Let Me Be Weird Without Consequences

When I was in middle school, my retired neighbor Bob would get me off the bus and make sure I got into the house okay. When I was younger than that, he'd hang out and chat until my parents got home from work.

Bob has lived his best life, and loved to share a morally questionable story. He set off fireworks in a movie theater. If a kid did that today, it would be a crime, obviously. (It was probably a crime then, too.) But it would also be on the news by dinner and a limerick on Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! by Saturday. Bob got to be a troublemaker and then grow up into a nice man who walks the adorable, smart, gifted kid home from the bus. The 2026-Bob is probably going to get put on some list.

I hate to be a boomer about it, but at least some of this is The Phones.

I think this is a big part of why things are more boring now, because nobody wants to do anything fun when anything you do can end up as content.

It's just so unpleasant. I was at a party playing Twerk Pong (it is what it sounds like) and there were like ten separate cameras on me. To be clear: I am happy to do stupid things. I love stupid things. What I am not happy to do is stupid things on camera, so they can live on the internet. It SUCKS.

Anyway! Meta Glasses.

I was working an event, and a kid wearing them came up to talk to me. And I got the Twerk Pong feeling. I don't even know if he was filming me. But I had to wonder, and wondering SUCKS.

And I wasn't even doing anything wrong! I was already using my Customer Service Voice and being perfectly pleasant, but just knowing I could be on camera made me uncomfortable anyway.

Why are we doing this?! It SUCKS.