What some people do, wear, say or eat in public says a lot about who we are
By Morf Morford
Tacoma Daily Index
“The world is out of sorts” and the whole world needs something – maybe a Snickers™. (1*)
Previous eras had their fears, suspicions and fantasies, but we, whatever our core beliefs, values or political preferences, are either more annoying, more clueless or maybe even more “sensitive” than our forefathers, foremothers, foreparents or whatever we might call our possibly gender-neutral progenitors.
It’s easy to mock the foibles (and fashions) of previous eras, and I can tell already what future generations will pick out as our absurdities.
Many of these seem absurd to me now. I don’t necessarily find them “offensive” – just monumentally stupid.
Our moment, the year 2020 and beyond, is fraught with so many contradictions, unforeseeable hazards and preposterous explanations, justifications and conspiracy theories and online viral rumors that satire sites like The Onion sound more like a legitimate news source than a comedy-spoof site.
Satire is dead, reality is fractured and truth is a moving target.
Here are just a few 21st Century-specific public intrusions on our daily life that we could never explain to our grandparents.
Smart devices
So-called “smart devices” kind of snuck up on us, but do we really need “smart” appliances?
And what does “smart” really mean?
I can’t help feeling that “smart” really means that the device in question is always listening to us.
And “smart” seems to mean vulnerable in ways most us never could have imagined.
Could your parents (or grandparents) have even conceived of hackable baby monitors?
And if baby monitors can be hacked, how about refrigerators or home thermostats? Or electric cars?
Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s Siri are literally listening to us all the time.
Ever have an old fashioned face-to-face conversation with someone and have Siri interrupt by saying “Sorry, I didn’t get that”?
Maybe it’s just me, but sometimes I think our devices bring out the worst in us.
Have you ever been in a public place, maybe an office lobby or a waiting room and someone has a sometimes intense personal conversation on their speakerphone? I’ve seen old and young people do this.
One-sided young-people conversations seem to consist of strings of clichés like “No way!”, Wait, what?” or “Oh, my God”.
Hearing those conversations reminds me of those dolls with a string that, when pulled, recites a predictable line or two.
Being in the presence of a young person with an active vocabulary of perhaps twenty-five words is a chilling experience.
Ever have a conversation about a product or even a store and have a Twitter or Facebook ad pop up on that exact item?
My IT friends tell me that it is a pure coincidence.
Sure.
Selfie sticks. Anyone, any place, any time; they are the one accessory that is almost always out of place.
In fact selfies – usually taken in dangerous, crowded or otherwise vastly inappropriate settings has become a sign of the times – and a contributing factor to more than its share of Darwin Awards (https://darwinawards.com/) (where someone, presumably accidentally, on a level of clumsiness or sheer stupidity that defies description, kills themselves or otherwise removes themselves from the gene pool).
Would-be fashionistas
When it comes to fashion, please explain this one to me. No matter how cold it might be, or how much ice might be on the ground, I see guys, sometimes with hooded winter parkas, wearing shorts. And it seems to be guys of all ages – old and young, it doesn’t seem to matter.
There’s a time for shorts – but it is probably not January.
Same with flip-flops.
Butt-dialing
Ever accidentally call someone? Ever get accidentally called?
It’s hard to say which one is most embarrassing. Or which one can be the most potentially incriminating or interesting.
Accidentally calling one’s boss or ex could have unforeseeable consequences.
Being called, especially when the one who called you is unaware that a call has been made, can lead to some unexpected sound effects, news or legal evidence.
Scooters
Scooters are a relatively new urban phenomenon.
Seeing grown men on a scooter is a strange experience (women, for whatever reason, don’t seem to use them as much).
Scooter etiquette apparently has yet to catch up with the available technology.
I see scooters across sidewalks, on hillsides and in waterways where they don’t belong.
I’ve seen them mangled and abandoned on walkways and side streets.
Whether you love them or hate them, you don’t need to make them even more hazardous than they already are.
Urban scooters are just one manifestation of the larger trend of adults behaving, dressing and having public meltdowns like toddlers.
Just stop.
#AnnoyingEventHashtag
Okay, I get that #Hashtag is a way of memorializing or emphasizing that special gathering, vacation or person, but please avoid those cliches like #livelaughlove.
Or better yet, avoid #hashtags altogether.
The leader who can do no wrong
Delusional, would-be-messianic leaders seem to hog our headlines lately, whether they be at the helm of companies that seek to remake the world in their image or solve global problems like WeWork, Theranos and too many others to name.
These visionaries (or perhaps world-scale hucksters) sell their visions to a virtual army of enablers, supporters and true-believers who (eagerly) follow their leader as they, also intoxicated by greed and lust for power, ignore facts, warnings and accumulating evidence, drift, like their leader into disaster.
These business leaders convince themselves – and many others – that they, and they alone hold the key to the future.
We have a lot to learn from leaders like this. The first and most important is to not follow them, the second is to steer clear of the residual damage they cause. (2*)
For whatever reason, we are in an era when investors, voters and people who should certainly know better are eagerly abdicating any personal accountability or responsibility.
The next shiny distraction that promises us “more money than God” will not take us anywhere we want to go.
In fact these gold-plated utopias are more like cults than businesses (3*) and they operate under the assumption that the standard rules of business – and life – do not apply to them. (4*)
We will all learn, some later than others, that the rules cannot be ignored for long.
(1*) You can see the Snickers™ ad that sums up many of the crazy things we take as normal in 2020 – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLAV4LYO-yU&feature=youtu.be
(2*) A more positive spin on what we can learn can be found here – https://www.kivodaily.com/leadership/3-leadership-lessons-from-the-failure-of-wework-and-theranos/ or https://fortune.com/2019/10/02/the-week-hype-broke-our-brains-the-ledger/
(3*) https://www.smartcompany.com.au/startupsmart/op-ed/neumann-kalanick-holmes-culture/ or https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/11/inside-the-fall-of-wework
(4*) The founder of WeWork, for example, wanted to be elected president of the world, live forever, and become humanity’s first trillionaire.
