Today’s kids don’t realize how easy they have it: They’ll never have to develop skills like writing in cursive or using a library. Worse, hundreds of emotions are becoming obsolete so they’ll never have the challenge of feeling them. Here are 21 emotions the kids of today will never experience.
1. Joy
Kids today may think they experience joy, but what they’re feeling is a dirty, cheap imitation of the real thing. Joy was waiting on a Polaroid to develop, and now Kodak has filed for bankruptcy, taking joy along with it when it did.
2. Sadness
Oh what’s that little girl? Your parents are divorcing? Don’t make me yawn. Try a slow AOL dial-up connection for one day, or a Capri Sun with a non-functioning straw hole, and then talk to me about being sad.
3. Purpose
Purpose is getting up early to watch the Rugrats marathon on Saturday and then sticking around for the Hey Arnold! marathon, too. Sorry, kids of today, but you’ll never feel that kind of drive.
4. Cold
You haven’t experienced cold unless you’ve experienced the Blizzard of ‘96. For kids who were born after 1996, there’s no way they experienced the Blizzard of ’96. Am I being clear? Should I slow down while you turn away from your smart phone?
5. Hope
What do these gentrifiers of life know about hopefulness? Short answer. absolutely nothing. They’ll never know the hope of installing a CD-ROM, or finding Carmen Sandiego, and therefore any hopes they think they might have are null.
6. Patience
My daughter told me the other day that she has an app on her phone where she can pretend to type on a typewriter. So, I made her use a typewriter for an entire month. While I personally have had a computer my entire life, I wanted to show her that some people didn’t. Her grades dropped and she didn’t get into college, but she is probably the only child she knows who has a true understanding of the past.
7. Stress
Awwwww, what is wittle baby cwying for? Did Mommy take away her iPad? You disgust me, baby. Kids have nothing to be stressed about today. They’ll never have to know what it was like to be alive during the Cold War. We might still be in lots of wars, but it’s just different.
8. Hunger
If you’re not hungry for dinosaur-shaped Kraft, I don’t know what you could possibly be hungry for. Kale? Quinoa? Not real hunger.
9. Embarrassment
Sure, kids today are cyber-bullied within an inch of their lives, but true embarrassment comes from saying that Chris Kirkpatrick is your favorite member of N*SYNC. Sorry kids, even though the most intimate details of your life are put online from the time you are born, you will never truly know humiliation if you weren’t a 90s kid.
10. Frustration
Kids today will never know the frustration of not being able to reach their Mom because they don’t have a quarter for a pay phone. And now, thanks to Bitcoin, they’ll also never know what quarters are, or even hold one!
11. Courage
Oh what’s that, some kid wants to join the army after she gets done with high school? How brave….NOT. Courage is as dead as the cassette tape. Even if she does join the army, she can Skype and Facetime with her family the entire time. Sorry, but, what’s courageous about that? I work in an office.
12. Disappointment
You know what was disappointing? Not catching the new episode of Sister Sister. You know what’s not disappointing? Everything else.
13. Love
It’s true: Kids today will sadly never feel love. The womb of love can only be found in AOL Instant Messenger and talking for 20 minutes every other week on the phone after dinner but before bedtime. Now kids text each other, and what’s romantic about that?
14. Lust
90s kids were horny, and dammit, we deserved to be. We had Uncle Jesse to moon over. Who do kids have now? Shirtless men on Tumblr? The cast of Twilight? Spare me.
15. Insecurity
Kids today don’t have to be insecure about having the right Tamagotchi. ‘Nuff said.
16. Curiosity
Children today have the internet to answer any question they could possibly have instantly, and will never wonder for even one second how old an actor is. I was so curious about actors I had to buy magazines. Let me know when you’re that curious, kids of today.
17. Regret
The invention and quick popularity of DVDs brought a violent and abrupt death to regret. Kids today have never had to rewind a video in their lives. They have zero problems.
18. Pride
What do these children have to be proud of? Selfies? A thousand retweets? Despicable. I was raised with the notion that pride comes from one thing and one thing only: vacation cornrows.
19. Satisfaction
Kids today know nothing of pretending to like nu-metal bands like Limp Bizkit and then just as quickly pretending you never did, without anyone calling you out. What satisfaction could possibly compare to that today?
20. Envy
Kids born today have everything they could possibly want and therefore no reason to be jealous. My friends had Gameboys for weeks before I got one, and now every kid you see has their own phone. Ridiculous.
And that covers all of the basic emotions that adults who AREN’T kids feel. So sad! Try to take pity on these kids, and if you are one yourself, pick up a ‘zine once in a while so you can at least read about the emotions you’re missing.
