While I’m shredding pop songs, let’s talk about John Mayer. It’s not the ridiculously offensive Playboy interview he did. It’s not that he seems to sniff out drama like a bloodhound sniffs out escaped convicts. No. It’s this song:

Me and all my friends
We’re all misunderstood
They say we stand for nothing and
There’s no way we ever could

Now we see everything that’s going wrong
With the world and those who lead it
We just feel like we don’t have the means
To rise above and beat it

So we keep waiting
Waiting on the world to change
We keep on waiting
Waiting on the world to change

So, basically – people say you don’t do shit while you whine about how much the world sucks, but really, you say, you do! You’re waiting for the world to change. You’re not going to do any work to make it change, no. Because you’re clueless and so you don’t even try. So. Yeah. You’re deep and meaningful and you want to whine about it.

So, no. I wouldn’t say you or your friends are the least bit misunderstood. I think you’re pretty darned well understood. You don’t stand for anything. You say it yourself. You don’t have the means to rise above. You don’t take a stand because you don’t think you’re capable of it. Which really means you don’t care enough to do anything, because I’ll bet you’re capable of making it to the gym to workout, or making it to a party to have fun with all those other folks who are waiting for the world to change.

You do, however, feel that you have every right to whine about the things you don’t like. But no obligation to do anything. Because it’s so much more fun to sit around feeling superior and meaningful. You’re like MFA students. Annoying as crap, always writing about the anti-edenic post moderns concept of the blahblahblah and how awful your lives are. You’re brats with entitlement issues. Do you whine about how much effort it is to brush your teeth, too?

Keep waiting. Just keep on waiting, and complaining. Because the world is going to change, and it’s going to change in directions you don’t like. And, on the off chance it actually does get changed in a way that pleases you, it won’t be you who gets any of the credit. Because you didn’t do any of the work. One day your generation is going to rule the population, but you aren’t going to be a part of it.

Gods. Songs like this make me wish I’d been born in time to be a hippie.