"... @wantshowasyoung. The pair pose in compelling outfits styled from clothes their laundromat customers have left behind. The account is now up to over 654,000 followers and the pair was recently named the ambassadors for Taipei Fashion Week."
I'm amused by the way the WSJ tried so hard to get the double letters in "millennial" right and came up with "milllenials."
Anyway... @wantshowasyoung isn't about youngish people dressing like really old people. It's old people wanting to "show as young" — look young. I'm blogging this little side issue, because I like the Instagram account. Such a perfect idea. Example:
As for millennials and Gen Zers dressing like "grandfathers," my favorite example of this is the YouTube icon Review Brah, who explains here — in his mesmerizing style — why he dresses like that:
Apparently, that really is Andy Warhol, not (as I originally thought) an actor trying to look and act like Andy Warhol. Not everyone recognizes Andy Warhol, and I suspect that a Venn diagram of people who recognize (and like) Andy Warhol and people who will eat a simple fast-food burger doesn't show a lot of overlap. But I appreciate the daring of this ad. It shows so much about the fast-food burger experience. It really is rather stark and lonely. Simple. Food. It is.
As Meade said, it's like Review Brah:
Unlike Pepsi, Burger King has chosen to accept and love the enervated, wan white man. In the Pepsi Super Bowl ad, critiqued in the previous post, a young white man is targeted for abuse for his meek, bloodless manner. Black entertainers are brought in to demonstrate a preferable vigor and zesty enthusiasm. By contrast, Burger King seems to be saying, you know, it can be cool to be a quiet, gentle white male. Andy was cool. That's a certified historical fact. You don't have to wish you had the style of Lil Jon, and it wouldn't be cool for you to emulate him. Just be like Andy.
Or be like Review Brah.
If it's possible to embrace whiteness without risking accusations that you are flirting with white supremacy, think of Andy.
Amazingly tone deaf, BK. The full name of the product is "Scary Black Cherry." I would never have used "scary black" in a product name. I don't know if anyone is criticizing the product on the racial insensitivity. I am seeing:
The “scary black cherry” slushy at Burger King might just give you two Halloween thrills for the price of one. Of course, that depends on how you feel about drinking something that might turn your poop bright blue or neon green.
TheReportOfTheWeek actually drinks the stuff. He tests whether it does what it says it will do: "If this doesn't turn my tongue black and make it look like it's just dead and, you know, full-on necrosis has set in, I'm going to be quite upset":
If I google the phrase "scary black" right now, the whole front page of hits is about the Burger King beverage. So I added "race" to my search and — that guy is everywhere — the top 3 hits are about Trump:
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine and remember that we are not descended from fearful men — not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes that were, for the moment, unpopular."
The reason I wanted to hear Murrow is that — as I sit at my desk — I'm overhearing the television news, and some of the voices annoy me. There's a modern way of speaking that is informal and often harsh and strangled. I said out loud that I wished they'd get vocal training, but immediately realized that the trained, open, resonant voice I was thinking of would seem old-fashioned and radically uncool.
Then I had my idea. Feel free to steal it and make this for me: A cable news channel with old-school voices, like Edward R. Murrow's. Embrace the uncoolness.
I think this could be very popular, because I see how much people of today love to listen to The Report of the Week ("Review Brah"). Here's his newest:
Like many people, I love listening to this man talk. I don't care what he talks about. Often it's fast-food items that I would never eat, but I like to listen. Get some new people like that, and it's a plus if they're unconventional looking. Review Brah is proof that it doesn't matter how you look if you figure out an approach to visual style that's neat, clean, and retro.
Can I get that in a cable news channel? And while you're at it, you who are stealing this idea I am trying to foist on you, please use language in the more literary, elevated style exemplified by Murrow... and Review Brah.
Remember that we are not descended from fearful men —not from men who feared to write, to speak...
I've selected these 15 seconds from a 2-hour "Reviewbrah Friday Live Stream and Eating Show!" — in response to a question about what video games he plays:
In case you're wondering why this young man has a million subscribers on YouTube, the answer might be he reads... and he reads Camus. So get cracking away. Read your Camus. He's got a good writing style. And maybe you'll pick up some language that will enrich your conversational style and cause a million people to love you. Maybe those million people are playing video games, drifting along in a nonverbal visual world, getting hungrier and hungrier for somebody who can talk.
***
"I've been thinking it over for years. While we loved each other we didn't need words to make ourselves understood. But people don't love forever. A time came when I should have found the words to keep her with me, only I couldn't." — Albert Camus, "The Plague."
I never noticed this particular YouTube star until a few days ago when I got carried away researching the term "thought experiment" and this video of his turned up. I didn't watch it, but I left it open in a tab while I was reading things in other tabs, for example, "9 Philosophical Thought Experiments That Will Keep You Up at Night" (Gizmodo) and "The impossible barber and other bizarre thought experiments" (New Scientist). I'd opened all those tabs after pondering the difference between "experience" and "experiment" (and had learned that the oldest meaning of "experience" is "experiment"). Anyway, the point is, I'd left that video open in a tab but had not watched it. It was Meade — he'd sat down at my computer to do some comment moderation — who played the video and — like anyone else — became engrossed and fascinated. So if you're wondering what we watch at Meadhouse, this is it.
ADDED: The quote that I made the post title — it reminded me of something. I think it's this, from "Endgame" by Samuel Beckett.
HAMM Open the window.
CLOV What for?
HAMM I want to hear the sea.
CLOV You wouldn’t hear it.
HAMM Even if you opened the window?
CLOV No.
HAMM Then it’s not worthwhile opening it?
CLOV No.
HAMM [violently] Then open it! [Clov gets up on the ladder, opens the window. Pause.] Have you opened it?
CLOV Yes. [Pause.]
HAMM You swear you’ve opened it?
CLOV Yes. [Pause.]
HAMM Well . . . ! [Pause.] It must be very calm. [Pause. Violently.] I’m asking you is it very calm!
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