Befuddled, once-great broadsheet, the NY Times, five years too late to party…

I’m always a little confused by the way mainstream media likes to refer to Millenials (those of us born between 1980 and 2000) as “young people.”

I was born in 1980, I’m 35 years old, far closer to middle aged than “young.”

I suppose it makes sense in the context of The New York Times, an archaic rag that earns its bread from an elder contingent too befuddled by internet tomfoolery to figure out how to find information online. To those geriatric fucks, a generation that spent their adult years dismantling every social program they benefited from, we all seem young.

Today’s technology section circle jerk contains a fascinating examination of digital media, and how hip and new it is.

It’s the next big thing guys! Did you know kids use the interwebs to look at stuff? Videos of extreme action sports. So radical.

Why is this in The New York Times? How is it relevant at all? Why is something that’s old news being used as new news? Money. Or the supposed opportunity for people to grab a hold of some of it.  Not the people who create it, of course. The people who distribute it.

“…as the audience grows beyond devotees, the opportunity arises to make videos and films with higher production values that fans are willing to pay for.”

Except probably not.

The driving force behind the majority of high quality surf and skate clips is advertising, something us “millenials” aren’t so hot on paying for any more. Pretty hard to monetize something I can, and will, easily torrent.

Even harder to get me to pay attention to an ad, a couple of clicks, a great little browser extension, and that shit’s gone. Red Bull gets it. They don’t try and charge for content, their whole gig is meant to make their addictive swill seem cool so they can hook little kids.

And it works. Very well. Add those of us who don’t drink the stuff get to see cool shit. It’s a win/win, except for the obese preteens with heart conditions, but who gives a fuck about those brats? Not me.

And we’re broke.

I mean, I’m not, I’m solid lower middle class, but that’s because I’m a kept man. But I was poor, not very long ago. So poor I couldn’t afford a cable subscription, something I only missed for a bit, and once it was gone I realized how much better my life had become. Like pills, basically. So good when you’re on ’em, so glad they’re gone when you aren’t.

The old way is dying, the new way won’t work. I refuse to pay a middle man for content. If Vimeo thinks I’ll give them a penny to watch videos other people sweat and bled for they’re even higher than I am right now.

(Read the story in the NY times here)