", "interesting", and "experienced" scales, and start from the assumption that all they’re really good for is being crass consumers and working service-economy jobs, because they would slack off, and crap on, anything harder.
Yes, I am definitely too old, and I know it. What's amusing to me is, it's the dialect, not even the subject matter, that's messing with my head.
And also, yes: For a certain amount of time at that age, I slacked off, and crapped on, most of what adults claimed was worthwhile!
"Bruh, I made 120 dollars selling lemonade in one day. I sat outside with a guitar, bruh. In a chair."
"Nice bruh!"
"I was, like, learning how to play and I thought I was real good. So I’d make up songs about lemonade. And so many people walked by. One guy gave me a 20 dollar bill for a cup of lemonade, bruh."
"Haha! What!"
"I was like, what do I even do with this money? Can I take this? Bruh, he walked away without asking for change. I don’t even remember what I bought with it."
"My Dad’s friend is like, a gardener at Disneyland, bruh."
"You mean, a dream maker, or whatever they call them."
"Yeah bruh. He has a special card that’s green. All the normal people get cards when they go in, but his was green."
"Yeeeah!"
"He took us on the Toy Story ride when it wasn’t open for the public yet, bruh. It was so amazing, bruh, I was like, oh my god, I’m VIP at Disneyland.
"Ballin’ bruh."
"I was so ballin' bruh."
The speech patterns are so weird! I was packing up my bike so I heard a lot of it, and I wanted to make some kind of friendly comment, but I had no idea what to say. "Bruh, if I made 120 dollars at your age, I would have gone to Fry's Electronics and bought a hard drive."
(Long, confused, pause.) "Okay, sir."
It’s like ... a thousand hours of urban influencer prattle and braggadocio, flattened down and then used as a strainer, to create this very specific dialect, and so help me I know these people are smart - they’re Berkeley suburban kids, basically raised in luxury, with every resource at their disposal - yet I hear that dialect floating out of their mouths and I want to deduct five hundred points on the "reliable", "dependable", "interesting", and "experienced" scales, and start from the assumption that all they’re really good for is being crass consumers and working service-economy jobs, because they would slack off, and crap on, anything harder.
Yes, I am definitely too old, and I know it. What's amusing to me is, it's the dialect, not even the subject matter, that's messing with my head.
And also, yes: For a certain amount of time at that age, I slacked off, and crapped on, most of what adults claimed was worthwhile!
