After I wrote the Beloit College Makes Me Feel Old column, Phil and Ted from the High School Humor Blog contacted me to see if they could write a followup response to my post.
Always the supportive mentor to budding humorists, I thought, "Sure, why not." Here's their response, Beloit College Makes You Feel Old?
The semi-recent release of Beloit College’s Mindset list, listing many interesting facts about this year’s college freshman, raised a few issues with the general public. For instance, apparently, it made some of you feel old.
That’s the whole purpose, though, isn’t it? Let’s see what the website says:
“[The list] was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation.”
Oh, that makes sense, because it’s really important to avoid dated references. To the point where it becomes worth the amount of effort needed to actually compile the list in the first place.
We’re just joking. Obviously, that quote from the website was in code; you’ll notice, if you read between the lines, it says, “…was originally created to make you feel old, dated, aged, out of it, uncool, not hip, and without swag (and if you think we just misused half of those words, then you might as well start digging your grave right now).”
But, being teens, we can tell you there are some vital things that the mindset list neglected to mention. For instance, the fact that today’s generation will be so used to political scandals that if a congressman doesn’t resign every six months, we would call for a congressional investigation.
Without further ado, here are some vital components that were left off the original mindset list:
Today’s generation can type faster with their thumbs than most baby boomers can with all ten fingers.
A black and white movie is practically not even worth watching, unless our teacher asks if we want to watch one in class (read: waste class time) in which case, “YES! I’ve always wanted to see that one so much!”
Snail mail is not a recognizable phrase. There has always been email. Mention it to us and we will imagine a snail carrying a letter.
If we find a palm planner in the junk drawer, we assume it is a calculator.
When we visit nature, we find that birds are no longer allowed to make noise, as the rights to the word ‘tweet’ were purchased by Twitter.
Computers are ‘old tech’ for us; now we’ve got tablets, smartphones, and snuggies.
We google the correct spelling for ‘snuggies’.
The famous ‘Pet Rock’ must be the name of some silly teenage band.
We keep track of holidays by looking at the Google logo of the day.
So many animals are supposed to be extinct by 2050 that we have brought back the ‘collecting beanie babies’ fad just in case.
Nobody has ever used Yahoo. Both the search engine and the exclamation.
We have had to constantly worry about falling satellites, the economy, and various flu outbreaks.
Sea Cucumber mail is also not a recognizable phrase, mostly because it was never a phrase to begin with.
We keep track of our news by going to Google.
The environment has always needed saving.
We go to Google to figure out how to save the environment.
If we find a walkman in the junk drawer, we call the police with a possible bomb situation.
We go to Google to figure out how to dodge falling satellites.
We throw up when watching old movies if the main character eats airplane food (we don’t believe those who say it was better back then-there’s no way the industry could have gone from ‘edible’ to ‘your flotation device/seat cushion tastes better’ for food quality in only 30 years).
We know that Google controls the world.
End of the world predictions/movies are so commonplace that we wouldn’t notice if the world actually ended.
As you can see from this list, times have definitely changed from the days of good ol’ family values to an information-driven society bent on innovation. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to go Google “what are family values.”
This list was brought to you by the teen writers Ted and Phil, who write High School Humor Blog. © High School Humor Blog. All Rights Reserved.
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Always the supportive mentor to budding humorists, I thought, "Sure, why not." Here's their response, Beloit College Makes You Feel Old?
The semi-recent release of Beloit College’s Mindset list, listing many interesting facts about this year’s college freshman, raised a few issues with the general public. For instance, apparently, it made some of you feel old.
That’s the whole purpose, though, isn’t it? Let’s see what the website says:
“[The list] was originally created as a reminder to faculty to be aware of dated references, and quickly became a catalog of the rapidly changing worldview of each new generation.”
Oh, that makes sense, because it’s really important to avoid dated references. To the point where it becomes worth the amount of effort needed to actually compile the list in the first place.
We’re just joking. Obviously, that quote from the website was in code; you’ll notice, if you read between the lines, it says, “…was originally created to make you feel old, dated, aged, out of it, uncool, not hip, and without swag (and if you think we just misused half of those words, then you might as well start digging your grave right now).”
But, being teens, we can tell you there are some vital things that the mindset list neglected to mention. For instance, the fact that today’s generation will be so used to political scandals that if a congressman doesn’t resign every six months, we would call for a congressional investigation.
Without further ado, here are some vital components that were left off the original mindset list:
Today’s generation can type faster with their thumbs than most baby boomers can with all ten fingers.
A black and white movie is practically not even worth watching, unless our teacher asks if we want to watch one in class (read: waste class time) in which case, “YES! I’ve always wanted to see that one so much!”
Snail mail is not a recognizable phrase. There has always been email. Mention it to us and we will imagine a snail carrying a letter.
If we find a palm planner in the junk drawer, we assume it is a calculator.
When we visit nature, we find that birds are no longer allowed to make noise, as the rights to the word ‘tweet’ were purchased by Twitter.
Computers are ‘old tech’ for us; now we’ve got tablets, smartphones, and snuggies.
We google the correct spelling for ‘snuggies’.
The famous ‘Pet Rock’ must be the name of some silly teenage band.
We keep track of holidays by looking at the Google logo of the day.
So many animals are supposed to be extinct by 2050 that we have brought back the ‘collecting beanie babies’ fad just in case.
Nobody has ever used Yahoo. Both the search engine and the exclamation.
We have had to constantly worry about falling satellites, the economy, and various flu outbreaks.
Sea Cucumber mail is also not a recognizable phrase, mostly because it was never a phrase to begin with.
We keep track of our news by going to Google.
The environment has always needed saving.
We go to Google to figure out how to save the environment.
If we find a walkman in the junk drawer, we call the police with a possible bomb situation.
We go to Google to figure out how to dodge falling satellites.
We throw up when watching old movies if the main character eats airplane food (we don’t believe those who say it was better back then-there’s no way the industry could have gone from ‘edible’ to ‘your flotation device/seat cushion tastes better’ for food quality in only 30 years).
We know that Google controls the world.
End of the world predictions/movies are so commonplace that we wouldn’t notice if the world actually ended.
As you can see from this list, times have definitely changed from the days of good ol’ family values to an information-driven society bent on innovation. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we need to go Google “what are family values.”
This list was brought to you by the teen writers Ted and Phil, who write High School Humor Blog. © High School Humor Blog. All Rights Reserved.
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