A Technophobe Starts a Website. Go Ahead, Laugh, I'm In On The Joke.

I don’t really know anything about computers. Sometimes, when they frustrate me by doing illogical things such as shutting off at inopportune moments or obtaining crippling viruses, I shout at them. Or plead with them pathetically... Either way, I very rarely know what to do in order to make them stop being broken. I know, somewhere, in the part of my mind that realizes talking to inanimate objects is not what sane people do, that well-placed argument will get me nowhere with hardware and mainframes; I guess I just like to make computers feel bad or really guilty for not understanding that I really need them to work. My problem is that, since I’m a young person, a member of a burgeoning generation of computer savants, we – the computer and me – are supposed to intuitively get each other. So, when my birthright as a Millennial technophile fails me and I am rendered incompetent at the foot of a simple line of code, I kind of lash out. A lot. I’m trying to fix this.

In point of fact, I am pretty much technologically illiterate. I’m going to throw some stats out there for you: I break approximately two phones a year. I have never broken a phone in the same way twice. One of my outlets for creativity appears to be finding new and miraculous ways to destroy mobile devices. ¹ I also, to balance things out, lose another phone (this phone being the third unfortunate victim of my existence) per year. This misplaced phone is probably the phone I like most, because by losing it, I spare it from suffering whatever terrible fate it awaits in my cold, phone-destroying hands.² I imagine that, when I walk by phones in Target, they tremble in fear, whimpering to each other in sad, sad beeps, and the tech guy has to sit there and comfort them for the rest of the day. I am to phones what Cruella de Vil was to cute puppies.

This is why I find it deeply ironic, that, at this juncture in my life, I work almost exclusively with computers and mobile devices. Can’t be helped. Want a job in 2011? You are going to work with computers and mobile devices. That’s inescapable, yes; but now I’m volunteering, just asking for punishment, because, you see, I am starting a website. But not just any website; I am starting a virtual media company which is supposed to embody the spirit of the Millennial Generation.³ Me, the cell phone boogeyman who didn’t get texting until 2009 and hasn’t checked Twitter since well before Kanye West made Twitter a better place.

This is funny, right? I think it's funny. As James, my partner who does know how to work computers⁴, and I prepare to launch MiNext, our venture into the media world, I chuckle pretty much daily at the strangeness of my entrance into the virtual boxing ring. Yes, I feel like, with James in my corner, I’ve got Rocky by my side, but across the way I’m looking at Apollo Creed, Clubber Lang, Ivan Drago, Lennox Lewis, the Klitschkos, plus Dempsey, Foreman, and Louis in their primes, and I’m a small kitten with ill-fitting boxing gloves. When the bell rings, I can only hope all those other guys take pity on me. (By the way, in this mixed metaphor, Mark Zuckerberg is Muhammad Ali and Tom from Myspace is Sonny Liston).

So I suck at working anything with a battery charger. Also, I am representing MiNext, a company which I hope can, in publishing quality writing about Millennial concerns, represent something about our generation. And you, reader, are here... Welcome! I guess this all begs the question, why on earth should you trust me as a responsible voice of our generation?

The simple answer is this: You shouldn’t. Don’t trust me as a voice of our generation. Run away now…

You’re still here? Good. You passed my test. You probably realize that I bring a unique perspective to the table. I look at things differently, and I aim to present the things I see in an entertaining and occasionally profound manner. Stick around. We’ll take a journey.

You also realize that no group of people can be defined by one trait. The world as a whole would have us believe that everyone who is 21 like myself can work a computer like James. This standard-issue young person can create virtual worlds easily and can program and game and make the computer theirs just by thinking what they want it to do, and all this with enough spare time to make rude comments on thousands of YouTube videos. This young person watches lots of funny cat videos on YouTube, but they also Facebook their friends, tweet their followers, Wikipedia everything, Google Map every destination,⁵ Netflix whatever they want to see, Stumble Upon whatever they don’t even know they want to see, Instapaper whatever they want to see later, tumblr, flickr, hulu, text incessantly, and they do all this with a set of headphones glued to their ears because their iTunes library is sooo much more interesting than the world around them.⁶ For goodness sake, the President just started tweeting to reach this young person as he enters campaign season. I think what's misunderstood -- what's lost in translation -- is that some of us do all these things, yes, but some do only a few, and some do none. Some, like me, are scared of computers at a purely elemental level. Essentially, we have been defined by others as a multi-tasking, wired-in, ADD horde that, at our best, can create Facebook, and, at our worst, can create “Friday.” Which is, of course, only part of the truth. This decision has been made for us. Now, I think we’re old enough and eloquent enough to step up to the mic and speak for ourselves.

Along those lines, you might also be relieved to know that I have no desire to be “the voice of a generation.” If I ever claim, if or when MiNext succeeds (that’s a big if), to have risen to such lofty heights, dunk my head in cold water until I come to my senses. As a generation, we don’t need a spokesperson. We do need a place to share our concerns and discuss how the world affects us and how we’re affecting the world. James and I are trying to create that place. It’s called Millennials Next. I hope that James and I are the first of many writers to inhabit this still-growing space. We’re like your Abbott and Costello.⁷ He’s the clever little guy who does all the double takes and comes up with the great schemes. I’m the big goofy guy who breaks things and gets in the way of those great ideas. I hope I don’t get in the way of this idea. I think it’s a great one.