Slacker phenomenon explains election results
President-elect uses MTV to reverse youths’ apathy
By Mark Baldridge
Diversions Editor
What is a slacker?
A slacker is a person in eco
nomic or social free fall. Someone
— usually a young person — who
would rather sit around and listen
to her Sonic Youth CD’s than go to
work nine to five at a job she hates.
They are often artists or
wannabee artists, and they spend a
large percentage of their often liny
incomes on beer or expensive cof
fee in coffeehouses. There they talk
about anything outrageous. They
have a penchant for conspiracy
theories and the para-normal. There
is almost nothing so outrageous
that a slacker somewhere does not
claim to believe in it.
A slacker may have no money—
or he may have a great deal. Most
sponge off their parents. But it is
almost impossible to tell a poor
slacker from a rich one. The same
thrift store attire marks them all.
Often a slacker will wear the same
pair of bright orange polyester
stretch pants until they serve as a
kind of personal trademark.
There are tricks to being a slacker
— a successful one anyway — and
you may find some helpful ones
scattered throughout this issue. But
don’t hope for a definitive picture
of the slack life; slackers arc noto
riously individualistic, and in iden
tical tones of voice they all claim to
be.
Slacking off is a time-honored
tradition.
It amounts to a form of depres
sion — a “what’s the use” attitude
that leads a person to slop trying
and form a rock n’ roll band.
Why the gloom about the future?
The cold war is over, the Berlin wall
has crumbled, and there are more
stations than ever before on T.V.
The average slacker remains
unconvinced.
They sec their older siblings,
and even their parents, jump
through the hoops of college de
grees and career tracks only to
wind up without the wherewithal
to buy into the American dream
and work below their skills at a job
they hale.
What’s to appeal about that pat
tern?
You can drop out of college
right now and have all that. Why
bother?
Why bother, indeed. Why care?
Why try to alter the inevitable? Why
vote?
Our new president is something
of a slacker phenomenon. A record
number of young people, generally
the poorest voters, turned out to
usher him in. Without theirsupport
the race might have run differently.
Clinton has figured out how to
capture the attention of this large
sluggish constituency. His sax
swinging appearances on the
Arsenio Hall show and MTV put
him in the ha/.y eye of his public.
The effect of the “Rock the Vote”
campaign on MTV has yet to be
calculated.
Future cnlertaincrs/polilicians
should lake note.
Hut they should also beware.
The slacker population is noto
riously fickle.
And maybe that’s the most prom
ising thing about the slack genera
tion: It has a low tolerance for
rhetoric, for dogma and mindless
jingoism.
In an endless quest to be enter
tained, it has become jaded to the
point that the ordinary methods of
mind control are of no use. 'I he
music industry has had to learn this
lessonf The current generation is
hard to predict and cannot be told
what to like. As soon as it has tried,
whole new subcultural resonances
arise. It becomesimpossibletokeep
up.
So watch out. We are becoming
a new kind of America. The slack
ers out there are bored — which
makesthem dangerous—and they
are a legion.
FASHION
Deciding what to wear can be a problem at the best of
times. When you’re down and out it can be a question of
keeping yourself clothed at all.
Thrift stores are a good place to look, but even there
things can be priced beyond one’s reach.
Try the dumpsters out back of Goodwill etc. for the
latest in bumwear. (See Also: Dumpster Diving)
i
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