[media-credit name=”Keven Law” align=”alignleft” width=”455″][/media-credit]

Sometimes when I think about the future, I think about how much crap I give my parents for being completely old. Now, in their defense, my parents are actually fairly savvy and hip for old people, but there is only so much you can do to stay cool when you were born before Alaska and Hawaii became states. I don’t make the rules, I just follow them. Here lately, though, and by that I mean the last couple of hours, I’ve been thinking about all the things that are going to betray me when I become an old guy, and my nieces and nephew (God forbid I be allowed to raise children) think I’m kinda hip, but you can only be so cool if you were born before the existence of the cell phone.

Thus, for your reading pleasure, I give you a horrible, terrifying look into the cultural trends that are “Generation Z”

The Future is a Scary Place

1) Britney Spears, Classic Rock

When my dad was a kid, the Beatles were this awesome pop band that all the teeny girls wanted to rip into tiny little pieces and keep with them forever, or so I gather about adolescent girl psychology. Eventually, after they made enough albums and did enough drugs, they became one of the cornerstones of modern music. Most people don’t realize that the most influential band in history is actually the proto-type boy band, but that’s the way it was. Fast forward a generation, and you have Madonna doing basically the same thing, going from being a pop princess into an acclaimed musician that has won awards.

I predict that in about 10 years, Britney Spears will be one of those musicians. I mean, she’s the inspiration for a generation of teen pop stars already. You can blame Britney Spears for Miley Cirus and even Lady Gaga. These are cats that aspire to be like her. So, my prediction is that sometime around 2020 we’ll be seeing Britney Spears earning a AMA lifetime achievement award.  Some new artist will shock the world when she arrives that the ceremony wearing a little black dress.

2) Instead of bitching people don’t speak English, They will bitch that people don’t speak Memeonic

The moment the first person pronounced the world Lol out loud, the world was forever changed. Thanks the the speed that typed language mutates, (common typos become new words quickly on teh webs), it stands to reason that within 20 years Modern English will have finished melting. Thanks to the globalization of culture, they won’t really be too worried that people speak Spanish or Chinese, they won’t understand anyone that speaks like old people. It was a whole job of work that took me a month of Sundays to figure out.

No, I still don’t know what that actually means.

3) They will actually be afraid of NOT having Big Brother Watching

Let’s face it, we all carry cameras and tracking devices with us at all times now without even thinking about what we’re actually doing. Scientists are working on decoding brain signals to translate into text on a screen already. It stands to reason that within twenty years it won’t be that uncommon for people to have their wayward thoughts broadcast onto the internet. Living in a climate of open communication and instant data access will make it uncomfortable if you’re in a situation where you actually feel alone.

No cameras? What if I get attacked by a crazy person, or if I look really hot or funny? The world needs to see my duckface!

4)Top Secret will mean “Do Not Post to Facebook”

I’m pretty sure that after deforestation (and the War of 2018) has eliminated our ability to create paper, it won’t take long for our now digitized information to become publicly available on WikiLeaks. After that pretty much every government document will be labeled as either “Share” or “Private.” Our most classified secrets will be set as “Friends Only.”

5) Kids will bitch that their family can’t afford a Domesticated Zombie.

“Why do we have to have Butlertron 9600, why can’t we get a Grandma refitted as a Domestic Zombie?” Seriously though, once the Zombie problem has been gotten back under control, we’ll still have the problem with the dead rising. What do we do with them (besides burning our corpses to ash, which potentially creates undead cloud monsters)? We’ll train them to do basic labor and other less savory things. It won’t be long before it’ll be the new cool thing to have a zombie maid or possibly even nanny.

Note to self: Sitcom Pitch for Fox -> Zombie Nanny… might be more suited to CBS….

 

It is possible that the world goes in a happier direction, like we get hit by an asteroid and become extinct, or demons come from the space rift in 2012 to challenge to a game of foot-basketball, but those are only the dimmest of hopes. If the fact that Japan lives about 10 years in America’s future is any indication, we’ll probably end up being afraid to touch each other, like in Demolition Man.