As I pass through the latter half of my third decade, I find myself in a strange demographic. I’m not a baby boomer, but I’m old enough now to look at a younger generation of adults and think of them as “kids”. As in, “What’s with these crazy kids these days, with that noise they call music, the shrapnel in their faces, those obnoxious video games, always tapping away on their cell phones, letting their pants hover below their butt-crack?”
Dana Carvey’s Cranky Old Man character from Saturday Night Live comes to mind as I continue my internal rant, “Back in my day, we listened to Mötley Crüe and Run DMC; now that was music! Why, in my school you could get your ass kicked for wearing just one little stud earring; now you kids run around with giant hoops in your ears like a bunch of Polynesian tribesmen! And we didn’t have no fancy-shmancy motion-rendered virtual-reality videogames! By God, we had Pac-Man, and we liked it! Just a joystick and a yellow circle eating dots while running from ghosts! We didn’t need no cell phones and text messaging and ‘WTF, ‘IMNSHO’, or ‘ROTFLMAO’; we would just pass notes in class and it was A-OK! Pull up your pants, you little hoodlums! And get off my lawn!”
However, this group of kids, which from my vantage point consists of anyone for whom my Dana Carvey reference represents “classic” Saturday Night Live, may just be the tipping point in this upcoming election. Take heed, members of my generation, those of us who rightfully recognize “Samurai Delicatessen” as the true “classic” Saturday Night Live, these kids are alright.
The most popular video on MTV’s teenybopper request show, Total Request Live (which shows my age; the kids know it as “TRL”) is called “Mosh” by Eminem. The popular white rapper, whose previous hits proudly proclaimed that he and his followers “don’t give a fuck”, now has a hit with a decidedly anti-Bush political polemic.
The video depicts a young soldier redeployed to Iraq as his family wonders why. It also features the eviction of a young single mother while Bush speaks about tax cuts for the rich on the TV in the background. These two disaffected characters join with a young black man wrongly profiled by the police, and they join with Eminem’s army of youngsters as they line up at the polls to cast their vote against Bush.
This is MTV? Why, back in my day, our favorite video was a four-minute-long double-entendré about the tastiness of Cherry Pie! To be fair, there are still more than enough rock and hip-hop videos dedicated to the objectification of pneumatically enhanced models and materialistic lifestyle. And, yes, back in my day there were a few videos with political themes (John Mellencamp and REM spring to mind) – but I cannot recall the most popular video by the most popular artist in the most popular genre ever being so unabashedly political as “Mosh”. Eminem is now a self-financed 527 ad!
Back in my day, being political just wasn’t hip. In the first election I can remember with any sort of political awareness, Ronald Reagan won every state but Minnesota. In the first election in which I could vote, the Bush (the older, smarter one) creamed the liberal from Massachusetts by a 4-to-1 Electoral College margin. My votes didn’t make a difference one way or the other and very few of my friends even bothered to vote.
Now these kids have their “Rock the Vote”, “Declare Yourself”, “Voter Virgin”, and “Vote or Die” campaigns (my favorite, considering that it is the 18-24 year-olds who usually fight and die in wars). I see them furiously waving their Bush/Cheney or Kerry/Edwards banners in the background during the political talking head shows
Young people are registering to vote in record numbers this year. Polls show a huge upswing in political interest among the 18-24 demographic. The percentage of young voters at the polls has declined every year since 1972, with only 42% of the 18-24 year-olds voting in 2000. The lone statistical bump in that decline was in 1992, when a young charismatic candidate took the unheard of steps of actually reaching out for the youth vote, first by playing saxophone on a youth-oriented talk show, then by appearing on MTV to answer the pressing question of “boxers or briefs”.
Another hopeful sign is the kids’ love for “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart”. Much has been made of the surveys showing that many young people get their political information from this show, more so than the real news programs. However, to enjoy a satire of the news, you have to have a good idea what is happening in the news, or the joke goes over your head.
Furthermore, “Daily Show” fans, being the kids they are, aren’t getting their news from traditional media. They’re reading websites, political blogs, and communicating with each other on chat lines and e-mail lists. Back in my day, it took the threat of an impending social studies term paper to get kids to scan a newspaper article. Nowadays these kids are devouring more information at a faster rate than any generation in history.
Regardless of why the youth vote is surging, I predict this will be the November Surprise. While everyone predicts that this election will be a squeaker, I believe Kerry will top 300 electoral votes and over 51% of the popular vote. Those polls you’re reading that put the race neck-and-neck are calling likely voters on land phone lines. These kids aren’t considered likely voters, and they only communicate by cell phone and e-mail, not landlines.
So Eminem, Jon Stewart, and everyone else out there mobilizing the youth vote, you have the eternal thanks of this middle-aged writer. To the kids of America who will return reality-based politics to the White House, you have the envy of someone whose young political voice never made a difference. Now pull up your damn pants!
