I tried to get my mother to watch the first half of TRW Homecoming, the funniest part is this woman used to watch marathons of TRW with me when I was in middle and high school (I’m in my late 20s) and apparently missed all of the points, and didn’t go well…she didn’t even last a full minute into it when that convo…..super fun.
I also just finished the last few episodes a couple of hours ago and Norm and the LGBT+ issues they bring up too, especially bi-erasure which are super personal for me….I ended up sobbing….I didn’t really keep up with it after 2013 but TRW (not road rules or challenges, actual RW) was one of the only good things left on mtv in the 00s and it was the ONLY good thing they had left after TRL was cancelled and MUSICtv -officially- died and it was always just so impactful and raw and it’s as necessary now as it ever has been and yeah…sorry to just gush about it but no one IRL for me understands why I keep suggesting the homecoming or how it could be anything other than “tYpiCaL mTv dRAmAAaAaaA” so it was cool to see someone reflect on it…okay, sorry again for my novel, hope you have a wonderful mornin/afternoon/evenin/day…
(submitted by: Anonymous)
(submitted by: Anonymous)
(This reply is, like, a few years late. It’s been sitting in my drafts. At this point, even TRW Homecoming: New Orleans is a distant memory. Sheesh.)
Your mom disappoints me. How she raised someone sweet and thoughtful, I have no idea.
Honestly, I should have seen this shit coming. The Boomers did the same fucking thing… they were progressive as hell in their youth, and then did a hard 180 back into the I-got-mine-motherfuckerism that birthed them. My generation, meanwhile, was never particularly awake politically —we were too busy playing video games and disrupting things that bored us— but I never figured so many of us would suddenly shrug and join our parents in their pseudo-religious, authoritarian circle-jerk. I sincerely thought better of us.
Here —as in many things— I point to Bill Clinton, and my generation’s stupid contemporaneous defense of him. We all —self included— excused the fact that he’s a weak, sleazy, brilliant, charismatic piece of shit, and in so doing, inadvertently lowered the bar for the dignity of the Oval Office. He lied and smirked and left a young woman to drown in public, and we all felt like we were in on a clever “fuck you” to the petty moralists of the world. Why wouldn’t a generation like mine look at a lizard-brained, orange troll and say, ‘I wonder what would happen if we gave him a rhetorical flamethrower?” I sincerely thought we were liberating humanity by connecting everything together, but we were really just building a massively complicated framework for screaming “FUCK YOU” into the void.
Anyway, back to Becky…
I doubt it would work, but I’d like to sit her down and try to explain how simple all of this could be for her. It’s like, Rebecca, I know it seems like there are lots of scary new things you’re being asked to learn, and that you’re uncomfortable with a future where you’re expected to acknowledge the flaws people find in the things you love, but you know what would really help? Shutting the fuck up. You can pretend to listen while some half-baked, shitty song floats through your head, and just nod appreciatively when appropriate. You’re old and white and comfortable, so you can just fucking coast the rest of the way. No one needs your opinions, and if you don’t voice them, we won’t assume you’re a jackass. Everyone wins! And how do I know this? Because I watched a movie about psychics, and now I can see the future. (You insufferable asshole.)