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Old Men vs. Teenage Girls: Who Deserves Your Mockery More?

By Vivian Kane | Think Pieces | October 2, 2015 |

By Vivian Kane | Think Pieces | October 2, 2015 |



You may have seen a video floating around your various corners of the internet today. According to some, this video signals the end of days. For others, it’s just an eye roll. The only people who probably wouldn’t at least be annoyed by the video would never see it, because their attention is fully occupied by their own face looking back at them from their phone screens.

Now, when I watched that video, I didn’t fall into the “THIS IS END TIMES” group, but I did immediately write those girls, members of the Alpha Chi sorority, off as vapid wastes of stadium space. For about 30 seconds. And then a different feeling started to creep in, and it sat heavy at the pit of my stomach, gnawing at me for the next 90. And that feeling was absolute and total loathing for those goddamn announcers.

Because do those young women look silly? Of course. Or at least they do to us Olds, just as I’m sure all the dumb stuff we all did at 19 looked completely idiotic and pointless to anyone 10 years or more our elders. But the fact is, this is what kids are doing. And, by the way, ALL KIDS do this stuff, not just girls. If we could stop focusing all our derision on young women, pretending they’re the only people on earth who indulge in narcissistic peacocking, that would be a great step.

But again, social media is where kids’ brains are. And adults know it, and they want to harness that power and attention, but have no idea how. Which is why we have here a couple of grown men deriding these girls for being on their phones IMMEDIATELY AFTER ASKING FANS TO USE THE TEAM’S HASHTAG. People want the marketing cache of social media, but have no idea what it looks like. Sure, these girls are taking what looks to be a crazy amount of selfies, but they’re posting those to Twitter and Instagram, or sending them through Snapchat, which— as Genevieve, one of the youngest of us Overlord Olds, explained to us, is “ALL photos. Usually of your face making an expression that you then caption. So, it’s a form of communication that is outward facing, not a self-contained act of narcissism necessarily.”

These announcers ask the crowd to be on their phones, but as soon as these girls do so in a way that they don’t understand, it’s a target for what ultimately just ends up sounding like their own insecure mockery.

I think these girls (and yes, I did use the term “girls” to describe college students repeatedly here, which given the glaring generation gap at play, seemed fairly appropriate) look ridiculous. But I think the announcers come off looking (or sounding) so much worse. But I’m curious as to what you all think. Who’s the bigger butt here?