Monday, April 18, 2016

Damn Daniel? Vine? Huh?

As I was handing out scripts during drama club I noticed that one of the fifth graders had written "damn danile" in large letters across the top of her first page. I was surprised. The fifth grade itself was just coming out on the other end of a heavy bullying issue but this girl wasn't one that was involved. Did she somehow miss the message? It didn't seem like her, but why would she write that about a peer? I wasn't aware of anyone in the fifth grade named Daniel but there are some other names similar to it and with her misspelling I wasn't quite sure who she intended to be writing about.

The other teacher and I called her over and asked her why she'd written it. She looked at us like we were from another planet. "It's a vine" she explained, like that was all we needed to know.
"Huh?" the other teacher asked, "what's a vine?"

The girl started to look embarrassed, but maybe that was just being embarrassed for us. "Uh, it's a vine. You know, on the internet. A vine."

"Oh, a vine" I said, like I knew and I got out my phone to start googling the phrase. The teacher turned to me, "No really, what's a vine?"

"I've heard of it...."
I said slowly, "but I'm not sure, it's like, an internet video?" I sounded like a fifth grader myself. It's one of those words kids use? It's not something they talk about on my NPR podcasts.

OMG I'm old.

OH. Wow. My google search brought up a explanation for why the girl may have written damn danile on her paper. Apparently that's a thing. Like, a really big thing. Some guy walks around and his friend says "damn, Daniel" to him in a dramatic voice, commenting on how good he looks. In the type of voice one might take inspiration from in drama club.

Let's put aside the fact that I still don't understand why this catch phrase video thing posted on snap chat (which I also don't understand) would become an internet sensation. The mere fact that I don't know about something the rest of the world is talking about makes me start to feel like a bit of an outsider on this planet. How does one keep up with such craziness? Is there a Wikipedia entry for "things boring adults should know?" In fact, perhaps NPR should make a weekly podcast to catch us 30 somethings up on what we're obviously missing out on with the rest of the world because we are too busy listening to This American Life.

How are parents suppose to keep up with such things? I'm terrified of dealing with trying to keep up with everything as my kids get older. How on earth are you supposed to stay on top of what your child sees with all of the information flooding into your child's world? Sure, this is fairly innocent but what about everything that isn't so innocent? How do you keep up with that?

While I stood dumbly scrolling through the google search results, lost in a sea of popular content I'd somehow missed until this moment the other teacher explained to the girl that although this is a popular internet term it is not intended for school and is actually a bad word. She sent the girl back to her seat to cover up her writing. We spent the next five minutes staring at each other, wondering just how old and out of touch we'd become.

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