What It Was like Growing Up Before The Internet*.
You wanna read some shit, youngster. Here be some shit.
We (well, I) have reached the Summer Doldrums. I hate hot weather in NYC. And this week is gonna be shit-ass hot with shitty 100+ air quality. So, I’m gonna write whatever the Fuck I want. Some ads, some other shit. Lots of cussing, though.
This is Part One. Part Two coming soon.
*Check that: Growing up into my 30s without it. Check that: Growing up without it before most of you were even born.
This is in response to all the “I’M THIS OLD” social posts by folks in their 40s. Seriously, STFU. I got t-shirts older than you.
Check the unemployment numbers from 1982—10.8% compared to 7.2% in 2008. We didn’t call 1982 a “Depression”. We called it “tough times”. And worked two jobs: One as a reporter for our shitty local paper Today’s Sunbeam (RIP) making $5/hour + 25¢/mile and one as a cashier at a Roy Rodger’s wearing a cowboy hat, Western shirt, and kerchief and being required to greet every customer with “howdy pardner”—or you were fired on the spot if the shithead manager caught you slacking.
Next two jobs: Reporter for The Princeton Packet (RIP) making minimum wage plus mileage and a minimum wage change-maker job roaming around Great Adventure dealing with punk-ass kids trying to steal from me every day. I learned more at this job than any I’ve ever had just by watching thousands of people five days a week. Humans are seriously fucked up.
That’s what a Journalism degree got you then. There were, literally, ZERO good paying jobs available because the people holding them held onto them like their life depended on it—because it did. Believe me, I tried like Fuck to break through the barriers. Nada.
Then, my life-long best friend Peter (RIP) showed me his pay stub from his CW job at O&M Partners and I soon became a non-matriculating student at The School Of Visual Arts here in NYC, focusing on ad creativity. And shit finally clicked in my brain.
OK, to the growing up part. Buy a subscription to read this image-supported essay.