SARAH SAMWAYS

Late last night proceeding into early this morning, a young female DJ lost her mind on Providence’s own 95.5 WBRU. She began her set a little too enthusiastically; she was too talkative and was (trying to) editorialize everything from the music to the listeners. Because, as she noted far too often, she was a “young, 20-year-old white girl,” I chalked this all up to her just being really excited about her new job. Okay, sure, whatever…

Things got weird, however, when she started to play “Yonkers” by Odd Future’s Tyler the Creator. She prefaced the song by claiming that due to technical difficulties prompted by tropical storm Irene had misplaced the edited (radio friendly) version of “Yonkers” and hoped she had the right one. If not, no biggie. Coy, she was not. “Yonkers” starts to play and when swearing is predicted, she cuts in and replaces it with her own “faggot”, “fucking bitch” and “cunt”. The song ends and her incoherent rant begins. 

Fueled by an immediacy that only youth can provide, she called out the FCC, depression, America, and old people to name a few. She praised “new media” as the “voice of (her) generation” in a tune sounding more like “Parents Don’t Understand” than Bikini Kill. She also noted, “we need to take the word cunt back,” and within the next breath acknowledging she didn’t know why she was talking. To this, I may have an answer. Perhaps our newfound reliance on social networking sites have clogged young minds like hers. I am not against sites like Tumblr or Facebook, obviously, but like anything, they have to be used with caution and taken in moderation. When everyone and their mother can blurt their innermost feelings onto these platforms, often unedited, (i.e. literal grammatical errors to figurative concepts, sake of art), things get muddled. Society itself becomes a multi-headed creature vomiting unorganized thoughts all over itself. 

The girl - and that’s what she is, a girl - honestly thought she was doing something, feeling revolution in her blood and wanting to act upon it because it was supposedly the right thing to do. It wasn’t. What it really surmounted to was another idiot talking loudly and making a scene, not making sense. We, as human beings, have to start making sense again. We have to think before we speak. Our children, and God forbid our children’s children, will converse in emoticons and won’t know what to do when they see each other in the street - which arguably, is already happening. If she is “the voice of our generation,” I surely do not stand beside her. Just before someone finally shut her up she said, “I don’t know why they gave me a microphone but I’m gonna use it until they kick me out of here.” Music cuts her off and everyone pretends like nothing happened. 

Note: Further discussions: Odd Future/Tyler the Creator’s participation (?); FCC; What do older generations of feminists think of today’s girls, women? / Integrity of intentions - people speaking out because they care vs. wanting attention (fame) 

(Source: littlecages)