So after a riveting discussion with my friend about tea (which made us think about antioxidants, which made us think about free radicals) I was like wait, isn’t there a band called the Free Radicals?  No?  Turns out it was the New Radicals, but close enough.  I vaguely remembered a video, a bald man, a mall, and like this sense of fun empowerment.  Like yeahhh this world is for the young let’s take it by storm!  FIGHT THE MAN!

But I guess things have changed.  I might be officially old now.  After googling the video for “Get What you Give” (which I recommend you watch if only for the lead singer’s awkwardly joyous dancing), I realized that I no longer identify with those crazy fun-loving ruffian youths; instead I’m just supremely depressed by their treatment of the “adult corporate suits.”  It’s kind of like….mob violence.  It’s disturbing.  These well-dressed non-teens (I’m not really sure I can even say “adults,” since some of them look like they are in their twenties) get randomly assaulted and thrown into dog cages.  They are taunted and the cages get violently shaken.  All I could think was, “stop it, they already LIVE IN CAGES, stiff corporate cages!!  Take pity! Leave them alone!!”

Okay, maybe I could get on board with this if there was some backstory where these villainous, business-casually-dressed people paid sub-minimum wage to these angsty teens and treated them like shit and were just horrible horrible human beings.  But it kinda seems like all these people were just minding their own business, which freaks me out.  At one point this random middle-aged woman literally gets dragged down on the floor, is essentially stripped out of her “fancy work clothes” and into a service industry uniform, and is then forced to frantically serve fast food to an incredibly voracious, spiteful, napkin-throwing mob of teen people (plus the older looking lead singer-man).  Everyone seems to think she deserves this for some reason, like its her big comeuppance/role reversal.  But don’t you think there was a point in her life when she was also a teen and probably already had a job where she had to serve people in a uniform?  Way harsh, Tai.  You don’t know her life.

This video actually reminds me of an episode of Wizards of Waverly Place (yep, I regularly watch this show) where in an effort to “fight the Man,” the girl’s aunt stole fruit from an independent street grocer.  But the Man is not an independent street grocer.  And the Man probably doesn’t walk around suburban shopping malls in Gap button-downs.  (Or maybe he does.  I don’t know his life.)

The video concept is also really pushing the whole “no regulation is great!!” thing.  FREEEEEEDOOOOMMM!  Which I admit feels really empowering and awesomely self-righteous  (and very appealing to rebellious teens, including my teen-self).  But it’s also a strange extreme example of what freedom can mean, and in a lot of ways it’s super limiting.  Because that’s not how life is good!  You can’t enjoy malls if everyone is throwing stuff at each other all the time!  It’s just not practical-news-bears, people.  Sometimes order is necessary. 

Oh my god I’m so old. 

rant by Liz (wearing her geriatric rantpants while nursing her carpal tunnel)
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p.s. - stop at 2:47, the lead singer has such CRAZY EYES at that moment.
p.p.s. - I still think it’s a pretty good video.