At my families’ Thanksgiving gatherings, after the meals we played games. I use the plural here because I have two families — one with kids in their 40s, and another with kids almost 20 years younger. The older group have their own kids, most of whom are teenagers.
The point is, from a demographic perspective, that these guys segment neatly into three different generations and that comes through clearly in their game-playing. For the purposes of this article, I could call them the 40-somethings, the 20-somethings and the teens.
The games they played were all memory games — Telephone, Telestrations, Smart Ass. And what I noticed is that they excelled at knowing the answers to questions about pop culture as it was in their teens, when they were (are) at the peak of forming social bonds and acquiring their collective sense of style and taste.
It’s tempting, therefore, to label them by which music they favored as teens — Grunge, Swifties, etc., but it’s a lot more complex than that. The younger ones complain about geography questions (“We didn’t study that at school!”) while the older ones are relatively clueless about TikTok memes and other social media trends that emerged long after they were youths.
As I mused about all this, you may rightfully ask, where did I, as the patriarch of both of these family groupings, fit in? Well, I’m not sure that I actually fit in much of anywhere, but then again, I did try to participate in some of the frivolity.
And thus did it emerge that you could with a fair degree of certainty conclude that I am certifiably something of a smart ass.
Or at least that I studied geography in school.
HEADLINES:
Buy Now Before Tariffs Hit, Retailers Are Telling Shoppers (WSJ)
Mexico's president and Trump had an upbeat call despite dust-up over tariffs (Politico)
Trump vows tariffs over immigration. Here’s what the numbers say about border crossings, drugs and crime (AP)
Republicans, not Democrats, hold fate of Trump nominees in their hands (WP)
Tech companies put on notice as Australia passes world-first social media ban for under-16s (CNN)
As Jack Smith exits, Donald Trump’s allies hint at retribution (Economist)
Israel and Hezbollah trade accusations of ceasefire violations (Reuters)
Putin threatens Ukraine in remarks after former-Soviet states security summit (NPR)
Elon Musk’s Twitter backers gain windfall from xAI deal (Financial Times)
A Revolution in How Robots Learn (New Yorker)
Prague's Kafka International Named Most Alienating Airport (The Onion)
LYRICS:
“Dry Your Eyes”
By Neil Diamond / Jaime Robbie Robertson
Dry your eyes, take your song out, it's a newborn afternoon
And if you can't recall the singer, you can still recall the tune
Dry your eyes and play it slowly, like you're marching off to war
Sing it like you know he'd want it, like we sang it once before
And from the center of the circle to the midst of the waiting crowd
If it ever be forgotten, sing it long and sing it loud
And come dry your eyes
And he taught us more about giving than we ever cared to know
But we came to find the secret and we never let it go
And it was more than being holy, oh it was less than being free
And if you can't recall the reason, can you hear the people sing?
Right through the lightning and the
thunder, to the dark side of the moon
To that distant falling angel that descended much too soon
And come dry your eyes
Come dry your eyes
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