As Daily aficionados and fans of "Bangers and Mash" and "Hostels and Hostiles" know, I spent most of the past year in merry ol' England. This experience had a great impact on my personality and, of course, my pop culture sensibility was no exception.
For the first time in memory, I was all but cut off from American pop culture. Sure, there were still tabloids, but they looked as if someone had done a find and replace search, turning every mention of "Britney Spears" into "Amy Winehouse." I found myself caring less about looking into American pop culture online because I would only get frustrated. Imagine me reading all about the writers' strike (and "South Park's" god-awful, albeit lauded, response to it) and unable to find a single way to incorporate that into a column about living in London.
Friends would mention commercials they were sick of (one of my friends had a particular vendetta against a Viagra one), and I would be shocked that someone else was ranting and I was just sympathetically listening. Had I accidentally entered the Mirror Universe?
In another instance, I felt my old self screaming to resurface, but without the proper drive to successfully do so. I had met a group of Americans while traveling and, within 15 minutes, they had commenced quoting some Youtube.com video involving Jaeger bombs.
Were I not in this European bubble, I'm relatively sure I would feel the same detestation for them as I had felt for anyone who said "Very Ni-ice" or "Sexy Time" back in sophomore year (or anyone who said "Yeah baby! Oh behave!" back in middle school, or "Why so serious?" this summer). As it was, I just shrugged it off with a "whatever" and continued to talk with them.
Where had my cantankerous nature gone? When had I become so damn agreeable? I was a stranger in a strange land where my references fell on deaf ears 70% of the time, and I didn't catch about 70% of those which were obvious to everyone else. I had begun to live a life less tied to pop culture and must admit, for a time I was happier.
Then I returned to the States. And within a week, I was back loving and hating my mistress as if we had never parted. We were like a modern-day, non-puppet Punch and Judy, assaulting the hell out of each other, but unable to part.
I must admit, the transition was rough. I had to resign myself to the fact that a year in England meant there would be jokes that would go over my head for a bit and that a mention of "Brass Eye" on my part would only get blank stares. Thankfully, my summer job put me in a summer camp. And, I must confess, there is no better refresher course to knowing, loving and hating pop culture than being surrounded by a thousand teenagers.
And now I'm back. And let me just say that Rihanna, Shia LeBeouf and everyone else involved with "Transformers" (2007), people who complain about "Hey There Delilah" excessively (Get over it. It's just like every other saccharine acoustic guitar song. No better, but definitely no worse. It'll be a nostalgic hit in 2017.), "Meet the Spartans" (2008), the twins from the second season of "Heroes," and quite a few other people all got off easy with me writing about foreign cities and accents for a year. Yeah, I may have been mostly cut off from pop culture but there were things that even I could not escape.
And on that note, let another year of ranting and raving begin.
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Devin Toohey is a senior majoring in classics. He can be reached at Devin.Toohey@tufts.edu.
