A very common insult on the internet today is the insinuation that someone needs to go outside and “touch grass.” Obviously, this refers to someone who has been on the internet too long and in the opinion of the other person, has lost touch with reality. But do we really understand what this means in a world where more than half of the civilization of the known world is connected to some kind of social media based umbilical cord? Where phones are becoming as Elon Musk stated, “a type of appendage?” No. We don’t. Not even the kids who are standing on grass while playing mobile games or chatting with their friends understand what it actually meant to touch grass.
So let me bring you back to the nineties. I was just a boy back then, and while video games were something that were definitely around; for me and many other children, they were thought of as a treat. I’d be lucky if I got a few hours a week to sit inside and play games. After school was usually time for me to get started on homework, then maybe play with toys and such before washing up and going to bed – but when you were out of school and during the summer months, it was a completely different ballgame. First of all, you had to communicate. Non-verbal communication like we see today with kids and their cellphones simply did not exist. In fact, if you could not interact with the other children, you were often assumed to be “special” and thrown into a remedial learning program. However, if you were too hyper, you’d be given some kind of pill to calm you down, most commonly Ritalin.
Cutting to the point, children HAD to communicate. You HAD to make friends in the real world. You HAD to become part of clique or group in the real world. Now I’m not saying that such a thing doesn’t happen now, but most of these activities are NOT offline – they’re online. Kids get together and play Fortnite, Roblox or Minecraft and they get really competitive. In fact, many of these online games have replaced the “go outside and play sports” culture that I grew up with. Everyone meets up online, there’s very little personal interaction and despite the fact that the entire world can now participate in these sporting events, there is no real touching of grass in that sense. We had to go outside and get dirty. I played in the dirt and mud when I was a young kid, I played with pill bugs and ants all the time. It was fun to kind of interact with nature, go outside and ride my bike (and I rode it everywhere) and feel the sunshine.
However, I’m in a completely different world now. And at a much different age. I’m inching closer to forty with every passing year and I hate it. In fact, I’ve only got about three years until I hit the Big 4-0. Going outside to play is not a thing that people my age really do and it’s just a part of life. I drank and partied in my twenties. I nearly got arrested a few times and did some really dumb shit. I almost overdosed on prescription drugs and died. I hung out with a very wild crowd that used to go smoke weed while driving on the back roads and raise hell at night. I was an accomplice to theft several times, which happened about fifteen to twenty years ago so it’s not even an issue – but still, not cool. I had my fun and yes, young folks still do. But there’s not a whole lot for a guy like me to do out in these parts. We made our own fun as kids, but now life is more complicated. The only grass most of us touch is when we can get a day off to do something. I’m not about to walk into a club or a bar. Not my style. They also throw white boys out of some clubs or you get your fucking ass kicked by some black folks because that’s their club, that’s their bar and you’d better recognize.
So what has a guy like myself who works forty hours a week got to do? Not much, really. I go home, I work on some content, watch a few shows and then go to bed. That’s about it. Then of course I have times where my co-host and I get together and do things like explore the capital city, find good stuff to eat, see a movie and that sort of thing – buy shit I don’t really need – that’s about the most of what I do. Then there’s the fact that I live right next to a major casino. The place is always booming, but I’m not about to go in there and blow my whole damn check on slots.
And to be honest, if you look at other folks online, you notice they’re not doing too much either. Men and women, alike. Sure, some people are getting together and swimming, but with gas getting more expensive than I have ever seen in my lifespan, more people are just sitting at home watching streaming content or bullshitting about on some game or their social media apps. That’s life in 2022, basically. Thanks, Brandon.