Kids Today?

My evolution to ultra-square old fart is now complete. The last vestiges of youthful idealism and exuberance and invincibility will now evaporate with the following sentence: What is up with kids today? There. Now I've officially crossed the line into cynical adulthood.

My wife is clearing out our DVR by watching all the shows that were saved. One show she totally loves is Gossip Girl on the CW. I'm not proud, but I actually sat down and watched a good portion of it with her. W. . .T. . .F?!!! I'm no prude by any means. I yearn for the old fraternity days and pre-Tailhook Navy days and all the drunken debauchery, complete with stripper poles, trashcan punch, the occasional fistfight (sometimes brawl), Jack Daniel's Old No. 7, male bonding, destruction of property, and of course young, nubile, willing . . . you get the picture. But what I saw in the episode tonight was enough to get me blogging.

Now, I'm no expert, but I get the gist of the show. It chronicles a group of over-privileged, over-indulged brats from Manhattan's Upper East Side with nary a moral compass in the vicinity and how they f*** and f*** over each other week in and week out. Yeah, I remember what I was like in high school in all my hormonal glory, but I wasn't expecting to have a how to guide portrayed on prime time.

The situations are unsettling, with these kids jet-setting to Italy and other far off locales for the weekend the way we used to hang at the mall. Teen sex is nothing new ( Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Porky's, etc) but this is prime time television and not the movies. In order to see that stuff we had 1) to be able to leave the house, 2) have money for a ticket, 3) be able to get into a R-rated movie. To watch this crap, you can be grounded, broke and all by yourself. And, it's on at 2100! Grade schoolers might be able to catch an episode!

Therein lies the problem. Kids watch this crap, think that this is how life should be, and they want to live it. I watched two of the main characters decked out in Armani or Dolce or whatever the f***, sitting at an upscale bar (must have one helluva fake id) with the slightly (okay, maybe overly) effeminate boy trying to manipulate his pseudo-girlfriend. Another scene had a 15 year old (portrayed by a real 15 year old) holding a beer bottle (c'mon, what other beverage comes in a 12 oz green glass bottle) as she strips down and takes risque photos with a similarly dressed girlfriend while an obviously older man is snapping away with a camera. And although skeptical at first, the 15 y.o. goes with it. Am I the only one creeped out by this?

And this is just one show. I don't know about all the others, but I can't imagine shows like Privileged, The Hills, The OC, the new 90210 can be much different or any better for today's youth than Gossip Girl. And don't even get me started on BET, gangsta-rap and the Thug Life. Maybe we'd be better off if we re-instituted the Draft. Serve your country, gain a skill, learn discipline, experience adversity and get a dose of reality. Armani doesn't look so cool when you have to pay for it yourself I guess.

Well in the meantime, I'll be closely monitoring what my kids are watching ( I think Hallmark reruns Little House on the Prairie) and exercise my cynical adult rights by watching the History Channel and Discovery Channel with a weekly visit to HBO for Entourage or AMC for Madmen (ah, the glory days of American manhood!).