After fifteen years
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Sean of the South
Sean Dietrich
When I first started writing, nearly 15 years ago, things were different.
First off, newspapers were still around, doing their thing. My wife still clipped newspaper coupons. Peanuts, Dilbert, Garfield were alive and well. The Sunday newspaper was still slightly bigger than your average Waffle House.
Also, Americans were reading books. Fifteen years ago, 79 percent of us read an average of 16 books per year. Being a writer still meant something to many Americans. Some of us actually aspired to be one.
Likewise, 15 years ago, smartphones weren’t pervasive. They existed, sure. But they were only four years old. Not everyone had one.
Take me. I didn’t own a smartphone. I had a crappy flip phone that only worked on days of the week beginning with the letter R.
Children didn’t own smartphones back then, either. They were too busy being kids. The children on my street, for example, rode bikes. They were always outside.
You could hear their tiny voices, reverberating through the woods. You could see them building forts, climbing trees, swinging on homemade rope swings, inventing new ways to give each other subdural hematomas.
But then something happened.
I can’t really pinpoint WHEN it happened. Or why. But a subtle shift began to occur.
Newspapers finally entered the late stages of their ultimate collapse. In a 15-year period, we lost nearly 2,500 papers.
This was huge. Newspapers have been around since the 16th century. For 20 generations, your ancestors had newspapers. Your great-great-great-great-great-great granddaddy read a newspaper. And then – POOF! – gone.
Most of us couldn’t grasp how this change would affect the American news cycle.
One major change was that college students quit majoring in journalism. Why choose a dying industry? Bachelor degrees in journalism saw a 30 percent decline. Students who might have become journalists instead became “content creators” who wrote click-bait listicles entitled: “Seven things you already know.”
Then, physical books started disappearing. Entire bookseller chains vanished. We lost thousands of independent bookstores, almost overnight. Bigger booksellers, such as Barnes and Noble, survived, but mostly because they started selling things like novelties, stationary, weird socks, boardgames named “pass the booger,” and tea infusers shaped like sloths.
The amount of Americans reading physical books dropped from 79 percent to 45 percent. Suddenly, our young people not only wouldn’t read books, but they COULDN’T read them.
I’m not joking. Recently, graduates from the top 10 U.S. universities admitted they had never read an entire book in their lifetime, stating that anything over 10 pages required too much focus.
Moreover, reading books wasn’t actually required for a college education, many grads claimed.
One top-10 graduate said, “Anyone who can read a whole book has taught themselves to do so on their own time… The highlight of [my] English class was that my final assignment was to write an essay on a TV show, not even a freaking book.”
It wasn’t just college. Middle schools that once engaged in the time-honored tradition of forcing students to read selected works of Shakespeare were now only reading a few paragraphs of the Bard on their iPads. At which point, the classrooms would put their iPads away and discuss Shakespeare’s sexual orientation at length.
Mark Twain’s anti-racism masterwork was outlawed for being intolerant. Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” was suspended from thousands of curricula for being racially offensive.
Through it all, it seemed that people started to lose their bearings.
All of a sudden, it became en vogue to act like an ass. Our political discourses became angry. Our reviews on Amazon got ugly. The comment sections got vicious.
And the Almighty Algorithm loved it.
Not long ago, I wrote a story about a butcher who gifted three Mexican boys several pounds of meat that was officially going to expire, but was more than safe to eat. The Mexican boys were overcome by his act of kindness, almost to tears.
I saw this happen. So I wrote about it. Big mistake.
The comment section degenerated into a veritable socio-political excreta storm. The algorithm saw all these negative comments, of course, and chose to make this post go viral. But for all the wrong reasons.
People were convinced my story had a political agenda. Simply because I used the word “Mexican.”
One veteran journalist took pity on me and wrote me a word of advice: “If you had said they were Canadian, you’d be fine.”
The shipload of comments that made it into my inbox were so biting, I had to turn off my phone for a week just to get my mind right. People were calling me a racist, a supremacist, a homophobe, etc. Others were calling the story “white saviorist” propaganda.
I have one more example.
A few days ago, on Christmas Eve, I was videoed playing the banjo, and singing “Jingle Bells.” It was Christmastime. And I can’t think of a more Christmasy song. It was fun.
The thing went viral on Instagram. Once again, for all the wrong reasons.
Granted, some commenters said they enjoyed the video. But most remarked that “Jingle Bells” is a remnant from racist minstrel shows. And once again, I was a “racist,” “supremacist,” “homophobe,” etc.
These half-baked comments were not only hurtful, but they were also wrong, uneducated and uninformed about history.
“Jingle Bells” wasn’t written FOR minstrel shows but for parlors. It was later USED in minstrel shows, just like thousands of childhood songs children still sing today, such as “Camptown Races,” “O Susanna,” “Old Dan Tucker,” and “Pop Goes the Weasel.” I’m sure people will argue this point. But what does ANY of this have to do with Christmas?
And so here I am, after 15 years of writing. Things feel so different to me now. America feels different. People are different.
I’m weary of walking on egg shells. I’m tired of waking up every day and wondering whether I have inadvertently offended people by singing a Christmas carol on an offensively “culturally appropriated” musical instrument.
Also, I’m saddened that there is a video of me circulating the internet, playing a banjo, with 7 million views, where the majority of commenters are labeling me a racist.
Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in us. I believe in good. And I know with all my heart that Love is winning the war.
But some days I’m not sure I want to be a soldier anymore.
All my love,
—Sean Dietrich
