Why Do Adults Hate on Teen Culture?

I am a follower of Harry Potter’s dark wizard Lord Voldemort on Twitter (@Lord_Voldemort7).  While usually good for a Harry Potter joke or two, a few recent jokes he has made has started a Twitter war with the tween fans of pop icon Justin Bieber.  Poor Justin…  While beloved by his fanbase of teen girls, he is the target of near constant ridicule by everyone else.

At what point did adults start just outright start attacking the stuff popular with kids?  And I’m not talking Maude Flanders “What about the children?”-style protectionism.  This is a near constant skewering of Miley Cyrus, Twilight, and whatever the younger generations like, usually by those around my age on TV and on the web.

Here’s the funny thing…  C’mon Gen X’ers, looking back on it, was the shit we had at that age any cooler?  Lets use my timeline as an example.  I was “tween” (age 12) in 1989.  Looking at the top 10 songs in 1989, two came from what you’d consider teeny-boppers:  “Hangin’ Tough” by the New Kids on the Block and “Lost in Your Eyes” by Debbie Gibson.  While I remember some New Kids jokes, usually it was at the expense of Donnie being “old”, being the thug, and of course the time when he set his hotel room on fire.  Not at all the vitriol spewed at a 16 year-old kid like what’s happening to Bieber.  And really, the only thing I remember adults talking about Debbie Gibson was the “Who’s hotter?” game between her and Tiffany.  Were there the jokes about them like they made about Miley (and I’m not talking about now, but during her Hannah Montana heyday)?  While not comparable to Twilight and the whole vampire/werewolf craze, 1989 brought us about a dozen slasher movies including Friday the 13th Part VIII, Halloween 5, and A Nightmare on Elm Street 5.  In my mind cheesy-is-cheesy, no matter the genre.

I heard a great comment on Sirius XM’s Covino & Rich Show a few months ago.  Following the video of the little girl crying on YouTube because she loved Justin Bieber so much, co-host Steve Covino said that he would never let his baby daughter grow up to be the type who would like bubble gum pop music.  One of the listeners, a father of a young girl, called in with this – No matter how much he hated the music, no matter how much he thinks the lyrics are garbage, it made his daughter so happy that, in the end, he didn’t care.  They will grow up to realize that the music was dumb, but they will have great memories of that time in their lives.  In my opinion, to crap on Justin Bieber music to a 12 year-old girl is like telling a 6 year-old there’s no Santa Claus.

Personal Tidbit:  I have a great memory of pushing my newborn baby brother in his stroller around the Central Florida Fairgrounds, jamming to my Walkman and the newest tape I had bought at the Musicland in Altamonte Mall that I had gotten on the way there.  The tape I was bopping-around to and picking up my brother to dance with – To the Extreme by Vanilla Ice.  Yes, horrible music, but 20 years later I still remember that day.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love ESPN

It has been roughly three months since, after getting sick of the hyperbole and bickering, I dropped ESPN cold-turkey.  And not just ESPN, but pretty much the entire “sports talk” genre.  I’ll watch actual games when they’re on, but no more SportsCenter, PTI, Mike & Mike, or other shows I had traditionally watched.  And, frankly, I still feel I’m as much of a sports fan as ever.

What triggered my “boycott” of ESPN was their coverage around the Eastern Conference Finals between the Magic and Celtics.  As you probably remember, the Magic went down in the series 0-3, at which point the pundits start calling out how the Magic didn’t belong and projecting a future series against the Lakers (this is, of course, after many of them had picked the Magic to win the series after they had swept the first two rounds).  However the Magic came back to win the next two games, and they all change their tunes, picking the Magic to complete the “reverse” sweep and comparing it to the 2004 Yankees/Red Sox series.  And, of course, the Magic lose the next game and they immediately all switch back to how the Magic were a weak competitor who were outmatched.

That’s my main complaint about ESPN.  Not how they consistently favor teams that can help their ratings, not how they overhype stories (the 2010 NBA free agent class, Brett f’in Favre), not even TMZ-ing of athletes as celebutantes, but it’s this new focus they have on analyzing events that haven’t happened yet!  And it’s going on across the field of sports talk and even the print and online journalists have fallen into the trap.  Instead of actually covering the events and news from the day, they consistently feel the need to bring “perspective” by comparing everything to great moments in sports history (every SportsCenter has to have one random statistic compared to that other random statistic through the history of the game).  Or, they must constantly speculate, which I find is just brainless filler material.  The thing is, sometimes “picks” can be fun but it shouldn’t be something they focus on.  As the U.S. made the knock-out round of the World Cup, they were already prognosticating them making the finals and devoted a whole segment to their spectacular run.  Of course, they were immediately knocked out in their first game by Ghana.

Here’s some tips for the sports fan like me who still loves the games but have had enough of the ESPN’s over-the-top hype:

• If you just want highlights without as much of the “analysis”, I’ve been watching FSN’s Final Score over SportsCenter.
• As a fan on the Cubs and Bears, ESPN Chicago has their local SportsCenter.  Just highlights and some news without all the other fluff.  Of course, as of right now, ESPN only has local editions for a few major markets.
• Sports talk radio is not informative, it’s not even entertaining.  It’s just annoying blowhards arguing over stuff they don’t even know about with callers who know even less.  I actually kind of respect shows like Mike & Mike because they don’t take listener calls, though then it goes back to the over-analysis and prognostication that annoys me.

I’m guessing that I’m in the vast minority as ESPN continues adding more talk shows and analysis, but I know I can’t be the only one.

Time For a New 360 or PS3?

I’ve been very lucky to be the owner of both a PS3 and an Xbox 360.  While I’ve had my issues with each (my PS3 being merely a pricey Blu-ray player since there were no good games for it/360 red ring of death), each has their merits and I will pop on either one from time-to-time.

I’m thinking of selling both of my systems and replacing it with the newer models.  I love the new 360 design and my current one (an Arcade I got after my launch 360 red-ringed, using my old ones hard drive) is close to being maxed-out on space.  Meanwhile, while the Sony fanboys love to crack on how loud 360s can be, I’ve never had that issue with mine.  However my PS3 can sound like a jetfighter getting ready to take off, even when just playing a PSN game.  The PS3 Slim both looks better and supposedly eliminates this problem. 

However, here’s the thing…  If I do go through with this plan, I’m not buying both a new 360 and a new PS3.  It’s going to be one or the other.  So which to choose?  I’m debating the merits of both.

Xbox 360

• Advantages
  • I definitely have a larger library of 360 games to go back to than PS3.
  • While it does cost $50/year, the Xbox Live experience is so incredibly good.  And compared to the PlayStation Network, it’s like going from a Porsche to a Dodge.
  • As I’m a Zune fanboy, love that I can download stuff onto my Zune and easily play it back through my 360.  In addition, Microsoft has said that the 360 will natively support Zune meaning I won’t even have to go through that.
  • Kind of interested in the Kinect.  I doubt that I would get one, but I’m definitely interested in seeing what it could do.  Meanwhile, the PlayStation Move is pretty much DOA with me.
• Disadvantages
  • With no Blu-ray player, getting a 360 would mean that I’d also have to get a Blu-ray player.  While cheaper than a PS3, it’s just something else to clutter my entertainment center.
  • This is debatable, but there’s no good 360 exclusives coming out in the near-term that I’m interested in.  I’m kind of over first-person shooters, and was incredibly disappointed in Halo 3: ODST, so do not have any intention of getting Halo Reach.  And Microsoft’s other big exclusive for 2010 is Fable III and I don’t do RPGs.
  • A purely speculative one, but I think that a new Xbox model is, at most, 2 years away.  I think the Kinect is a stop-gap to tide people over for whatever their new console is with built-in motion support.

PlayStation 3

• Advantages
  • I can use to both play games and watch Blu-rays.
  • PSN is free.
  • Better exclusives.  In 2011 they get Twisted Metal and Infamous 2 (though I’m still very early in Infamous 1, and while I think it’s cool I don’t think it’s anything spectacular).  And while I’m not interested in DCU Online with its subscription price, I could be enticed if they significantly lower the price, include it in the Playstation Plus membership, or offer the game itself for free.  I’m a console game, I’m not used to paying a subscription fee to play a game which I already paid for.
  • My most anticipated game of next year is Portal 2, and according to Valve the PS3 experience with Steam Support will be much better than what the Xbox is getting.
• Disadvantages
  • While the PSN is free, it’s practically unusable.  The interface is crap, you can’t get into games without agreeing to TOS agreements every time, and since I don’t have a headset or chat pad there’s no easy way for me to communicate.  (BTW, putting the chat pad at the top instead of at the bottom like the 360?  Not very ergonomic.)
  • Only PlayStation friend is my roommate…  He hasn’t logged into the PSN in 13 months when he was playing Resistance 2.
  • OMG they need to do something about the system updates!  I’m not going to pay for a PlayStation Plus membership so I can program my PS3 to do the updates when I’m not using it.  So, instead, I have to deal with turning on my PS3 to play a quick game of Super Stardust or run a quick race in GT5 Prologue and finding out that I have to download a firmware update for some feature that I don’t even use that takes 20 minutes to download and install.  By the time it’s done, I’ve either lost interest in playing or no longer have time to.

Even though I think the Blu-ray support and better exclusives are more compelling arguments, I’m leaning towards getting a 360.  After my launch 360 red-ringed, I lived with only my PS3.  That lasted about 5 months before I broke down and got a new 360.  But that was because, like I said earlier, there were no games I was interested in for the PS3 at the time.  So, without starting a flame war, what do you guys think? 

Counterpoint to Kevin Rose’s Thoughts on an Apple iTV

Today I had the opportunity to check out the latest blog post from Digg founder (and Big J man-crush) Kevin Rose on a potential new version of Apple TV called Apple iTV.  While Kev seems to believe that iTV will “change everything”, here’s some thoughts to maybe temper that enthusiasm.

• Internet-Enabled Televisions:  While still not widely available, I think that many people would consider getting an iTV would be the same people who like to stay on the cutting-edge of technology to get an internet-enabled television.  The applications that iTV would most likely offer are those also likely available to those with one of these TVs.  So, why pay $99 for something you already have?
• Pictures/Video Streaming:  A few months ago I turned on my PS3 and had to sit through a firmware update so that Sony could update the photo viewer and all I could think was “What a waste of time?!”  While offered through PlayStation, Xbox 360, Tivo, and many other services, I have only once sat somewhere and watched a photo slideshow on a television.  And that was because I set it up for my stepfather’s 50th birthday back in April as some background entertainment.  I’m not sold on picture streaming being a valuable utility.  It’s like the old carousel slideshow of our generation…  Nobody wants to see it.  Add to it if, as Kevin states, it’s tied with MobileMe then you have to pay an extra $100 a year to maintain an account for the privilege to do something you didn’t want to do any ways.
• Content Providers Won’t Participate:  One killer app that Kevin mentioned was how content providers will launch apps to stream shows through iTV, monetizing their shows by selling them through iTunes or the App Store.  The current gen Apple TV had allowed for buying and streaming stuff purchased on iTunes.  But here’s the thing – even with mass adoption of these types of applications it’ll likely not come anywhere near to recouping the lost revenue from advertising.  There was an article recently on CNET about how Google is trying to line up content for their Google TV as the networks want to protect their affiliates.  And the whole being able to drop your cable/satellite providers…  Yea, cable channels not only make revenue from advertising but also from the subscriber fees they make from those providers.  So, while cable channels will definitely take advantage of a new revenue source, they’re definitely going to limit what’s available to protect the money they make from the cable companies.

Just a couple of thoughts.  Like with the Apple TV, I wouldn’t buy an iTV just because I don’t have a use for it.  I can use my Xbox/PlayStation to rent digital content, stream Netflix, etc.  So, it once again makes you think “Who is Apple targeting with this product or what does it offer that distinguishes it?”  I’m guessing we’ll see when Apple officially announces it, probably some time soon.