Hitting My Late Mid-Life Years

AKA googling the new kids (not the ones on the block)

Photo by Dave Weatherall on Unsplash

Today was the day. When all the pictures from the Met Gala and the MTV VMAs were splashed across all the medias, I realized I had lost touch with pop culture.

I am past the age that advertisers target, and I don’t know the words to any new songs. But I thought I was entirely in the know about who is freshly famous, and who is dropping a new track, and who is starring in the movies. But I was wrong.

These pictures of bedecked celebrities had me googling. I knew who most were, but I was truly stumped by others. Like no idea. And I was unprepared for being so out of the loop. I work in education, so I usually have insight via my students, through what they talk and write about. But the pandemic estranged me from them in a new way, and I lost the pop plot line. I have young adult children, but we don’t gather ‘round the table to chat about what Mom might be missing in the mainstream.

I’m on Twitter, like several times a day, too. Nothing should be getting by me. Then I saw a video with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell that I thought was about Minka Kelly, based on the hashtags. I know who she is because I watched Friday Night Lights involuntarily from the kitchen when my kids were watching it in the living room several years ago…