Thread by @jonrog1

1/ On the left is a teenage AOC dancing with her friends as part of a nationwide viral video craze. The Right called this proof she’s a “nitwit”.

Next is GOP Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Who thought this photo was a good idea AT AGE 42. He was considered a policy genius.

2/ That’s funny enough, but now I’m going to loop in Louis CK. So stick around.

3/ Paul Ryan, whose his singular achievement *in his 20 year career* was blowing a trillion dollar hole in the economy, got the easy ride because he fit a stereotype of “cool” for certain journalists — *and older men*. Confident, square-jawed, serious talk.

4/ Now to Louis CK’s set, bemoaning youth aren’t rebelling, they’re just talking about what pronouns they want to use. Because UPENDING CENTURIES-OLD GENDER NORMS MAINTAINED BY THE MOST POWERFUL CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS ON EARTH OFTEN ON PAIN OF DEATH isn’t *rebelling* in his mind.

5/ What’s “rebellion” in Louis CK’s mind? “finger banging and jello shots:”

That is the most white bread creepy dad staring at teens in the food court binge-drinking Brett Kavanaugh image of rebellion I can imagine.

6/ Louis can’t see what kids are rebelling against, because they’re rebelling against *him*. Turning against *that behavior* as quote unquote cool *is* the rebellion.

Cue the reference to Kuhn’s “when you’re in the paradigm you can’t see the paradigm”

7/ We are entering a deep crisis around the idea of what is socially acceptable, about the value of “dominance” (separate, interesting argument FWIW), for not just the Boomers but my generation, Gen X.

8/ Boomers worked power by aping the hierarchies of the Greatest Generation but without maintaining the same moral center. They play-acted at it. Gen X went along to get along in the same game, just resentfully and snarkily.

9/ But raise a generation deprived of any sense of secrecy and no social safety net yet the belief anyone can rise on any given day, and the tools of shame and status are much less effective. Digital natives *do not give a shit* about how older people view them.

10/ So we get a meltdown because a bunch of middle-aged dudes are suddenly realizing their definitions of socially acceptable/cool can no longer be enforced and a bunch of elderly dudes are realizing the status structure they’ve learned to manipulate is cracking.

11/ This is going to make people very panicky and angry, regardless of age, if they bought into the structure. It’s *personally hurtful* to fuck with someone’s self-image.

12/ Cue Ben Shapiro’s “how DARE she not debate me, she has to, why else did Daddy pay for my fancy degrees if I can’t use them to prove I’m better?”

I mean holy shit what kind of world do we live in if we live in a world where HARVARD. DOESN’T. MATTER?

13/ If you were okay with Paul Ryan’s Potemkin village brain, Donald Trump’s fake billionaire bluster, Bush’s fake cowboy brush-clearing, Jerry Falwell Jr’s fake Christianity, if that’s *legitimacy* to you — congratulations, you rode it ’til it broke. But you *broke it*.

14/ I'm not saying “Burn the old, only the new is good!” That’s how you get the French Revolution and fucking disco. But I think this one of the first times in the country’s short (and it is *short*) history we’ve had a serious cultural shift without a war in the middle of it.

15/ And if the cultural shift is “Greed is *not* good. We gotta take care of each other” or “rebellion isn’t secret drinking and naughty-giggle sex but actually giving a shit about other people’s dignity” … I’m okay with that.

16/ In the meantime, this is going to get ugly as shit, so hold on tight. /xx