And God said, “Let there be light,” and it was lit AF.
August 9, 2017 9:59 AM   Subscribe

And God Created Millennial Earth 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. #CreationGoals #EarthIsBae 2. Now the earth was formless and basic, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was lowkey hovering over the waters.
posted by straight (45 comments total) 16 users marked this as a favorite
 
Millenials are killing the Bible?
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 10:09 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


The Bible: Millenials are #KillingIt
posted by straight at 10:14 AM on August 9, 2017 [15 favorites]


This has been your periodic reminder that making fun of how young people talk is a guarantee that you're now one of the olds.
posted by mhoye at 10:21 AM on August 9, 2017 [41 favorites]


This was funnier sixty years ago when it was about beatniks.

Like, in the beginning, the Big Cat Upstairs created the heavens and the earth, man.
posted by Faint of Butt at 10:28 AM on August 9, 2017 [11 favorites]


Is it still appropriative if God does it?
posted by elsietheeel at 10:29 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Alright. After reading this, I'm finally ready to accept it.

Hi, I'm Sibboleth and I'm a millennial.
posted by sibboleth at 10:30 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


This could not possibly be less funny and more feeble.
posted by edheil at 10:32 AM on August 9, 2017 [12 favorites]


I dunno, I liked it.
posted by agregoli at 10:38 AM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


edheil, your AARP card is in the mail
posted by AFABulous at 10:39 AM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


And, because God has no chill, he also made the stars.

I freely admit that "making the stars because you cannot calm down enough to let the moon and the sun light the sky themselves" sort of resonates with me, because I would totally do that. I have a lot of lamps, actually.
posted by Frowner at 10:49 AM on August 9, 2017 [15 favorites]


How soon til we can get a new generational nomenclature? "Millennials" are so-named because they "came of age around the Millennium." Depending on definition, I'm either very late Gen-X or very early Millennial, but I was in college in 2000. Millennials were the last generation to remember a life before the Internet, right?

But a lot of these "Millennials think/act/say" articles and references are talking about people who may be in college now. The entering college freshmen were born in 1999 or 2000. They were 5 when YouTube was founded. They're too young to really remember a life without cell phones.

The generation that's completely fucked over and unable to buy houses because we deigned to eat avocado with our toast, we're not the same as the kids on Instagram and Snapchat saying "it's lit fam," right? Time Magazine, et al, please come up with a new generational name so I can tell these kids to get off the tiny lawn I only just bought at the age of 35.
posted by explosion at 10:50 AM on August 9, 2017 [21 favorites]


I freely admit that "making the stars because you cannot calm down enough to let the moon and the sun light the sky themselves" sort of resonates with me

"A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.

It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical encore" - G.K. Chesterton
posted by straight at 10:56 AM on August 9, 2017 [29 favorites]


He gave everyone the same amount of time in a day as Beyoncé (another deity)

As a nonreligious person, this resonates with me.
posted by Emmy Rae at 10:57 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


As a Millennial that was raised Christian, I didn't actually understand this.
posted by ragtag at 11:02 AM on August 9, 2017


How soon til we can get a new generational nomenclature? "Millennials" are so-named because they "came of age around the Millennium." Depending on definition, I'm either very late Gen-X or very early Millennial, but I was in college in 2000.

Generation Z

And as the father of two children in this age range, I can attest this is alot what my dinner table sounds like.
posted by Keith Talent at 11:08 AM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


I am a Gen-X-er and I found this post to be gnarly, dude.
posted by JohnFromGR at 11:40 AM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


On the one hand, I feel like this flavor of McSweeney's humor is long past its shelf life.

On the other hand, I still crack up at George Booth and, for fuck's sake, James Thurber cartoons, so I can't really point fingers.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 11:43 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Lol. Everyone's always rewriting the Bible. I faintly recall The Boomer Bible, published in 1989 or 90. Hi-larious.
posted by chavenet at 11:58 AM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Mallory Ortberg has made great contributions to this genre.
posted by Emmy Rae at 12:02 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Crap. AF is Millennial slang?

I am either really hip, really creepy oldster, or a person who likes saving keystrokes.

Which is it?

WHICH IS IT?

HELP ME, METAFILTER, YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE!
posted by Samizdata at 12:14 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I have an AARP card (early X'er) and I liked this piece.
posted by matildaben at 12:48 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I'm not sure I'd really call it Millennial slang so much as I'd call it AAVE slang more broadly, Samizdata.

Tobasco de Gama's note about receipts in this thread sync up with a broader discussion about white folks appropriating Black slang without realizing its provenance.

Seeing it all laid out at once in TFA is pretty astonishing, actually.

Edit: but you can feel free to be both: a hip oldster, efficient in your profanity!
posted by IcarusFloats at 12:49 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


If you're going to do it, do it right, and the whole bible, as in the LOLcat Bible.

(Actually not so different from the beatnik bible referenced by FaintofButt, in that it starts out about the big cat upstairs... though technically it's Ceiling Cat...)
posted by Schmucko at 12:53 PM on August 9, 2017 [3 favorites]


Right place to bring up that a lot of Millenial slang is AAVE slang picked up and repeated by other denizens of the internet?

#notjudgingjustsayin
posted by subdee at 12:53 PM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


Right place to bring up that a lot of Millenial slang is AAVE slang picked up and repeated by other denizens of the internet?

Receipts! j/k
posted by adamgreenfield at 12:56 PM on August 9, 2017


I agree that this is not Millennial-speak, this is teenager-speak. The Millennials I know use this self-consciously, if not ironically. I feel like I'm saying HOW DO YOU DO, FELLOW KIDS if I use "lit" or "AF." (For reference, I'm late Gen X.)

(I still don't really understand what low/highkey mean.)
posted by AFABulous at 1:22 PM on August 9, 2017


Receipts! j/k

Hahaha! Cultural appropriation is hilarious! j/k
posted by elsietheeel at 1:41 PM on August 9, 2017


How soon til we can get a new generational nomenclature?
Homeland Generation, said the Obama White House.
posted by doctornemo at 1:48 PM on August 9, 2017


AARP AF
posted by mhoye at 1:49 PM on August 9, 2017 [5 favorites]


Millenials are killing the Bible?
I'm AARP AF and this would increase my respect for Millennials 500%. After all, "my childhood" was killed long before yours (did you SEE what HB did to Yogi Bear in the 1980s?!?).
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:00 PM on August 9, 2017


I don't like being called a milennial, because seriously 18-35 is a giant ass range of years, and once you're over 30 you can't even relate to a 27 y/o. I clutch at generation Y like it's my cross to bear.

this article was hilarious af. I'm at that age where I feel old for thinking this is funny and I get all the terms but I'm good with that.
posted by numaner at 2:31 PM on August 9, 2017


I was previously aware of the LOLCat Bible, but it still amazes me. I had to read the Bible as a kid. That shit is long. A part of me dies after a sentence of lolcat. But someone did Deuteronomy. Astounding.
posted by booooooze at 3:46 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


"i wuz hungry an u openz canz and not drai fuds, i wuz thirsty an u gaev me some bowlz, i wuz strangr an yu were liek, "o hai," i had dirty furz an yu gaev me licks, i wuz sick an u rap pillz in ham, i scratch bathrum door an yu openz."
posted by straight at 4:55 PM on August 9, 2017


At risk of explaining the joke -- because I promise, that's not what I'm trying to do -- I see that there's a sense in this thread that this is just the same old "young people talk funny nowadays" theme. The kind we've seen when The Tonight Show read "She Loves You" as a poem. Let me see if I can explain why I interpreted it differently, and why I liked this piece a lot.

The author takes the tics of 2017 internet slang (ok, of AAVE) that imply so much gravitas (examples: RT if you think, #CreationGoals, like it was NBD., v v , beastmode, pretty savage thing to say, thirsty AF) and applies them to the most serious, meaningful, topic in history. The biblical language recalling supreme importance is mixed with phrases that play at importance, that try to imbue what they describe with relevance.

The comparison shows us (ok, shows me) how comparitavely silly the modern slang can be. It takes our small moments (#goals) and pretends that they are big, which cheapens the impact of authentic big moments -- which, contrary to our current cultural belief, do exist.

TBH, the "God, a natural UX Designer, " line actually made me think the most. We put so much stock in artificial human design that we overlook how well adapted we are to the universe as a whole. I think there's a connection between this and my previous point but I can't quite put my finger on it.

Of course, this isn't meant as an attack on modern speech patterns but as an examination of what resonates about the OP.
posted by So You're Saying These Are Pants? at 5:38 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


Once you're over 30 you can't even relate to a 27 y/o.

Today I learned that my home life is literally impossible.

I feel... accomplished.
posted by rokusan at 7:03 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


I am mid-boomer in age. I loved this. But I admit, with tredipation, I've been wondering lately what "bae" means.
posted by lhauser at 7:08 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


How soon til we can get a new generational nomenclature?

Start pitching generation panic articles and you can be the one to name the college students of today and their younger siblings. Insta-Generation, Twitler Youth, Snowflakes, all you need is some research (legit or not), and an article that uses phrases like "The number of college students who _____ is on the rise. If these trends continue _________."
posted by betweenthebars at 7:23 PM on August 9, 2017


Right place to bring up that a lot of Millenial slang is AAVE slang

That's a totally def jive you're talking, brother. Fo Shizzle.
posted by Pogo_Fuzzybutt at 7:25 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


This was funnier sixty years ago when it was about beatniks.

Oh you mean The Nazz?
posted by Miko at 8:09 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon.
- G.K. Chesterton
Chesterton's "Teletubby" theology was briefly influential, but soon fell from favour when TinkyWinky and La La's divorce proceedings revealed them to be entirely too human.
posted by Sparx at 9:04 PM on August 9, 2017 [4 favorites]


"the Spirit of God was lowkey hovering over the waters."

that made me LOL, and is not actually a terrible translation.

(Kinda went downhill for me from there, though, because it didn't follow the necessary translation norms of repeating key phrases with the same translation, but probably that's the sort of thing that only I worry about in my Millennial Bible humor pieces?)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 9:59 PM on August 9, 2017 [2 favorites]


"(Kinda went downhill for me from there, though, because it didn't follow the necessary translation norms of repeating key phrases with the same translation, but probably that's the sort of thing that only I worry about in my Millennial Bible humor pieces?)"

Like what I'm saying is, the concordance would be very unwieldy and you'd end up spending most of your time working in the original Hebrew because the translation is too loose.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:01 PM on August 9, 2017 [1 favorite]


Holy shit this is bad. One of the cringeworthiest attempts to "how are you fellow kids" I've seen in a LONG ass time.
posted by Soi-hah at 5:10 AM on August 10, 2017


It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon.
- G.K. Chesterton

Chesterton's "Teletubby" theology...


No, that's not right. God doesn't tell the sun what to do in Teletubby theology, because clearly the Sun Baby is God. (And the voice trumpets are His prophets.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:58 AM on August 10, 2017


No, that's not right. God doesn't tell the sun what to do in Teletubby theology, because clearly the Sun Baby is God. (And the voice trumpets are His prophets.)

Au contraire, aptly-named DevilsAdvocate. The Teletubbies reveal their divinity by their cries of "Again, Again, Again," symbolizing their close relationship with the eternal. The trumpets, with their shrill demands for change and division ("Time for tubby custard" etc) are the demonic translators of the Satan figure (the so-called sun-baby) who burns in eternal punishment and whose actual voice is meaningless chaos.
posted by Sparx at 2:46 PM on August 10, 2017 [2 favorites]


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