To My Generation: Part 1

Dear fellow teenager,

There are two sides to our generation: the one with people who are so obsessed with their future that they forget about life itself (see The Harker School), and the side with the people who couldn't care less about their futures. These extremes--these fringes--are causing our generation to deteriorate. So I am a bit cynical. Am I without reason? Teenagers of this decade are either too inebriated to care or too success-crazy to manage to incorporate common sense.

Let me start with hip-hop/rap/top 20 music. Scrolling through my meager list of songs in the "Hip-Hop/Rap" genre, I see the following song titles:

1. Go 'Head (Mind you, the opening lyrics are the following: "Ay yo this on my momma, Straight up this my wizzord, Girl with tha fatty, You deserve to get sizzerved, Consider this a invitation from the kidder, Meaning hood nigga that smoke and sip sizzurp, Submit her to the apple bottom contizzest, Yes I confizzest,Your bottom is the biggest." Is that even English?)

2. Let's Get Down

3. Can I Get That?

4. Get Crunk Shorty

5. Freek-A-Leek

I'm sure I only own a mild sample of what's out there. And I'd suggest looking up the lyrics to get a more complete picture of the themes presented in these songs. Sex, drugs, money, objectification of women, alcohol, comma splices and other poor sentence constructions, etc. Okay, so maybe you can't have comma splices in singing because they aren't technically written down. But I doubt the people singing them would even know what they are. Anyway, rap music is endorsing all the wrong messages. Is it really okay to "slap dat ass" or "pass that dutch?"

I would never date a guy who does either. And good luck getting a "beamer, benz, or bentley" when you can't seem to manage to drop the caveman dialect.

Also, 50 Cent, you won't get rich, and you will die trying if you don't learn that with all the "love" you're making "in da club," you will contract an STD. (P. S. 50 is a number > 1 and thus requires a plural noun after it).

I could talk about rap music forever. I'm not criticizing the form of music (though I'm not a particular fan of it), but I am denouncing its messages. People may say that it doesn't have much of an effect on teenagers, but I beg to differ.

Most "cool" teenagers' definition of fun is attending a wild party that involves drinking, drugs, sex, and/or all of the above. Or maybe just hanging out with "the guys" after school and getting stoned. I'm not sure I'll ever be able to be friends with someone named Mary Jane.

Alas, what I've talked about so far is only a fraction of all my pet peeves and criticisms about my generation. I guess I'm sorry I feel this way, but isn't it all true?

Part 2: "The Best and Brightest at The Harker School" to be written later.