Every so often my husband, eleven years my junior and still interested in things, asks me, "What is it like to be old?" (Not really but I thought it was funny.) I tell him it has little to do with your age in years. It has nothing to do with wrinkled skin or physical decline, or even mental decline. It is simply letting go of popular culture and thus losing touch with the hoi-poloi who, after all, run things and keep The Olive Garden in business.
My first mistake was not getting a Twitter account years ago because I thought it was dumb. I still do, but apparently everyone who's anyone, including captains of industry and political leaders, people far older than me, is busy tweeting.
So, not being on Twitter I still don't understand what a hashtag is, despite my son explaining it to me countless times. I suppose I get it, sort of, but again, it seems pointless. Why would you want to go where everyone else is? I'm mystified.
Next came TikTok, something which I have yet to see or certainly understand. But yesterday's New York Times printed an article about "the greatest TikTok star ever," or at least today -- a young girl who posts videos of her life from her bedroom and now she's rich and famous and so is her entire family, all of them making deals for TV shows, product endorsements and who knows what else since I stopped reading.
Suddenly I realized that millions of people are spending their time looking at smart phones or iPads or computers and watching other people who are actually living life. And meanwhile I'm just living my own life and have never even heard a song by Adele. (Is she still popular?) Instead, today I'm sad that Ed Asner died.
That's old.
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