The Emoticon Generation (3 page)

Thus the Ping! network caused the Ping! exchange to skyrocket.

Only a few weeks later, a new cowboy was on the scene, trying to outdo the old pro, Fox. The cowboy, actually called ‘The Cowboy’, found a way to hide users’ IP’s (that’s ‘address of the sender’ in internet-speak) when sending a Ping! Suddenly, Pings! could be sent anonymously without leaving a trace. The ‘scene’ changed. A good looking 17-year-old guy sitting in the mall with a few of his friends was suddenly assaulted by dozens of anonymous differently-colored Pings! coming from any of the teens walking around. Girls were subject to even more endless and anonymous Ping!ing. The border between harassing and admiring vanished.

At this point of the ever-fluctuating internet, Fox released his second ‘word’. This one is called ‘Roger’.

A Roger is an icon as big as a letter, that is comprised of a filled-in circle. Its meaning is ‘I acknowledge receipt’ of a Ping! or of anything else. If someone sends you a Ping! you can acknowledge that you got it, thus giving the sender attention, but less so. If you’re not in the mood to give full attention, like if you want to finish the ‘conversation’, but you still want to give attention, you send a Roger.

Fox knew very well that in a word keen and starved for attention, even acknowledgements had to be acknowledged. And so he released the half-circle icon (acknowledging a Roger), the quarter-circle icon (acknowledging the half Roger), the eighth-circle icon (acknowledging the quarter Roger) and the sixteenth-circle (acknowledging the eighth Roger). And that was it. Because anything more would be ridiculous, right?

Remember my daughter’s iPhone being filled with moons, half-moons, quarter-moons, eighth moons and even smaller moons? Now we know what they are. But now we also know what she
did
in the last hour before sleep. Let’s say she sent the boy a Ping! and he was already tired and it was time to go. He sent her a Roger. She sent him a half Roger. He sent a quarter Roger. She sent a quarter Roger back, refusing to go lower. He was touched by her sentiment and wouldn’t go lower first, so he sent her a quarter Roger back. It’s a Generation E version of “You hang up!” “No,
you
hang up!” conversation that can last for hours. They bounced up and down on the Roger scale, getting at times down to eighth Rogers, and even sixteenth Rogers, only to climb back up the acknowledgement ladder.

But are we witnessing simply a Generation E variation of behavior we already recognize? Is there nothing new under the sun? Fox says things have changed.

“Emoticons are not words,” he tells me again. “They are half-words. They are words about things so small that they
shouldn’t
be said using full words. Take a smiley. Even adults your age have used them. But how would you say it when talking to me? You wouldn’t. Either your tone or your body language would convey it or you would let it go unsaid.

“Now suppose you
wanted
to say it. Saying it in words gives it a weight in our attention it doesn’t deserve. It changes the meaning of the sentence. Emoticons are half words because they only need to be half said. Saying them fully would magnify them and give them different meanings. Writing them as words also distorts what they mean. Emoticons are a way to display things that you feel and think but words are entirely unfit to convey, because they’re too big and weighty. When inventing the Ping! and the Roger, I was looking for the smallest half-words that could exist.”

Fox’s voice slowly builds up to a crescendo, as he closes his speech with his bottom line, “The question isn’t ‘isn’t the emoticon trend destroying America’, the question is: ‘How did we survive this long without emoticons?’”

But
is
the youth surviving? Even accepting Fox’s premise, that two words are all you need if you have food on your table, Generation E’s
have
food on the table. But in a few years they’ll have to start working, showing skills, knowledge, or the food on the table will disappear. Will they join the workforce or leech off their parents forever?

In the Feb. 2nd, 2010 installment of
The Colbert Report
, Stephen Colbert spotlighted a few sites we adults would find strange: ijustmadelove.com, a social network in which people report where and when and in what position they had just had sex; and blippy.com, a social network in which every little thing you buy is automatically posted online. Surprisingly behind his audience’s fads, Colbert missed the Ping! and the Roger. Looking at these horrifying websites through Fox’s eyes, we understand them for what they are: teenagers seeking attention. They post something just to get a response and attention. They then follow the reactions to their posts and the speed with which these reactions come.

The Ping! and the Roger are making these kinds of websites obsolete, because they are giving the teens their attention drug without the hassle of actually doing anything to earn that attention.

Fox’s baring of Generation E’s true desires is threatening to stay and stay permanently, unlike the spotlighted websites, simply because the Ping! and the Roger are everything a teenager craves. All a teenager wants is attention. And here all a teenager gets is attention, more and more and more. And all the teenager has to do is give someone else attention, also. It’s human nature that if you don’t need anything more than what you have, you don’t do anything more than what you’re doing. The vicious cycle ends here, and it might stay there for decades.

How bad are things getting? Dr. Rose Albert, is a psychologist working almost exclusively with teens, and has seen with her own eyes how bad things are getting.

“Some of these teenagers’ need for attention is so bad I actually had to send some for rehab and some for hospitalization,” she says.

Seriously? It’s just instant messaging.

“You haven’t seen what I’ve seen.” We’re seated down at her home, after spending a day in her office. There is no television in this house. “I have seen a girl start screaming because it’s been fifty seconds since she sent a Ping! and no one has acknowledged her yet. Screaming! She felt so alone in the world, like everyone abandoned her.”

Dr. Albert deals, by definition, with the extreme cases. But in conversations I’ve had with teens, she’s not far off. Mary (not her real name), a sixteen-year-old student that seems well-adjusted in all respects told me, “The worst time in the world is the time between the Ping! and the Roj!” she tells me. ‘Roj’ is short for ‘Roger’. “Those seconds pass so slowly.”

Mary’s friend, Sally (also not her real name), agrees, “It gets so bad you start measuring how much people love you by how long it takes them to Roj back. Anything over five seconds and you know they don’t love you enough.”

Mary nods, “One second, they’re crazy about you.”

Sally agrees, “Right.”

What if you have to go the bathroom? I ask.

“You take it with you,” they say together.

Dr. Albert explains the phenomenon: “It’s not healthy to get everything that you want. The more attention you get, the more you need it. The less you get, the more you know how to deal with not getting it. A balance needs to be struck.”

Halfway through our conversation, her daughter came in. She is a beautiful, well-adjusted fifteen-year-old who is allowed to use her iPhone for only an hour a day, can only use her computer to do her homework, and is not allowed to watch TV. This is how her mother decided to strike that balance. Too much? Too little? Could you do that to
your
kids? Or are you just spoiling them rotten, keeping them boundariless, spinning around the endless-cycle drain?

Our kids, according to Dr. Albert, are spoiled. Thanks to Fox, they get exactly what they want and need all the time, which only makes them want it more. The sole desire of our kids is to Ping! or be Ping!ed. Is a society in which that is all they get and that is all they do that distant in our future? Is America’s youth moving to a place that doesn’t need words, that doesn’t need knowledge, that only needs – and gets – attention.

It seems so. And I’m not at all sure that the next decade is something I want to witness. And yet, all the time, I do my best to remain a journalist, to see the other’s point of view, and to remember that I’m the doddering grown-up who doesn’t understand the youth, and that all the grown-ups that have come before me in all generations past, have also claimed that the new generation is destroying the fabric of society. It’s what grown-ups and it’s what teenagers do. We’ve survived so far. In fact, we’ve done pretty well. Maybe it isn’t so bad. Maybe I’m overreacting. Maybe I just don’t understand. Maybe it’s good for us.

~

So I talked to my daughter.

I told her I knew that she Pings! and that I wanted to exchange Pings! with her as well. I explained to her that I’ve done quite a lot of research over the last few months and that I probably know more about it than she does. So if she ever wants to hear what I’ve learned, she’s welcome to it. I also told her (How could I not? I was going to write about it!) about the breach in her privacy all those months past, and that I was sorry, and that I wouldn’t do it again.

To all of that, she gave me exactly one word, a word which is also not found in the English dictionary: “Pfah!” And with that, she screamed at me in frustration (no words, just frustration), walked off, and closed herself in her room.

In the ‘pfah’ afterwake, I had an epiphany, an apple-just-fell-on-my-head moment, if you will.

Anthony was wrong. Big words enable big ideas. Small words enable only small ideas.

To conceive of something big and complex, you need to lean on complex issues and complex concepts. First you have to come up with complex ideas, and give them words. Then you refer back to them, using these words, to create more complex concepts, building on your earlier ones. Repeat this process many times, and you will be able to fly people to the moon, to heal cancer, to rid the world of hunger, to create wealth for everybody.

Big words, big ideas. Small words, small ideas.

This isn’t an adult thing. I’m not just being a doof of a grown-up. This is a major issue and Generation E is on the wrong side of it, threatening to fall off the face of the earth.

Okay. Now that we know I’m not the problem: Get off my lawn!

Hatchling

Glynis Hatch never knew her father.

There was something about him. Something big. Maybe something scary.

Her mother would never talk about him. Ron who babysat her and seemed to know her mother from forever ago would never talk about him. One day when Glynis simply insisted on getting an answer, he said, “Ask your mother.” But Glynis knew asking her mother was useless.

“At least tell me his name!” she demanded.

“Ask your mother.”

“Height! The color of his hair! Was he a handsome man? What did he do? What’s the color of his eyes? Is he
alive
?!”

“Such curiosity. Just like your mother.”

And the tone implied that being like her mother was a good thing. No one ever said anything about her being like her father. For good
or
bad.

When she was five, Glynis developed theories about how her father was really a spy in the service of his country, how he was pulling the wool over the bad guys’ eyes, and how one day he’ll return and explain that it had to be done and that he loves her and that now he would stay. When she was seven she began to imagine that he had died in a horrible accident a few days before she was born and that her mother had loved him so much that she couldn’t bear to speak of him and that nothing would ever fill the void created by him.

But throughout the years the one explanation that seemed most plausible was the one she didn’t want to face. That maybe her father beat her mother, that maybe he had hurt her, or that maybe he had left her one day with no explanation.

Still, what he had done to her mother was one thing, and a long time has passed since. Who knew what he was like now? Maybe he’s changed. Maybe he hasn’t. Maybe he doesn’t know Glynis exists. Maybe he does. Maybe. The point was: She just wanted to see who he was, to see what he’s like. Even from afar. Even for a second. That can’t be too much to ask, can it?

But for her mother it
was
too much.

Two months before her thirteenth birthday, Glynis realized her mother would never tell her. So she decided to get
one
detail about him, from which she would find out everything else by herself. But getting that one detail would not be easy.

The first thing she did was give her mother a month of silence on the subject. She didn’t bug her, she didn’t ask her, she didn’t even mention Him. And then, a month before her birthday, Olivia (that was her mother’s name) watched Glynis tuck herself into bed and sat beside her.

“Thirteen is a tremendously important birthday,” Olivia said, playing with Glynis’ golden hair. “I wonder what I could possibly give you for a birthday present.”

“I know what I want,” Glynis said.

Olivia smiled and caressed Glynis’ cheek. “What?”

“I want to know my father’s name.”

For a split second Olivia froze. Then she withdrew the hand that touched Glynis’ cheek. “I—” She began hesitantly, then became resolute. “Forget it.”

“Did you know
your
father before he died?”

“Yes, I did.” There was ice in her voice.

“Then you know why it’s so important. I’m not asking where he is. I’m not asking what he’s like or what he did. I just want his name. I just want to know his name.”

Olivia stood up. “Ask for something else. Anything else.”

“I don’t want anything else. I want his name!”

“Well, you won’t get it.” And Olivia stormed out of the room, slammed the door behind her, and left Glynis in darkness.

But Glynis didn’t let the subject drop. She pestered her mother every day. And, five days before the birthday, Olivia finally relented: “Okay. Okay.”

Glynis crouched in front of her mother, her eyes glittering in excitement. “Okay?”

“I’ll tell you his name,” Olivia said, then added in determination: “But not as a birthday gift.”

Glynis wanted to argue the point, but held her tongue. “His name is Jonathan. Jonathan Hatch.”

“You took his
name
?” Glynis whispered in awe, even as she silently repeated the name in her mind.

Her mother flashed an involuntarily smile, and said, “Yes, I have his name.” Then they’d been
married
! “He was very handsome when he was young, just a bit taller than me, and had the most beautiful blue eyes you ever saw.” She held her daughter’s chin and looked into her face. “You have his eyes.”

“
You
have blue eyes.”

“True. But you have
his
blue eyes. Now that’s all you’re ever going to hear about him. Is that understood?” Glynis understood. But she understood even more. When her mother talked about this Jonathan-Hatch-Jonathan-Hatch-Jonathan-Hatch, she talked about him with love in her voice. There was no hint of hate, resentment, or pain. It
didn’t
end badly, whatever it was. He
was
a nice, loving man!

“Oh,
thanks
, Mom,” she engulfed her mother in a massive hug and inhaled a whiff of that wonderful smell her mom always had. “Thank you! Thank you!”

“Now,” Olivia said, hugging her back, “I have to think of a good gift to get you for your birthday.”

Glynis tore herself away and looked up at the forty-three-year-old face. “You don’t have to. Really!”

Olivia ignored her. “I’ll think of something nice.”

That night, Glynis could hardly sleep. She tossed and turned, rolling the name in her head, trying to attach an image to it. A man called Jonathan Hatch
must
have black hair and not brown hair. Or he must have big brows. But what took up most of her time was trying to figure why her mother, on the one hand, always tensed up when the subject of Glynis’ father, Olivia’s husband,
Jonathan
, was broached, and how, on the other hand, she talked about him earlier that day with love and affection. It didn’t make sense.

There was something there. Something big. But no longer something scary.

At last, she had a clue; she could begin to investigate.

The next day when Glynis woke up, her mother, as usual, had already gone to work. Glynis fixed herself a sandwich, brought it with her, and sat in front of the computer in her room. Finally there was an advantage to her physical affliction. She had a rare and congenital calcium deficiency that made her bones brittle and easily broken – enough so that her mother never risked taking Glynis out of the house not even to school. Ron and the computer taught her everything. Over the years, the grownups had learned that she gets her lessons done even when left alone. Well, it was time to play hooky.

She accessed the Net, and as she did so, she involuntarily mimicked her mother’s smile. For some reason, Olivia was amused each and every time she saw Glynis surfing the Net. That, in turn, always seemed absurd to Glynis. For god’s sakes, it was 2019; who
didn’t
surf the Net?

Glynis began with a rudimentary search for the name Jonathan Hatch. She turned up three people – a twenty-year-old student in Oxford, a newborn whose pictures and name were put there by the proud parents, and a forty-year-old man in Los Angeles looking for a male companion. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

She had to widen the search. Maybe he wasn’t an American like his wife and daughter. Maybe he wasn’t even
in
the States. So she couldn’t search for his name in a certain city or a specific country. But if her father was not a natural citizen or did not die here – then he must have either arrived or left, and all visas and passports were documented, as well.

She accessed the government’s records. Birth certificates, death certificates, records of visas and passports were all on the Net.

There were five names in the entire United States. Jonathan was a common name; Hatch was not. Two were dead. Four were born after the year 2000, which would make them around her age. Way too young. The last one was born in 1944, which would make him, if he hadn’t died ten years ago, 75. Way too old.

Maybe she missed something. Maybe there were glitches in the system. Maybe the records were mistyped or something.

To prove to herself that her idea was supposed to work, she typed her own name. The search came up empty. Glynis stared at the screen for a second, and typed her name again. Empty. The government had no record of her birth, nor did it have a record of her coming into the country. Speaking of glitches...

This time she typed her mother’s name, Olivia Hatch. There! Born in Wisconsin in 1976. No death certificate. At the time of birth, she’d had a big brother, Thomas Hatch. (Really?! Glynis had an uncle and never knew it?!) Mother: Margaret Hatch. Father: Jonathan Hatch.

Glynis’ throat constricted, and for a second she couldn’t breathe.

The icon with Jonathan Hatch’s name was red – meaning she’d already accessed it. She accessed it again. This was the same way-too-old Jonathan Hatch, born 1944.

Glynis cupped her head in her hands and waited until she calmed down. God, that first instant, a scenario worse than anything she’d ever imagined had flashed through her mind.

But who said he was too old? He was sixty-two when Glynis was born. That’s not too old for a man.

No! Absolutely not! It could not possibly be true!

But the name... The coincidence...

The coincidence was just a coincidence. Just one
hell
of a coincidence.

But something in the back of her mind wouldn’t let go. Something her mother had said yesterday...

She’d said... She’d said... What was it?

She’d said: “He was very handsome when he was young.” It was an odd way to put things, wasn’t it? Certainly an odd way to phrase a compliment. What exactly did she mean? What does the
sentence
mean? He was handsome when he was young meant... meant... It meant that she knew him when he was
old
!

No, no, no, no, no! It meant she knew him when he was young and
saw
him get old!

But then where was he today? Where did she keep seeing him today, in his older state? Why did mom keep him away from his daughter?

There had to be another explanation. She’ll try something else. She’ll find the real Jonathan Hatch if it takes her— Just before she pressed the link that would bring her back to the search engine, something caught her eye, and her hand froze. Her grandfather’s birth and death certificates were still onscreen, and among the data it was clearly stated: ‘Eye-color: Blue’.

Glynis’ world spun. Although she had the same color eyes as her mother – the color belonged to Glynis’ father – to Olivia’s father. The color was actually Jonathan Hatch’s!

But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t. It just couldn’t.

Glynis searched all day and found nothing new. As soon as her mother came home, she disconnected from the Net. The rest of the evening, Glynis spent sulking on the sofa, watching her mother from the corner of her eye, searching for a hint of her having been raped or abused.

She saw nothing, but what did she expect? If it happened, it happened thirteen – no, almost fourteen – years ago. What sign could her mother give
now
? Of rape, nothing. Of abuse? Abused children become abused parents, don’t they? Her mother never beat her, not even once. So what did
that
mean? It meant nothing. It meant that tomorrow she’ll have to search for clues in a totally different direction. And this time, she’ll find something.

That night, Glynis had an even harder time falling asleep. And in the middle of the night, she woke with a start: Her mother had been
born
with the name ‘Hatch’! And if her husband had had the same last name, it was either one heck of a coincidence, or...

Glynis didn’t fall asleep again.

An hour passed. She couldn’t stay in bed anymore. She got up in her pajamas, tiptoed into her mother’s room, and watched the woman she had known all of her life, her back rising and falling slowly underneath the blankets. Glynis stared at that face, squished against the pillow, and searched for a hint of the truth, a hint of the trauma. There was none. It was the same face she had always seen.

By morning, Glynis had an obsession for her family. She had an uncle she’d never heard of. She had two deceased grandparents she’d never met. She had a father she’d never seen and who might actually be her grandfather. And her mother’s life, which, until yesterday, Glynis had taken for granted to be nothing but ordinary, was now shrouded in uncertainty. Uncertainty that seemed to hide behind it frightening possibilities. Everything she’d understood about her family had been obliterated. Nothing could be taken for granted.

What
did
she know of her mother? She was a theoretical psychologist, working at the McCourt Research Institute. She was married to her work. At times she’d pull eighteen-hour days. She worked weekends. She never dated. She had no friends except Ron and his wife, Elizabeth – and the both of them
worked
for her. Glynis never heard of her talk of anything that had to do with friends or family. But
was
she at work all day?
Did
she have nothing outside her life?

Glynis accessed the Net and began to collect information about her mother. Olivia had been working at the McCourt Research Institute since 2001. Her address was 120th Ave and 88th St. This was interesting, because they actually lived on Wilmot Mountain,
outside
the town. The computer records claimed that her mother had moved to 120th Ave. from another address five years ago. That old address, also in Wilmot, was not this place, either. And they’ve been living
here
at least since Glynis can remember. Almost immediately she discovered another doozy: her mother had been married to a man named Steve Caspi.
He
had worked at the McCourt Research Institute, as well, until twelve years ago.

Glynis put both hands on her cheeks nervously and took a few breaths before pressing the link.

Steve and her mother had been married for three years, between the years 2005 and 2007. Glynis had been born in 2006, exactly one year and eight months after her mother had married this Steve Caspi!

Glynis couldn’t take any more. She got up, went to the kitchen and made lunch.

Maybe
he
was her father. Maybe her mother had lied, as she had about so many things. Maybe Glynis
did
have Jonathan’s eyes, but Jonathan was not her father. Her real father was this Steve guy. Perhaps she should check all information about Steve, as well. Perhaps she should try and contact him, tell him that he has a daughter. But then... He knows he has a daughter. He got a divorce a year
after
she’d been born. Was Glynis the cause for the breakup? Why
had
he left?