I Don't Understand

I don’t understand everything and am willing to educate myself on some of those things if I care enough, or if it’s something I really need to know. But there are a lot of things, whether due to my age or general lack of interest, that I don’t care about enough to understand. Point me in the direction of supplemental reading material if you must, but I just don’t care enough to read any of it.

Take Lil Tay (please!), for example. I understand that she’s some 10-year-old on the internet who acts as if she has a lot of money, although she does not, being 10. I read that she posed once with a sports car, and bragged about having the car, which she cannot drive for six more years. Lil Tay brags a lot about the money she is adjacent to.

I don’t understand this at all. Neither does my son, who is the same age, and rolls his eyes at the mention of his contemporary. I don’t blame this preteen for acting arrogant and profane or whatever. I think the mother is an idiot, since she lost her job for borrowing her boss’s sports car for her daughter’s video. I don’t envy any of the potential money that might come with this nonsense. We wouldn’t put our child on the internet like this because 1) we’re not a trash family and 2) we would rather teach him that the smart way to build wealth is by getting and keeping a decent job and being smart with money, rather than losing a job by borrowing a sports car so your kid can pose with cash.

I guess this girl is one of the “influencers” I hear about. Maybe I’m showing my age here but these just seem like spokesmodels to me. I read an article about the Instagram aesthetic changing (it’s completely different than it was in the Before Times of late 2017) and now people are taking different photos than they were. I missed this entire thing and I don’t care. None of these people influences me because I have never seen any of them. I’m just not going to go on Instagram and see someone posing in a coat or whatever and say, “I really need that” and pull out my credit card. It was funny that the article on Instagram said “Everyone is trying to be more authentic.” If you have to try to be authentic, you’re not authentic.

Speaking of kids on the internet, I also didn’t understand that girl who went on Doctor Phil or whatever and copped the attitude. Was it “Cash me outside” that she said? I’m too uninterested even to open up another tab on my browser and search for this child (although not uninterested enough to write about her, apparently). Anyway, if there was a joke there, I didn’t get it. It would be like explaining color to a blind person. She’ll be as much of a footnote as when Bart got 7.5 minutes of fame for being the “I didn’t do it” kid.

I don’t understand Bitcoin either. I know it’s a cryptocurrency and the CEO or whoever died without leaving password information to people’s accounts so they got locked out of their money. If someone tried to explain Bitcoin to me, it would be like being cornered at a party by someone who wants me to switch utility providers from the stable utility company to some shady startup company so I can save 5 percent: I’d smile and nod and back away. I could learn more about Bitcoin but it would be like researching phrenology: completely pointless. I’ll take my money backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government and kept in an FDIC-insured bank, thanks.

If I don’t care, why did I write all this? Because I wanted a break from work for a few minutes yesterday. And we can all understand that.