A Quick Word to Millennials and Gen Z

This is a rant. If you are easily triggered or offended, step right up...

I was walking my dog, and some random thought assaulted me.

Which means that I was triggered earlier and didn't notice it.
I dunno why...

Just now, I checked out a short fiction piece on Clarkesworld. Which is a publication in homage to 1950s, old school, science fiction("SF" for short, not "sci-fi")

The story started off stronger than expected, and then it nose dived sooner than expected. Because it was confused. It was dropping f-bombs a lot. For absolutely no reason.

They didn't add flavor, or give it an edge. They didn't add authenticity.

They said, "I suck at using words so here's "fuck" a bunch of times because I can't communicate emotion without trashing the place."

Peeking over my wife's shoulder today, getting snippets of netflix, I see the kids in her show saying fuck fuck fuck.

This isn't new. Check out any 90s action movie. Especially the gangster stuff.

Here's my beef with all this.

I'm a millennial. I was born in 84. So, I didn't grow up hearing that term. I'm barely a millennial. I think of myself as one of the oldest millennials you can be.

...

Listen up millennials, I'm one of you, and I'm OG...apparently.

One of the first things that bothered me, growing up, was unnaturally colored hair(purple, blue, pink) and big thick black frame hipster glasses.

Now, neither are hipster or unusual.

The reason they bothered me is the same.

The first times I saw brightly inauthentic hair, was on goths.

I remember a specific chick. Tats, multie-colored hair, black, spikes, and she was sitting in at a desk, in a sky-scraper, as a receptionist.

She had lip piercings.

And everyone talked about her. And everyone judged her. And everyone feared and respected her.

And she was cool, and I liked her.

Big thick black glasses were standard military issue and 1960s basic.

Growing up, they meant unclued nerd.

Then some guys stuck with them. They were judged. They were ridiculed. They were called out.

OK, you get it, basic fashion trends.

Now it's "fuck" and it's been "fuck" for a while.

I don't blame the generation. There's nothing inherently wrong or unqiue about them in this sense.

It's the trend of humans I'm calling out.

Just like the hair(flaunting what I feel like and daring you to challenge me)

Just like the glasses(I look like I'm easy to pick on, step right up sucker)

Just like the bold and ingloriously glorious who say "fuck" at work, in writing, in any situation that it would actually drop a bomb.

It's all so watered down.

It used to be one of my favorite words.

Purple hair used to make me feel a small spiritual victory when I saw it.

My black frame glasses never made me feel like a rebel, I just wear them because they're not dangerous and my wife said they look good on me.

The Point:

Know your heroes. By not having a working knowledge of who they are, and respecting them, you out yourself as a spoiled ignorant child that only a fool would respect.