Age of the Geek

The Big 30

     Well, it's all over now. My twenties, that is.

     In between me writing this and you reading it I will have had my 30th birthday. I'm pretty sure that means I'm supposed to be a grown-up now, but the older I get the more I realize what a meaningless distinction that is.

     I think most kids grow up assuming that we are supposed to eventually turn into our parents. In my case, that meant trading the in the comic books and video games for NASCAR races and bowling leagues. After all, that's what my dad was into.

     Of course it never occurred to me that those were probably the things he was into when he was young.

     Instead of growing out of my childhood interests like I was always told I would, they grew up with me. When I was 10 years old I was in the primary demographic of people who play video games and read comic books. Twenty years later, that's still the case. I've been consistently a few years younger than the average gamer for most of my life.

     I'm now beginning to suspect that this is something that happens to every generation to some extent, and will only become more apparent as our culture continues its exponential growth.

     After all, this culture gap between generations is still relatively new. It wasn't that long ago that a person could grow up with roughly the same childhood experience as their parents, making it a lot easier to grow up to be just like them.

     Today the world is nearly unrecognizable from just 20 years ago. There's no way the kids of the next generation will grow up to look like mine.

     If breakfast food commercials taught me anything, it was that adulthood meant becoming completely out-of-touch with anything related to youth. That may be true, but not for the reason you think. If adults are out-of-touch with youth, it isn't them who changed, it was the youth.

     As much as I still embrace the things I enjoyed when I was young, I have no earthly idea what kids today are into.

     Well, that's not entirely true.

     You see, I get to have my cake and eat it too. Not only have the things I grew up with grown up with me, but my generation is forcing them on the next one.

     The nostalgia of my generation is also multi-billion dollar industry. After all, why make just a kids movie when you can reboot a kids movie from 30 years ago and fill it with references that only adults will understand?

     Television isn't that different. The Disney Channel recently reunited the stars of "Boy Meets World" for a new series, "Girl Meets World." The original show ran from 1993 to 2000. The target demographic have no connection to Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel but here we are, 14 years later, and they're back on TV.

     Now I hear rumors that sequel series to "Married With Children" and "Full House" are in development. What's next? Jaleel White brings back his Steve Urkle character for a "Family Matters" sequel?

     (Dear Universe, that was a joke. Please don't make that happen. Nothing good can come of it.)

     I almost worry about the youth of today. If this keeps up, we're going to have a whole generation of kids growing up with my generation's leftovers. They don't have a whole lot to call their own. "The Hunger Games," "Harry Potter," "Avatar: The Last Airbender."

     Give it another 20 years and I'll bet we'll see reboots of all of those franchises as the kids who grew up with them rise to power.

     But back to the topic at hand, the secret truth behind growing up is that it's not something that defines who you are. Instead, who you are defines it.

     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and hopes that at least he'll stop being carded for Lotto tickets. It's not funny anymore.