My little brother returned home two days ago from Diliman for the vacation. Now, he sits beside me while I navigate the channels to check what television networks have in store for the summer.
Not a minute passes that David says, “I don’t like that they call our generation the Generation Y.”
I turn to look at David. Only eighteen years of age, a year younger than I, and having to spend two of those years in that university, and look now what he thinks the world is doing to him.
“It’s a slap to our face that we are named so because we have a predecessor that was labeled Generation X. It’s that structuralism thing. You are named this because you are after that. Blah…blah…blah…”
Click. One of those Latin American soap operas in which the lady in heavy make-up walks to a guy in grey moustache. The blue-eyed lady says something in a Filipina voice but her lips are saying something else.
“They say we are always irritated because we’re still with the subgroup MTV Generation, always ranting, always impatient.” Another Slap. “How could they name us something we can’t associate with?”
Click. The screen is filled with dancing lights and fast beat as The Pussycat Dolls rip their cloths off and stretch their legs into infinity.
“MTV is not what it used to be during the 80s and the 90s. What we have now is the remains of what MTV used to be: shit in its purest essence.”
Click. An ordinary-looking stove is being advertised for ten times the actual cost. Endorsers say it doesn’t smoke and doesn’t heat up to burn human skin. In short, it doesn’t cook.
“Every other era is a shit from the other. Modernism was the shit of 19th century industrialization. Commercialism was modernism’s shit. Commercialism has many shits but MTV is its well-known known shit, just a channel of trash and advertisements.”
Click. Foreign news says that India will sue a Hollywood actor for kissing one of its beauty queens in front of its audience. The reporter says that the three lawyers who are pursuing the case said what the actor showed was a sign of disrespect to the Indian people.
“Advertisement to lousy boy band, pop princess, rock stars, their fifteen-minute-trend fashion, their beauty, their youthful energy and sex.”
Click. Different foreign news shows the face of the Korean boy who went into a shooting rampage in Virginia. The picture of the boy with his hands raised with a hammer is shown side by side with a Korean movie poster with the actor holding a hammer in the same position.
“There’s no music on that channel anymore, only sex. What’s worse is every other network is also saying that their putting what they usually place on TV: the usual forensic drama, emergency room drama, classroom drama, teenage love melodrama, and noontime game shows.”
Click. An advertisement of Chinese pills shows before and after pictures of a woman’s belly.
“But what the viewers don’t know is that every show is subliminally inserted with the word sex. The only show that they are not putting sex into is the ‘Find the Hidden Mickey Show’.”
Click. An actor-running-for-the-senate is holding a cellular phone while he blabs on the glory of piso communication.
“There. That I can associate with. A cellphone. Texting. Call us the TXT Generation and we will embrace the label with open arms and open legs. But please, not with MTV or those lousy TV shows, and especially not with sex.”
Click. A well-known TV personality gave birth.
“One last thing, they’ve added a spank to TV, they successfully injected reality to TV. With reality, they can successfully glorify sex. Might as well they call our generation the Sex Generation.”
Click. News about the latest political killing.
“Why are you so quiet?”
Click. An advertisement for another actor running for the senate.
“Have you seen the new video of My Chemical Romance? Can you get any cornier?
Click. A prisoner running for mayor.
Click. Boxing superstar running for congress.
Click. God running for councilor.
Click.
“Why did you turn it off?”
Static.
I turn a knob, not looking at David. “I wonder what they’re playing on the radio.”