As regular readers may be aware, I suffer from a light case of insomnia. Some night's I'm blessed with satisfying sleep, however, most nights I find myself awake off-and-on until around five AM... at that point I'm just up. This morning, as I do most mornings, I sat on the couch with a Fiji water, wiping my eyes and watching infomercials. Now, when you leave the television on Comedy Central (while falling asleep just before the Colbert Report airs) until 5 AM you come across the same "RISE AND SHINE" infomercials every morning.

I'm fully aware that I've mentioned this before.

I'm certain that I've spoken on how much of an impact it's had on society.

But it wasn't until last night (this morning) that I realized that it may be the greatest cultural leap of an entire generation...


You may think I'm joking. But really think about this. The Girls Gone Wild video series has not only made spring break parties an absolute must for ANYBODY attending any sort of college, but has pushed the issue into the high schools as well. Granted, in certain high schools in Orange County and such, I'm sure spring break beach trips were fairly common... but I went to a Rural Appalachian high school, not the OC. I hear constantly about kids as young as Freshmen demanding their parents to put them on a plane, after all daaaaaaaaaad, "It's SPRING BREAK!!"

Now you may argue that MTV Spring Break has as much to do with this as anything else. Well, when I was a pup we had MTV Spring Break, and as much as we may have wanted to see Coolio, we knew it was unrealistic. It's this whole "PAAAAAAAARTY" movement that has been slapped on the television 24 hours a day that has convinced young girls that not only is that the way they SHOULD behave, but if they're not doing it, something's wrong with them.

This mentality has even stretched as far as local parties. No longer are girls throwing clothes off to get the attention of photographers, frat boys or just guys with beads, now they're showing it off to the math club (way to go math club, come into your own). Youth culture is slowly (or not so slowly) evolving into the least respectful creation that society has ever seen. Soon we'll be demanding girls take off their tops to get a cab or as photo id when writing a check. Laugh, but is that far off?


I don't want to give GGW all of the credit. Misogynistic music and film have certainly had their effect. Not to mention the arrival of the internet, webcams and myspace (which I always thought was rather harmless until every blonde teacher in America started seducing fifteen year olds... way to go fifteen year olds). So it's just the sexualization of an entire generation of girls that's to blame, but one that I really couldn't have been made so possible without the constant barrage of drunken breasts that we see on basic cable all night long.

Of course, I'm no puritan. And it would be wrong of me to sit here and pretend that I haven't been in places where girls were going wild. As those girls went wild I most certainly had a good time and hooped n' hollered with the best of them. Unfortunately, I'm getting older. People around me are having kids and one of these days I'LL be having kids. The thought of my daughter "going wild" certainly doesn't appeal to me.

But, since she hasn't been born yet, what's that 800 number?