Idle Ramblings

Can You Get Any More Stupid?

Being nearly 40-year old and having no children, I'm not necessarily up to date on all the latest stupid things "these kids today" are doing. Usually, I find out about them once kids start dying, being maimed, abducted, or chemically lobotomized and it starts making the news. Thus is the case of something called "Ghost Riding."

This one has got to be a contender for the Darwin Awards, because, honestly, anyone who would do this, doesn't need or deserve to have their genetic material passed on to the next generation. Basically, Ghost Riding, or, Ghost Riding the Whip as I believe it is properly called, is a dance style similar to break dancing. So far, not a problem. Break dancing is actually kind of cool. I've seen both "Breakin'' and "Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo." Where the utter stupidity comes in is that this style of dancing is done on top of a moving vehicle.

It's apparently a West Coast hip hop trend (okay, I'm not down with all the latest terminology. I think hip hop is probably one of those outdated or, in this case, inaccurate terms, but I'm doing the best I can with the knowledge that a 39-year-old, white, male librarian in a small Southern town has about these things) and thanks to You Tube it has begun to spread around the country. There has apparently been plenty of broken bones and head trauma to go along with the fad and at least one death when someone whanged their head on a parked car as they were attempting a dance move while going down the street.

Now, I and my generation did plenty of stupid things when we were growing up. Some of them even dangerous. But the difference is, we knew that if we were injured while doing those stupid things, if we didn't have head trauma after the accident, we'd certainly have it once our parents got a hold of us. And, I'm pretty sure that even if we'd had the ability to video that kind of things, we'd have been smart enough not to. We knew better than to have evidence of our stupidity around, not to mention being smart enough to know better than to put that evidence on display for all the world to see.

And, yeah, I know every teenager things they are invincible and will never die or be seriously injured. Been there. But, come on. You've got to wonder if there's something else at work here. My theory is that these are some of the first kids of the "Barney" generation and that watching Barney somehow lead to some type of undiagnosed brain damage. It didn't turn them gay (that's the Telletubbies), and didn't have the positive effects that Sesame Street had on my generation. After all, who of us who grew up an Sesame Street can't count to 10 in Spanish. It could be that all those years of Barney gave an entire generation some type of subconscious death wish. "I love you. You love me" going through the deep, dark recesses of the young mind for a decade or so just makes them want to die.

Whatever is the brilliant idea behind this new trend, it still just floors me. But, then again, it just shows how easy it is now for something to spread like wildfire thanks to places like You Tube and MySpace. Maybe I should take a page out of L. Ron Hubbard's book and use this new technology to start my own religion. I've been outlining it for years, ever since college, kind of as a "get rich quick" scheme. Of course, I ought to just write a "How to" book about starting your own religion and sell it on late-night TV infomercials and get rich that way. It's slightly more ethical.

Or, maybe, I'll just break out the video camera, get a bunch of cool looking young people and start my own trend by posting it on You Tube. It would need to be something young, bored, middle class white males could do that was dangerous and would probably get them seriously maimed or killed and would piss off their parents and it has to be set to music. I'm thinking either head butting oncoming trains or joining the military.

Look for it on You Tube soon.

posted by Joseph @ 12/27/2006 09:23:00 PM