College Culture... Do we run the world?

Let me preface this by stating that I am a member the the aformentioned group. I have fully internalized all the good and bads of it, and if I had to classify myself, I would identify myself as CI (thats college identified).

That being said... I first and formost have to appologize for not writing for a while. I never abondoned the blog, but I guess we've just been "seeing other people. THAT being said lets dive right into college culture (props to my gal Laura sitting right <------- for suggesting this topic). Let me first talk about American Culture, by and far America's Number One Export. The rise of MNC (multinational corporations) have shrunk the world as they have become global powerhouses. Their size and strength is fairly impressive. Out of the 100 largest economies in the world 51 are corporations! If you make Walmart's sales into a GDP, then it would be the 21st largest economy in the world Here . That is more than "pewney" countries like Poland, or Argentina, or Saudia Arabia, or Norway. Yeah, small. while McDonalds has stores in almost every nation. Here's the thing, the rise of most of these MNC came at the height of American Power... they are in fact American companies. So as they spread, without them even being aware of it, they are spreading American Culture and probably the hierarchy of the American work-place with them.

Is this good? Bad? Its hard to say... It definitely contributes towards a global culture (thank you internet), but obviously ruins some of the cultural diversity that has been building for the last million years. The jury is still out on that, but lets take a look at American College Culture. For the last 50 years it has been the college age kid that that defined the progression of American culture. It all started with Elvis... Yes I said it! Maybe the flappers in the 1920's, but the culture drive really broke open with all the baby boomers listening to "Its my party and I'll cry if I want to". Fine, thats not a great song, but it defined the direction for the majority of music culture until the present day. Ok... The beatles and Led Zepplin probably did a better job moving culture than the Supremes but ya'll get my point. Its college kids that get drunk and go to shows and think of interesting creative things that move society. We invented LOL CATZ and Twitter.

God, don't get me started on Twitter... but its the perfect example of how something that college culture began... The freedom of our generation in terms of social networking and sharing our lives drove the Web 2.0 revolution. Now its used by Oprah. While I suppose I'm glad that our great ideas trickle into the mainstream another perfectly cool thing from our culture is now being used by "lame" people. The point of the matter is that this global social interaction movement WE started will have profound impacts upon the world as time passes. There are 4 or 5 blog posts I'd like to write about this topic, but I won't for the time being.

The point is that if MNC control the world... and they are from America, and American culture is basically move forward by College Culture, that means that Western (especially American, and wtf, why not throw the british in) kids aged 16-29 are dictating the direction of Global culture. This is a huge seat of power, and we all know from Batman that with great power comes great responsibility. And that is why god invented alcohol so our generation could bear that great responsibility and drink it all away.

The most perfect example I know occured at a WISPERG party. The WISPERG group is a student lobbying group filled with enviromentalists and basically college kids wanting to save the world. Well, there was a party, there was beer, there was music (MGMT, Justice, 80's dance grooves and Vampire Weekend), and the weight of the world's problems rested on our shoulders. Knowing this... right after midnight one WISPERG leader got up and grabbed a mic. He said that we faced all kinds of problems in the world... but WE were the solution! Yes we can! He told us to all raise our cups, and he wanted to say something profound.... He then yelled "FUCK GLOBAL WARMING --- DRINK!!" and was greeted with applause cheers and woops (with much downing of booze as well). The music started up and we drank with a new purpose. We booze to believe. Yes we can! (chug), and we binged for Buddah because we all knew that the solution for global warming can be found in the bottom of a keg. College Culture... saving the world one party at a time.

Just remember... A revolution without dancing is a revolution not worth having.

Thanks,

Guthrie