Bija Andrew’s Zen Blog

In today’s New York Times, Evgeny Morozov laments the “cyberflâneur” in today’s Facebook world. The term–which I’d never heard before in cyber or non-cyber form–comes from Charles Baudelaire’s ideal of the flâneur, the urban nomad who explores the city as an observer, who takes in the city without necessarily participating or influencing. The cyberflâneur, then, is one who explores the eclectic offerings online, whose tastes are wide-ranging and who is willing to explore the unfamiliar.

Morozov quotes an interview with Mark Zuckerberg that, to him, represents the antithesis of the cyberflâneur. Zuckerberg asked a rhetorical question and did not hesitate to answer. “Do you want to go to a movie by yourself, or do you want to go with friends? You want to go with your friends.”

I’ve realized for a long time that my response to this is atypical. Usually, with friends is more fun, sure. But sometimes it’s not about fun, and, as Morozov points out, usually we compromise as to what movie we’ll see so that groups of friends will agree.

When I was in college, I’d read some of the plays of John Guare and was excited that they were making Six Degrees of Separation into a movie. When it was released, I went by myself. When I told one of my friends that I had gone alone, she said, “I would have gone with you! You should have called me.” I told her that I had considered it, but then thought if I invited her, she’d suggest that we bring along a few other friends, then they’d invite other friends, then they’d ask if we could do a later showing, then one of the other friends would suggest that maybe we should see Wayne’s World instead. She agreed that it’s likely. We’d get caught up in negotiating.

And I know negotiating is important, and we have to compromise to get along with other people. But for the social flâneur, it’s more important to accept this wandering. Here is where I am wandering, I say. If you can keep up with me you’re welcome to walk alongside, but if everybody else wants a different path, I generally just let them go.

The trick for me as a cyberflâneur, though, is that I like being social and I’m sometimes very aware when it’s missing. I’ve used Netflix to explore a lot of obscure movies, and I appreciate the ability to choose something without asking whether anyone else would like it. And yet a few weeks ago I saw Incendies, and I’ve been dying to discuss it with someone. I haven’t found anyone else in my circles who’s even seen it–and discussing it out loud is tricky because my pronunciation of the French title tends to get indistinct. So I appreciate the social web, and that my wandering then can become social–that I’ve heard an interesting song, tried an interesting recipe, read an interesting article, and I think you might like it too.

Morozov’s critique of “seamless sharing” is, perhaps, the most thought-provoking part of the essay. My life takes me to interesting places, and I generally like to share, but the seamless sharing often has implications. To those who know me socially, what I share might define me as a person, or it might be taken as a recommendation. The seamless share fills my profile and attempts to influence others. And that takes away from the wandering spirit of the flâneur. I might, because I’m curious, want to listen to a Nicki Minaj song or read a Stieg Larsson novel, but I’m not certain I want my friends to see me as the type of person who does these things. I might be curious to try a Yemeni restaurant or a new SyFy TV series, but I wouldn’t tell my friends that they should do the same–the seamless sharing puts it out as a recommendation before I’ve had the chance to decide whether or not I recommend it.

So there’s another reason this is on my mind, but that’s another post for another day. For now, here’s a picture of an arcade on a mall. Of sorts.

I’ve seen a lot of the Beloit Mindset List over the last few days, shared by various Facebook contacts. If you’re not friends with as many college instructors as I am, you may not know about it; it’s an annual list of facts about the incoming college freshman class, designed to help understand what the new generation is thinking.

It’s a good idea, and it could serve a useful purpose, but in recent years I’ve been more and more disappointed in the list. It’s gotten to be less a useful treatment of generational differences, and more a roll-call of pop-culture trivia from 18 years ago.

Part of my problem with the list is that the writing style is convoluted and awkward, word choices that seem designed to be hip and funny but miss the mark. The writers seem to like “always” and “never” statements, and I kind of get why. An incisive statement on culture could be like those from Beloit’s Class of 2003 list–to say that in their lifetime, there has always been at least one female justice in the Supreme Court, or there has never been a Yugoslavia.

But when they try to press that sentence form onto a factoid, it leads to rough sentences like All their lives, Whitney Houston has always been declaring “I Will Always Love You.” or Women have always been Venusians; men, Martians. Of course, those statements were written to say that a certain song and a certain book were released before they were born, but it’s not like Whitney was hooked up to a 24-hour singing machine, constantly looped to the one song, and it’s not like the psychology-lite insights in John Gray’s book have been uniformly accurate and influential. Sometimes the sentence format just makes it illogical: Amazon has never been just a river in South America. I presume it’s saying they were born after the online bookstore Amazon.com, but really, “Amazon” has always had more than one meaning–a mythical warrior woman, or any woman seen as physically imposing. Why do the writers say it this way, and not, “They were born after the opening of Amazon.com”?

The real problem with the list, though, is that its pop-culture focus seems to be mostly through Baby Boomer eyes, not Millennial eyes. Sure, these young people are too young to remember Cheers, the Sears Big Book, or President Carter. What insight do we get from that? What does it tell us about their values? Pretty much nothing. The list seems to me like a group of over-thirties reminiscing, like, “Remember when you had to go to a midnight movie to see Rocky Horror? These kids don’t!” “Remember the McDonalds hot-coffee trial? They don’t!” Even the ones that are specific to their generation seem infantilizing–pogs, Mouseketeers, Tickle-Me Elmo. How does it help us relate to them, to understand who they are now, to be reminded that the catchphrases “Been there, done that” and “yadda yadda yadda” were popular when they were babies? If it simply reminds you not to use 1990s catchphrases in class, that’s really a small step. If you need a reminder that Lorena Bobbitt jokes will fly over the heads of 18-year-olds, I think it’s better as a reminder that Bobbitt jokes were never funny in the first place.

Every year, I get insights and surprises from my students. I find out how they see the world, what is significant to them and how it differs. That’s something the Beloit Mindset List could do, could help with, could start conversations. But it seems in this form to be less a conversation-starter than a conversation-closer. “Don’t bother talking to them about Andy Warhol,” it seems to say. “They don’t know him and don’t care.”

There’s one note on this list that could have been developed into an insight: The only significant labor disputes in their lifetimes have been in major league sports. But, well, I’m not certain that’s true, or true as such. Considering that this list comes from a university in Wisconsin I think the claim calls for a little more scrutiny.

I’ve been thinking about this video, in which comedian Paul F. Tompkins’ talks about his elderly mother’s rethinking her views on gay people:

And of course, that makes me think of this song by Lady Gaga, presented here in a remix by the famous Bollywood producers Salim and Sulaiman:

When I first heard Lady Gaga’s song, I thought the sentiment was surprisingly retro. Among the people I know and see on a daily basis, the sentiment that LGBT people are predisposed to be so–born this way–seems like nothing new and surprising. Of course, the song is about more than that; the sentiment of “accepting who you are” is not limited to one kind of outcast. But when I heard the song, the Eurodisco beat wasn’t the only thing that made me think the song would be more in place in the 70s or 80s. Isn’t “Born This Way” common knowledge, old news?

But then, to Paul F. Tompkins’ elderly mother, this attitude wasn’t cliched, wasn’t something she’d even considered until her old age. Then she treated it as her own private revelation, the product of intense contemplation, “Why are gay people that way? Maybe it’s because they were born that way.”

I was especially moved by Tompkins’ story because I kind of identify with him. In most of his work, he’s taken a detached, ironic view. He was the host of VH1’s “Best Week Ever,” a show that has irony built in to the title. Not every week can be the best week ever, but we can sarcastically act like it is. So when he tells the story about his mother, he’s on the verge of cracking wise about it, but there’s also a very sincere appreciation.

It’s odd that a sentiment that seems hackneyed and cliched from one perspective can be profound from another. Statements like “Money can’t buy happiness” or “Every cloud has a silver lining” seem hollow, unless you’ve had a transformative experience that leads you to treasure them. Philosophers expand, question, seek further treasure from these little sentiments, but to people who have something else to do with their day, there’s only the space and energy to make it into a song, to express it as a simple topic of bedside conversation, to hum along with it on the radio.