Herculodge

Do You Suffer from iPod Playlist Anxieties?

Hipsters and their wannabe counterparts have started a new trend to stir the anxieties of the insecure, needy, and paranoid--iPod playlist parties. A giant salad bowl is passed around as participants put in their iPods. The host or hostess then mixes up the iPods and guests randomly pick an iPod and listen to the others' playlists. If the listener is impressed, the playlist-creator is rewarded with being deemed cool and is considered hot dating material.

This matter of being judged and having one's identity defined on how cool or not one's playlist may or not be has spawned a new industry--playlist consultants who help wannabe hipsters stay up to date on music trends and insure that their clients always appear to be "in-the-know." These iPod posers don't listen to music they truly like; rather, they create playlists that might impress others at these giant salad bowl extravaganzas.

I heard one report of a man who was ridiculed and mocked at work because it was discovered he had the Eagles Greatest Hits on his iPod, a selection that rendered him hopelessly square. Now he can't walk past the water cooler without hearing someone sing, "The New Kid in Town." He tried to make amends by erasing the Eagles from his iPod and only featuring music that he has deemed would increase his social standing but to no avail. His co-workers still call him the "Desperado."

Beware of the Juice Man

One of my students, an employee at a Trader Joe's in Hollywood, California, told me a bearded, bespectacled middle-aged man, whose stale armpits and anti-social demeanor gives him an unsavory Unabomber vibe, tenaciously sneaks into the store’s cold box to gather several quart-sized papaya, tangerine, and mango juices, all of which this juice monger argues have “fresher” dates on them than the juices that are accessible to the customers. The store management has assured the disgruntled gentleman repeatedly that they only put fresh juice on the shelves, but the Unajuicer believes they are trying to “sell off old juice” and he will only buy the “hidden” juices stored in the back cold box.

Several times a week, an employee will enter the cold box and find the Juice Fiend tearing apart boxes and spewing paranoid diatribes about the conspiracy to deny him fresh juice as he searches for the choicest expiration dates. He is escorted out of the store and threatened with arrest if he continues to trespass into the cold box, but these threats go unheeded as the Man in Quest of the World’s Freshest Juice will not be deterred.