michael i koperwas

i was thinking about what i and my generation will be like when we’re transitioning to old-codger-dome. Not quite at doddering age, but old enough to have a twenty-year-old kid. So, about ten years away from where i am now.

For many of us now forty-somethings, we can think back to our youth with a smile and reminisce on the video games we played and such. They may not have been terribly advanced, but they were fun. There was no YouTube or FaceBook or the newer Visage.fb or iConnect.apl (names not yet trademarked).

And now these parents are watching their kids grow up in a world they wish they could have. Convergence was a dream, and we were happy that playing a game wasn’t that silly old Pong. The games didn’t choose music from your own library as the soundtrack, or use the built-in camera to roughly model your face and attach it to your character. Mobile phone cameras didn’t have built-in methods to attach to surfaces, or have automatic panning so that we were always framed well.

Ultimately, when we were kids, we were more or less alone. Our shared experience was limited to our friends down the block that we could meet at the park up the road. These kids now have regular pen-pal friends in Norway that faved their video. That connected their pages and they browsed mutual histories. They both like Utrecht (a mod-punk band) and loved Joss Whedon’s last series ‘Endless.’ They could share what was once considered local only to them.

i wonder if maybe what i always thought were parents being angry at their kids for being kids, was maybe misdirected or misunderstood jealousy. Because i know i wish i were growing up in the world of today; i can only imagine what ten years will bring to the kids being born today.