The Unbearable Dumbness of Being Cool

Recently I told someone my email address and got a laugh in return, followed by a sneer and snide, "You're kidding -- you still use AOL? That's so dumb." I shrugged it off, assuming the person was out of his mind, my go-to stance whenever my intelligence is challenged. After all, I happen to know my IQ and it's up there, let me tell you. Besides, what's the big deal about how you get your email? How could that say anything about anyone?

Then this morning I read a review in the New York Times of two new TV shows about 20-somethings living in Manhattan and came upon the following sentence: "Both 'Hindsight' and 'Younger' also joke about the uncoolness of using AOL email." To say I was stunned is not an overstatement. I mean, both shows use the same line? I bet some heads rolled after that, and I don't mean because of ISIS.

With the world in chaos as crazy religious groups continue their slaughter of innocents --the latest being 147 dead Christian college students in Kenya yesterday -- there remains a subset of people, a.k.a.morons (and my apologies to all authentic morons), who still think "being cool" matters. And, even worse, that one way to actually achieve that exalted status is through your email server.

Come on people, wake up and smell the hummus! (In fact throw it away, since these days it might be poisoned.) Coolness is history. What matters now is staying alive, dodging those bullets and hoping your airline pilot took his meds on the morning of your next flight.