66. London O’Connor - “Nobody Hangs Out Anymore“
Just in case you couldn’t tell by now, I really liked London O’Connor’s debut album. It’s full of raw, introspective, and heartfelt jams. However, this one right here is by far my favorite and the video that accompanies it only makes the jam all the better.
Being a teacher, I spend a lot of time with teenagers, which means I can attest to the central theme of this song. It’s a strange sensation to witness, to see human beings that are so much more comfortable and content communicating behind the barriers of glowing screens and distance than they are looking each other in the eye and interacting in real time. I’m like Jane Goodall, watching from a distance, capable of relating to their struggles, and yet at the same time completely removed, my decade of age acting in the same way as a century acted for previous generations.
And yet, as I watch it unfold I can’t help but see this generation of humans as victims of a world they played no role in creating. Much in the same way that my generation was the victim of capitalistic greed and malfeasance, this generation is a victim of an overeager and overzealous embrace of digitalism mixed with a side of reactionary and conflated scare-tactics (oh and also Capitalism, because Capitalism puts its grubby little diamond encrusted fucking fingers into everything).
These kids grew up being locked indoors and pacified by electronics. It’s not that they seek out technology because they love it. They seek it out because its all they know. Their entire life has been reduced to chasing after and participating in the latest digital trend. Their reality is more affected by social media and the Internet than the world that’s before their very eyes. They know nothing else, because they have been given nothing else, and now what they have been given is damaging them. It’s alienating and depressing them, because humans are social beings, but more than that we are physical beings. Millennia of biological evolution cannot be undone in a single generation of technological advancement. We rely upon and long for physical connection, to be in close proximity to others, witnessing their warmth, reading their facial cues, and feeling the vibrations of their voice travel through the air and into our own bodies without being filtered or fettered by fiber-optic cables, satellites, or screens. We can’t blame children for navigating the world they’ve been given. Those who come before always bear the responsibility for shaping those who come after them. No generation is an island. No human is the result of spontaneous generation.
