a fragment of a holographic reality that a higher consciousness made

November 17, 2014 2:33 PM

Willow and Jaden Smith, interviewed
posted by prize bull octorok (95 comments total)

I have seen nothing in anything featuring Willow or Jaden OR their father that suggests the possibility of a "higher consciousness", at least not in Hollywood.
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:46 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

Because living.
posted by belarius at 2:46 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Am I high? Because I really felt like I was high when I was reading that. Because living.
posted by VioletU at 2:47 PM on November 17, 2014 [11 favorites]

No, but you're clear.
posted by gwint at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]

'Wow, I am so lucky to have a body and to breathe and to be able to look at this.'

Somehow my brain hears:

"Wow, I am so lucky to be the daughter of a millionaire and have nothing better to do than go wow, I am so lucky to have a body and be able to look at this."

posted by Michele in California at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [25 favorites]

Everything happens so much.
posted by Ratio at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [19 favorites]

Someone needs to tell these kids that there are No OT's.
posted by Catblack at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

I wonder if their older half-brother Trey sees any of this stuff and laughs his head off.
posted by droplet at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

The article says these are brother and sister, but they're both so clearly an only child.
posted by resurrexit at 2:54 PM on November 17, 2014 [25 favorites]

As soon as me and Willow started releasing music, that’s one thing that the whole world took away is, okay, they unlocked another step of honesty. If these guys can be honest about everything, then we can be more honest.

Ego much?
posted by gottabefunky at 2:54 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Actually, it's kind of bullshit to snark on a couple of teenagers. An interview with them is also not the Best of the Web.
posted by gwint at 2:55 PM on November 17, 2014 [35 favorites]

Yikes, y'all got a case of the mondays in here.
posted by stinkfoot at 2:56 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

It's honesty all the way up.
posted by Evilspork at 2:56 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

How Can Metafilter Be Real If Our FPPs Aren't Real
posted by Talez at 2:57 PM on November 17, 2014 [11 favorites]

Photons!
posted by clavdivs at 2:58 PM on November 17, 2014

When you think about an apple, you also think about the opposite of an apple.

What's the opposite of an apple?
posted by dephlogisticated at 3:00 PM on November 17, 2014 [5 favorites]

AOL?
posted by gottabefunky at 3:01 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

dephlogisticated: "What's the opposite of an apple?"

An orange, duh.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:02 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Actually, it's kind of bullshit to snark on a couple of teenagers.

No kidding. Especially teenagers raised in their peculiar cocoon. One cannot envy them.

What's the opposite of an apple?

Orange, of course. Everyone knows that
posted by IndigoJones at 3:02 PM on November 17, 2014

What's the opposite of an apple?

John Hodgman.
posted by sparklemotion at 3:04 PM on November 17, 2014 [32 favorites]

This is the sort of thing I was prone to saying/writing/thinking about as a teenager.

The difference is that, when I would go on about this silly shit, I would get some level of pushback or at least "That's nice, dear, did you finish your geometry homework?" I don't think these kids are really getting any feedback that implies that any of this is less than the word of god.
posted by Sara C. at 3:05 PM on November 17, 2014 [18 favorites]

What's the opposite of an apple?

elppa na.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:06 PM on November 17, 2014 [10 favorites]

This whole interview is steeped in $cientologist woo-woo speak. Idiot teenagers are one thing, but there is clear language they are parroting that anyone who has followed these clambakers can see.

"that’s one thing that the whole world took away is, okay, they unlocked another step of honesty. If these guys can be honest about everything, then we can be more honest."

You, too, can unlock another step, just take this free personality test.
posted by Catblack at 3:06 PM on November 17, 2014 [9 favorites]

I like them.

And I agree about the whole normal school thing. Kids need more unbridled access to follow their curiosity.
posted by mochapickle at 3:10 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yay for a new generation/season of $cientology $ociopaths in the $potlight!
posted by chainlinkspiral at 3:12 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I figure a couple of kids like this could one day potentially make interesting music. Or at least say weird shit on top of interesting music and make it slightly more interesting. Probably not yet, though.
posted by Hoopo at 3:13 PM on November 17, 2014

dephlogisticated:

"What's the opposite of an apple?"

An anti-apple.

Given that the average apple contains 150g of matter an average apple meeting an average anti-apple would result in a ~12.9 megaton explosion. That's more than Bravo (1954, Bikini Atoll, 15 megatons) but less than Mount St. Helen (1980, 24 megatons).
posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:14 PM on November 17, 2014 [23 favorites]

This is a PR fluff piece for an rather malignant cult. To call it anything but is disingenuous. We've discussed them many times before, and this post should be tagged 'scientology'.
posted by Catblack at 3:16 PM on November 17, 2014 [14 favorites]

How Can Metafilter Be Real If Our FPPs Aren't Real

I--

Uh.

Jesus.

I don't know.

I don't know, man.
posted by curious nu at 3:18 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

It took me way too long to figure out this one

What are some of the themes that recur in your work?

JADEN: The P.C.H. being one of them; the melancholiness of the ocean; the melancholiness of everything else.

was referring to the Pacific Coast Highway, instead of, I don't know, Publisher's Clearing House.
posted by Iridic at 3:19 PM on November 17, 2014 [13 favorites]

WILLOW: And then you think about what you think, which is very dangerous.

God forbid you should be capable of thinking for yourself and re-examining your thoughts, actions and desires within the context of new experiences as you, ohhhhhh GROW UP, or tongue kiss Xenu or whatever it is Scientologist kids do when they get older and gain perspective.

Jesus. That poor reporter.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 3:19 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

I'm a little uneasy with the idea that any press on any celebrities who are affiliated with scientology should be considered a "PR puff piece" for scientology. Both of the Smith kids have music/acting careers in their own right. They're loopy, but I don't know, this is no more a "transparent puff piece" than the Kim Kardashian interview in Paper Magazine (which is arguably more inane), or really any infotainment media that isn't hard investigative journalism.
posted by Sara C. at 3:21 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

One cannot envy them.

(Sticherbeast tearfully contemplates his self-drawn fan art of After Earth, with himself cast as Will Smith's son)
posted by Sticherbeast at 3:22 PM on November 17, 2014 [16 favorites]

I suddenly feel a strong nostalgia for being this age and choking down a bunch of ground up baby woodrose seeds.
posted by cmoj at 3:23 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

My love for these two is boundless. Goddamn. (*haven't read the thread but assume it's full of boring haters)
posted by naju at 3:24 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

The internet gets REALLY worked up over these two. I don't get it.
posted by girlmightlive at 3:25 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Mod note: A couple comments removed. If you keep posting something and a mod keeps deleting it, don't try yet again; just write to us if you need to talk about it, or make your peace with it and move on.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:27 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

" woo-woo speak"
timing
posted by clavdivs at 3:28 PM on November 17, 2014

I'm thinking the hating is not on the kids, per se, but seeing proof that the kids have been indoctrinated fully into an organization, that at best, has performed some highly dubious activities and responded to everyday life in some highly questionable fashions.

And, at least for me, it makes me sad. They need a chance to become people before any real exposure to such a thing.
posted by Samizdata at 3:31 PM on November 17, 2014 [12 favorites]

And I agree about the whole normal school thing. Kids need more unbridled access to follow their curiosity.

I homeschooled my kids and I think it was awesome. But these two both have appeared in significant films and have a list on their Wikipedia pages of their published movies, published music, awards, etc. And they are 14 and 16.

Following in the footsteps of their parents does not really strike me as unbridled access to follow their curiosity. If one were a physicist in their mid teens and the other were a restaurateur, I might agree they got to do whatever the hell they wanted. But they were both in films with their dad at quite young ages, films that were fairly big because of who their dad was, and I see no evidence that they are doing anything other than continuing the family business.

If they are happy with that, great. But if it were a more ordinary family that put their kids to work at the family business at, say, age 4 or 6 and had them seriously participating in running it by their midteens, this would likely be in a court of law and people would be arguing over child labor and child abuse and blah blah blah.

I am not saying these two are abused. But they started their careers at quite young ages. They have had very rare opportunities here and I hope they have very happy lives, but ... no, I don't think they got to just do whatever the heck they felt like as kids. I think that's not a reasonable conclusion.
posted by Michele in California at 3:32 PM on November 17, 2014 [10 favorites]

Err, I picked the wrong megaton examples.
Tunguska Event (1908, 10 megatons) < collision of average apple/anti-apple < Bravo test (1954, 15 megatons)

posted by Hairy Lobster at 3:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Go through and find-and-replace WILLOW and JADEN with METAFILTER and we are good for the next three years of those jokes.
posted by turbid dahlia at 3:48 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Please, there's nothing about this that suggests they're brainwashed Scientologist robots. This is just drugs, free time, weird twitter and getting heady on eastern philosophy. You know - childhood.
posted by naju at 3:51 PM on November 17, 2014 [8 favorites]

interviewers should do this:

What have you been reading?
WILLOW: Quantum physics
What's the mass of an electron?
posted by thelonius at 3:53 PM on November 17, 2014 [26 favorites]

What's the mass of an electron?

It's a very profound ceremony but before you can stage one you have to outfit a proper atomic altar.
posted by localroger at 3:58 PM on November 17, 2014 [31 favorites]

T sat down with Willow and Jaden on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean for their first-ever joint interview

Huh. I would have guessed "bong interview".
posted by uosuaq at 4:05 PM on November 17, 2014 [24 favorites]

These two are a pair of idiot $cientologists. That they have careers boosted by celebrity parents is one thing, but they are also all members of a religion whose cult-like organization elevates these celebrity spokespeople at the expense of slave-like conditions for their layperson members. (And we've discussed this again and again on mefi.)

And I call them idiots, and will continue to call them idiots -- with my apologies to the idiots of the world such as you and I -- because to call these two kids 'child prodigies' plays into the carefully crafted publicity that this organization promotes. To say that it's just 'childhood' is horse hockey. These two didn't come up with their opinions in some organic fashion, they are products of the Church of Scientology celebrity bubble. This is an indoctrinated parroting of the toxic woo-woo they've been steeped in their entire lives. The very language that they are using in this interview is pure L Ron Hubbard bullshit.
posted by Catblack at 4:07 PM on November 17, 2014 [20 favorites]

The very language that they are using in this interview is pure L Ron Hubbard bullshit.

Maybe, I'm gonna need some more damning examples than just the phrasing "unlock another step of honesty" though. Fill us in!
posted by naju at 4:12 PM on November 17, 2014

IndigoJones: "Especially teenagers raised in their peculiar cocoon"

Wasn't this how the Buddha became enlightened? Surrounded in a life of ease and comfort, until he encountered the real world, the world of, say, MiC who sees their commentary as a special sort of privilege for the able-bodied (to say the least)...

Perhaps they are a Buddha; not the Maitreya we wish, but the Maitreya that we deserve.
posted by symbioid at 4:14 PM on November 17, 2014 [7 favorites]

Naju, Scientologists talk about 'unlocking steps', http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Thetan in discussion advancement to a new level.
posted by Catblack at 4:15 PM on November 17, 2014

Teenagers are obnoxious. Teenagers famous enough that some substantial sunset of people will fawn over whatever they do are doubly obnoxious. These seem like people who could still grow up reasonable.

And was there, at some point, some clear proof that the Smiths were more than incidentally involved in Scientology? Have they not both clearly stated on multiple occasions that they are not Scientologists?
posted by 256 at 4:16 PM on November 17, 2014

I'm uncomfortable with the tone of the discussion of Scientology here, particularly as applied to a litmus test about children. I think the Church of Scientology is a dangerous abusive cult and am glad to condemn it. But using the label as itself an insult troubles me. Particularly with the Smith family, which has been publicly unwilling to talk about their relationship to Scientology.

OTOH, the Smiths founded the New Village Leadership Academy, a school based in some significant part on "Study Tech", a Scientology thing. I assume their kids attended? That school since shut down, there's some scandal press about it failing: Radar Online, Tony Ortega. So yeah, those apples are awfully close to the tree.

I'd like to think the Smith kids are just kooky creative kids. OTOH the idea of being raised in Scientology is terrifying. I hope the kids turn out OK.
posted by Nelson at 4:17 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

Naju, Scientologists talk about 'unlocking steps', http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_Thetan in discussion advancement to a new level.

I picked up on that, interested in hearing more examples from the interview though. This seems sort of thin.
posted by naju at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2014

Actually the phrasing is very impure L. Ron Hubbard bullshit, contaminated with a very large dose of late 80's-era New Age (specifically, the era just before angels became a big thing). I doubt the CoS would put up with a normal schmoo spouting this incorrect doctrine in public but the celebs get a lot of leeway, and Will Smith etc.

CoS really has a very particular language which is used partly to isolate their members from outsiders who don't understand it, and I'm not hearing any of that from these kids. They don't even use "clear" in its proper CoS sense, and that's like the first thing you are told after taking the personality test. As for Xenu, these kids are as far from hearing about that as is the average person who would go "L. Ron who?"

I would guess that CoS' hold on Daddy may not be as strong or secure as their hold on most normal people, and he hasn't been force fed CoS doctrine to nearly the degree normal people are. There's a few things in there, like the unlocking, but they aren't connected right and they're using the language very incompletely and in some senses outright incorrectly.
posted by localroger at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2014 [4 favorites]

This is the sort of thing I was prone to saying/writing/thinking about as a teenager. The difference is that, when I would go on about this silly shit, I would get some level of pushback or at least "That's nice, dear, did you finish your geometry homework?"

Same here, except for me the pushback was from other kids I tried talking about this to, and it took the form of a lot of the snarky that's passing for comments in here.

It took me years to get past the notion that I was just too weird, and that there was nothing in the slightest wrong with these kind of heady thoughts I was having; that they come from someone who's finally starting to develop the ability to question things on a philosophical level rather than just a black-and-white one, and they're getting a little giddy with the things their brains are doing, that's all. And the people who told me that I sounded like I was high, or that I was an "idiot"? They were all either too afraid to think about that stuff, or too cynical, or maybe they were a little....idiotic themselves and hadn't gotten there yet.

They're teenagers, and you do this shit when you're a teenager and if everyone just calms down, you do grow out if it, but you grow out of it with a good sense of yourself. Whereas if people give you shit you either hate yourself or you end up shutting that sense of yourself down and calling other teenagers "idiots" or "high" in internet forums.

And as for the Scientology thing - that sounds more like garbled Eastern Spiritualism cross bred with New Age woo to me, which was what i was grooving on at that age. And it sounds nothing like "pure L Ron Hubbard Bullshit", unless Starhawk is a Scientologist.

Chill the hell out, y'all.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:19 PM on November 17, 2014 [16 favorites]

And as for the Scientology thing - that sounds more like garbled Eastern Spiritualism cross bred with New Age woo to me

Just to clarify terms, are you saying that absent your own personal knowledge of the practices of the CoS, that what those children are saying is that combination?
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:28 PM on November 17, 2014

And I call them idiots, and will continue to call them idiots

Beh. Calling a 14-year-old child an idiot is an awfully foamy thing to say when you're trying to make a point about being rational.
posted by mochapickle at 4:30 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

Just to clarify terms, are you saying that absent your own personal knowledge of the practices of the CoS, that what those children are saying is that combination?

....Can....can you rephrase that question using smaller words? I'm afraid I'm sincerely not following you.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:32 PM on November 17, 2014

You know, part of me really wants to poke fun at these kids. Just the other day, though, I found a journal I kept when I was 19, and, uh... well. Kids are pretty dumb. That's why they're kids.

So I'll wait and see what their interviews are like when they're at least 30 before I start making fun of them.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 4:34 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh, yeah, when I say "pushback", I'm not talking to garden variety ignorant nerdpunching. I'm talking about, like, having conversations like this with friends and someone disagreeing. Or writing stuff like this on my backpack or sneakers and watching people roll their eyes in just a general "oh you wacky teens" kind of way. Or spending an evening noodling on this level and then going home and working on that paper about John Donne I have due tomorrow.

I think there's a space where kids can be free to be curious and question things, but also that to a degree teenagers need the skeptical pushback to remind them that the entire world doesn't completely revolve around them. And I think that there are a great many ways to do that without teaching kids to be unthinking automatons.
posted by Sara C. at 4:38 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

For reference, here is an example of actual pure Scientology bullshit:

"Well, to tell you the truth, I've been a bit out ruds because of a PTP with my second dynamic because of some bypassed charge having to do with my MEST at her apartment. When I moved in I gave her an R-factor and I thought we were in ARC about it, but lately she seems to have gone a bit PTS so I recommended she see the MAA at the AO to blow some charge and get her ethics in. He gave her a review to F/N and VGIs but she did a roller coaster, so I think there's an SP somewhere on her lines. I tried to audit her myself but she had a dirty needle and BIs and was acting really 1.1 so I finally sent her to Qual to spot the entheta on her lines. Other than that, everything's fine..."

As the article continues, "There is not a Scientologist anywhere to whom this paragraph would not make perfect sense." THAT is the bullshit language of Scientology, and I'm just not hearing more than a couple of poorly understood phrases of it from the Smith kids.
posted by localroger at 4:38 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

I can try, Empress, and I'm honestly not trying to start a fight.

And as for the Scientology thing - that sounds more like garbled Eastern Spiritualism cross bred with New Age woo to me

Is this what you're taking away from what the children are saying or are you saying this is what CoS beliefs appear to be because you don't haven't studied the CoS belief system?
posted by Purposeful Grimace at 4:39 PM on November 17, 2014

So I'll wait and see what their interviews are like when they're at least 30 before I start making fun of them.

Unfortunately, it's probably not going to get better. The odds are extremely poor that "reality" will ever seep its way into their cocooned lives.

I say this as someone who was homeless for, I dunno, a year or more in my late 40's before it dawned on me how upper class my mother's expectations were. I grew up thinking I was kind of poor white trash, but my dad put such a large down payment on the house he bought when I was 3 that their house payment was about 40% of what the neighbors were paying.

When you grow up very insulated from the kinds of problems most people have, it can take a helluva lot to get out of that insulation. It can be nigh impossible.
posted by Michele in California at 4:40 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yeah Michele I would guess the kids' bigger problem is that they are being stage parented and they really have no idea how high the pedestal is upon which they have been installed, or any concept that dismounting it is even possible.
posted by localroger at 4:44 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

No, purposeful grimace, I don't think you're trying to start a fight - but I still sincerely don't get what it is you're asking me.

I think what you're asking is whether I'm basing my "that's not Scientology" claims on any personal experience with Scientology. And - I mean, I've Googled stuff out of curiosity, but I've not gone to any sessions or meetings or anything. I've read precisely one document released by the Scientology church, but that was under somewhat jokey circumstances.*

However, I was way into the New Age Neo-Pagan stuff, starting in junior high when a friend told me she was dabbling in Reiki training and I asked her about that and carrying on into going full-on Wicca for a while in my early 20s, and the kind of things they're talking about sound way more like the kind of things I did talk about in my Fortean/Scott Cunningham/read-deep-shit-about-Zen phase than they did anything I found on Google about Scientology.



* The one Scientology thing I read was a magazine-length pamphlet containing "L Ron Hubbard's Philosophy Of Art" which inexplicably was mailed to one of my theater companies back in the day. There was no indication why we were receiving it, and we never received anything further, so we all chalked it up to just a random inexplicable thing. The artistic director left it in the backstage bathroom along with all the other "we don't know what to do with it" reading material, and I would sometimes peruse it if I was stuck in there tending to my morning ablutions before lengthy all-day rehearsals.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:48 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

When you grow up very insulated from the kinds of problems most people have, it can take a helluva lot to get out of that insulation. It can be nigh impossible.

Maybe, but we should define "insulated". I think people forget that to many people of developing countries, Americans are insulated and wealthy, even poor Americans.

The point I am trying to make is not that we should all feel guilty, but that when you point the finger and someone for being wealthy and insulated, you should realize a lot of people are thinking the same about you. Does that mean you are a bad person who does not deserve to express gratitude, or your own thoughts? (general "you" here).

What they are sayings sounds weird, sure, but so? It only sounds weird because most people don't say it aloud; lots of people think these thoughts, especially when younger. Not sure it has to do with their "privilege".
posted by bearette at 4:50 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

My impression of that interview was (a) it was kind of mean and snarky of the NYTimes to print it, (b) their wealthy parents decided they should let their kids actualize their potential every which way, (c) the combination of this and their parents' belief system has produced some pretty idealistic, out-of-touch kids. And (d) I presume no one is really mocking the kids for what they are at this early moment in their lives; they just seem like representatives of a certain element of society.
Bearette has a good point that many of us Americans probably come off as insulated and wealthy to people in the developing world, but this is still another level entirely.
posted by uosuaq at 5:06 PM on November 17, 2014

To which her older brother Jaden, a 16-year-old actor and musician, adds: “And the huge, terrible thing the world would be missing by not expressing yourself."

Well exactly. This just goes to show that as you end a sentence you should think back and try to remember how you began it.
posted by George_Spiggott at 5:25 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Not sure it has to do with their "privilege".

I have six (or so) years of college. I have unearned income that helped make it possible for me to say "Oh, fuck it. I am walking away from the job that is keeping me ill and going to live on the streets and find a way to make money that doesn't keep me ill." A lot of Americans lack health insurance and struggle to make ends meet and stay in jobs they know are negatively impacting their health and feel trapped and unable to leave. There are ways in which I am quite privileged and there are ways in which I am not.

And there are plenty of times, even while homeless, where I and my homeless sons talk about things that would sound crazy and privileged to most people. My oldest son natters on endlessly about his criticisms of movies and video games and what not.

And on days when I am in enormous pain and throwing up and don't know how we are going to come up with enough money to keep eating every day for the rest of the month, I don't talk about shit like that and refuse to listen to my kids talk about it. All I talk about is how much I want to die, how much no one fucking cares about me, how there is no justice in the world and so on.

Most people who are homeless have medical and/or mental health issues. That is the crux of why their lives do not work. I had a college class on this through SFSU many years before I experienced it firsthand. I am in a very weird place, having been in a position to say "oh, screw it. I would rather sleep in a tent." and then gone and done just that. Of course, getting onto the street was a helluva lot easier than getting off of it is proving to be.

And to my ears, as someone who has days when being dead so my body cannot torture me sounds pretty fucking appealing and I spend my time wondering where the nearest train track is so I can throw myself in front of it, yeah, I think anyone, no matter their socioeconomic status, who sits around going 'Wow, I am so lucky to have a body and to breathe and to be able to look at this.' is quite privileged in ways they probably cannot appreciate.

That isn't to attack them. I don't think I have said anything particularly snarky or dismissive of them as individuals. But I do think they seriously have no perspective and may never have perspective. And I say that, as noted above, as someone who had to fall a long, long way from STAR student and National Merit Scholarship Winner and State Alternate for the Governor's Honors summer enrichment program in Georgia and so on to get the perspective I honestly longed for.

And, really, I am not sure I will ever seriously have the perspective I longed for because life on the street for me has not involved drug use, has not involved getting assaulted by anyone, has involved relatively little actual hunger and so on. Most of the time, I am relatively comfortable -- especially compared to the kind of suffering my medical condition used to cause, which is supposed to be unfixable.

So I may be just as clueless as they are, while homeless. I may be remarkably privileged myself in some ways and unable to get perspective. I feel more grounded than I used to feel, but I sometimes feel like my expectations for making the world a better place are really out of touch with reality and maybe I should go be a hermit or something because I am not sure I actually do any good trying to share what I understand works. Because maybe it is like a bird saying to a human "Just flap your upper limbs and jump off the cliff and, hey, all is well."

But, yeah, I think it has a lot to do with their privilege. They honestly don't know how high in the clouds they are. They may never know. And I don't think that warrants personal attacks on them as individuals, but I don't see any problem with commenting on the fact that it's pretty out of touch with what reality is like for the vast majority of humans on the planet in any country.
posted by Michele in California at 5:27 PM on November 17, 2014 [12 favorites]

The most important thing I took away from this article was that this celebrity child is named Jaden and is 16 years old and I want to know if he could be part of what started the insanely popular a-en name craze.
posted by gerstle at 5:32 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes.
posted by Sara C. at 5:39 PM on November 17, 2014

I think its ok to simultaneously cut them some slack for being teenagers (and saying loopy, apparently Scientology influenced stuff - I mean, replace some of the more "mystic" parts of this with "praise Jesus" and "if it's God's will" and this could be an interview with bible belt teens) and also laugh about some of the things that they said that T Magazine thought were so important that they published them. Its not Willow and Jayden's fault that they're teenagers. But the people at T Magazine are allegedly adults and chose to share this (and, based on the concluding "This interview has been edited and condensed" line, which parts of it to share).

Loopy word salad is potentially funny no matter who tosses it.
posted by Joey Michaels at 5:42 PM on November 17, 2014 [3 favorites]

IndigoJones: "Especially teenagers raised in their peculiar cocoon"

Wasn't this how the Buddha became enlightened?

You are not wrong. I am laughing hysterically here at the comparison.
posted by zeek321 at 5:46 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

I just realized they named the boy after mom and the girl after dad.
posted by Joey Buttafoucault at 5:47 PM on November 17, 2014 [32 favorites]

Half of me feels bad for them and the other half wants to start a tongue in cheek cult based on their speakings, but that's the eternal Ja-Low dynamic isn't it one day you're Ja the next u r Low... life is a weird experiment we are doing to our own bodies.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:18 PM on November 17, 2014

If life experiments on our bodies, what can we truly call "our own"?
posted by clavdivs at 6:31 PM on November 17, 2014

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Key & Peele's hilarious Jaden Smith sketch.
posted by jonp72 at 6:41 PM on November 17, 2014 [6 favorites]

I would like to see them interviewed by Harry Caray next.
posted by mannequito at 7:29 PM on November 17, 2014

gwint: "Actually, it's kind of bullshit to snark on a couple of teenagers. An interview with them is also not the Best of the Web."

"Best of the Web" was deprecated more than eight years ago now.
posted by Chrysostom at 8:16 PM on November 17, 2014 [2 favorites]

Wasn't this how the Buddha became enlightened? Surrounded in a life of ease and comfort, until he encountered the real world

I don't claim to be an expert, but as I understand it his (allegorical, historians don't believe actually happened) experience with suddenly discovering age, illness, and death wasn't when he became enlightened. That just set him on the road, after which he spent a fair time exploring the ascetic practices and then wound up sitting under the bodhi tree confronting Mara and all.
posted by Lexica at 8:25 PM on November 17, 2014

Aw, teenagers. They're going to look back on this in 20 years and say "What the hell were we smoking?"

This was trippy and amusing to me.
posted by MissySedai at 10:16 PM on November 17, 2014 [1 favorite]

The internet gets REALLY worked up over these two. I don't get it.

Just wait until they team up with Amanda Palmer. Metafilter will explode. EXPLODE!
posted by happyroach at 12:24 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

The internet gets REALLY worked up over these two. I don't get it.

It's because Will Smith read a little about Scientology out of curiosity and everyone thinks that now they have Hubbard Cooties. People have similarly freaked out over Beck and Neil Gaiman, among others, for the same reason.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:38 AM on November 18, 2014

If the NYT was smart, they'd find a pair of siblings from the entirely opposite socioeconomic spectrum and interview them.
posted by Renoroc at 4:48 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

This interview is a lot less goofy if you actually read it through instead of just cherry picking. Underneath the scieno talk and adjusting for teenager, they actually seem more interesting than they probably are.
posted by padraigin at 5:32 AM on November 18, 2014

Imagine how much of an insufferable idiot you were as a teen. Now add in infinite money, your father being one of the world's biggest movie stars, getting to star in films with him without the humbling and grueling audition process, and being indocrinated by a fake religion that believes learning begins and ends at looking up words in the dictionary. I honestly pity them.
posted by Awful Peice of Crap at 6:11 AM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

Put me in the "y'all were once teenagers camp". Also, any extended interview with Prince would sound a lot like this (with Jesus prattle in place of the Scientology prattle).

OMG a teenager saying school is stupid?!?!? Well I never...
posted by dry white toast at 6:35 AM on November 18, 2014

That’s what I do with novels. There’re no novels that I like to read so I write my own novels, and then I read them again, and it’s the best thing.

On the one hand, yes, teenagers gonna teen.

On the other hand, I feel truly uncomfortable with both of them apparently believing that the entire history of human history, art, and literature has nothing to offer them, and that the material they are creating will transcend it all. This takes "celebrity echo chamber" culture to a whole new level. Willow Smith does not believe ANY NOVELS are worth reading, so she writes her own, and RE-READING HER OWN NOVELS is the best thing.

yikes.
posted by a fiendish thingy at 8:11 AM on November 18, 2014 [6 favorites]

I feel truly uncomfortable with both of them apparently believing that the entire history of human history, art, and literature has nothing to offer them, and that the material they are creating will transcend it all. This takes "celebrity echo chamber" culture to a whole new level. Willow Smith does not believe ANY NOVELS are worth reading, so she writes her own, and RE-READING HER OWN NOVELS is the best thing.

I dunno, that still sounds straight out of a Teen Ego playbook - "Ugh, why we gotta read all this boring stuff by old dead white guys?" If teens could readily see the value of literature just by reading it, there wouldn't be such a thing as Cliff Notes.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:27 AM on November 18, 2014 [2 favorites]

Exactly. I'm literally old enough to be Willow's mother, but I remember age 14 or so was a tough year for reading for me. I felt too old for children's books (and felt like I'd read most of them anyway), I hated teen romances (which seemed like all there was on the shelves back then), but I was too young to connect to adult ones. I wandered between the YA and adult sections like a ghost until I was able to catch up.

I think this whole thing is going to be a time capsule for these kids in 20 years or so. I just found a few pages of a novel I'd tried to write at that age, and it makes me cringe but it's also this weird and awkward and wonderful thing.
posted by mochapickle at 8:53 AM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

That’s what I do with novels. There’re no novels that I like to read so I write my own novels, and then I read them again, and it’s the best thing.

This is almost certainly teenage foolery (and that's a polite "almost") but at the same time I enjoy it. You say your penis is the longest ever? Lemme go grab a yardstick. And if they're correct? I'd laugh and laugh (and enjoy their novels, I assume).
posted by mr. digits at 9:10 AM on November 18, 2014

Well, I don't know if the Smith siblings claim that there stuff is the best or if it's simply what they like best, but it's easy to assume the worst...
posted by mr. digits at 9:20 AM on November 18, 2014

I guess the comment about "wow, isn't it nifty to have a body and BREATHE..." sticks in my craw because that's only true if you are rich in America. If you are poor, you are at greatly increased risk of having asthma and even of dying of an asthma attack. Not to mention poor people getting lower limbs lopped off at high rates due to inadequately managed diabetes.

http://www.asthma.partners.org/NewFiles/BoFAChapter15.html

http://archive.onearth.org/article/asthma-rates-poor-neighborhoods-pollen

http://www.metafilter.com/141734/where-the-poor-people-are-is-where-the-amputations-are

So, yeah, having a body (that doesn't torture you every minute) and, wow, breathing, how nifty really sounds strongly to me personally (as an environmental studies major who knows about how all the NIMBY stuff winds up in poor neighborhoods) like this person just has zero idea that having a body and breathing is only nifty keeno if you were born to millionaires and get to live in expensive neighborhoods with clean air and see a doctor any damn time you feel like it and eat any damn thing you want without really worrying how much it costs (good food being a major foundation of good health) and so on and so forth. And, without bothering to google it, I doubt these two philosophical teens, who are having so much fun freestyling their next song, are putting any kind of significant time, money or effort into trying to get environmental justice for poor people so they can also have some hope of thinking that having a body and breathing is nifty and not fucking torture.

Anyway, I'm done. But I did want to say that. Because, yeah, I really think that one sentence sums up just how extremely privileged and totally oblivious to it they both are. And if they weren't 14 and 16, I would think it was downright offensive. But they are just kids, so, yeah, kids tend to be clueless, regardless of how wealthy their folks are.
posted by Michele in California at 12:07 PM on November 18, 2014 [1 favorite]

Quiz: Who Said It, Will Smith’s Kids or L. Ron Hubbard?
posted by Doktor Zed at 2:45 PM on November 18, 2014 [3 favorites]

I couldn't help myself.
posted by togdon at 11:11 AM on November 20, 2014 [1 favorite]