Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Internet Strikes Back

by George Takei

  But back to the poster. It took Americans a bit longer to figure out the “Keep Calm” business, but once we did, we quickly adopted it as our own, as we do many things British. As one of the most food-obsessed nations, this one hit a sweet spot:

  This one made the rounds, for we are, after all, a Second Amendment-loving, gun-toting nation:

  And we do love our rock-and-roll:

  Worldwide, this also became a phenomenon. Special sub-groups of people, such as Harry Potter and Star Wars fans, adopted the slogan as well, but with their own unique twists:

  Of course, I am partial to the Trekkie version:

  Indeed, after I posted this one, my wall was flooded with every variant of this poster. This included some small business owners who thought they might ride the viral wave of popularity, using my page as a board. “Keep Calm and Order Flowers from Joanna’s Flowers!” posted one enthusiastic fan. I’m sure Joanna thought this was a great idea and had dozens of T-shirts made for her friends and family. Those shirts are slowly being donated to charities, and recycled into thrift stores where non-English speaking immigrants and hipsters in search of irony might pick up four of them for a buck.

  Speaking of hipsters, as with any popular meme, the backlash was not long in coming. Once every organization, small business and airport in the Western Hemisphere had a variant of one of these, it became popular to “hate on” the slogan. I call this phenomenon “hipsterization”—when those who fancy themselves on the cutting edge dismiss the very items they had touted as cool until they become adored by the suburban mommy crowd.

  Which reminds me of a joke:

  Okay, one more:

  Once the “hip” folks sounded the death knell, it was pretty much over. Indeed, the below meme summed up everyone’s overuse of the phrase nicely:

  But one final version of this slogan struck me, and deeply. A friend of a friend forwarded me a photo taken at the Minnesota State Fair, showing a smiling, beaming boy with Down Syndrome:

  Having myself been the victim of bullying, ignorance and discrimination as a Japanese-American, my heart went out to this boy. I wrote as a caption, “Being human means learning to see the common humanity in us all.”

  Little did I know how that picture would resonate. Within a day, it had received over 300,000 likes and 40,000 shares, and after a few more days, it climbed to over 560,000 likes and 63,000 shares, reaching a whopping 11.3 million people online from a single post. That made it one of the most popular images ever on my page. Hipster and soccer moms alike could find a quiet inspiration in that image. It reinforced in me that the folks on my page come for a reason: We share not only a common humor, but a common humanity. To my delight, somewhere along the way, my page had become a place where all are welcome, and where none would be shunned or dismissed on account of any disability. The boy at the state fair symbolized this, and his message to “keep calm” resonated in its own way, taking on its own meaning wholly unconnected to the British government’s original plea. We should indeed keep calm in the face of difference, and live our lives in a state of inclusion and wonder at the diversity of humanity.

  Incidentally, it’s worth noting the “top” comment on the stream, right below the picture of the smiling boy, which I found to be quite telling: “The one time I like a ‘Keep Calm’ shirt.”

  First World Problems

  According to the Internet, First World Problems (let’s call them FWPs) are frustrations or complaints experienced by privileged individuals in developed countries — in short, the tiny inconveniences that seem to define modern existence. Mistakenly drinking orange juice after brushing your teeth. Charging your iPhone all night, only to discover the other end was never plugged in. Having to keep track of four remote controls. When stacked up against the poverty, war, disease or the religious/ethnic persecution that much of the world faces daily, FWPs are mind-bogglingly trivial. And yet, they somehow manage to consume much of our energies in the U.S., Western Europe and Japan (and increasingly in other Asian nations — I just read an article about a man in China so distraught by his wife’s shoe buying habits that, after she insisted on visiting one more store, he hurled himself over a balcony in a mall, falling to his death. That’ll learn ‘er.).

  FWPs first became popularized in the mid-1990s, with the earliest known reference from the alternative Canadian rock band Omissions of the Omen on their debut album Last of the Ghetto Astronauts:

  AND SOMEWHERE AROUND THE WORLD / SOMEONE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE MY FIRST WORLD PROBLEMS / KILL THE MOON AND TURN OUT THE SUN / LOCK YOUR DOOR AND LOAD YOUR GUN / FREE AT LAST NOW THE TIME HAS COME TO CHOOSE.

  (Parenthetically, I’m always curious as to how these alternative bands come up with their names. I suspect you can take any common First World item and turn it into a decent title of an album or name of a band. “Foiled-Wrapped Bouillon Cubes,” for example. That’s suitably hip and ironic, no?)

  In pop culture, “white whine” began to creep in through television shows aimed toward a younger audience base, with James Van Der Beek, star of the eponymous television show Dawson’s Creek, and poster child of the 1990s teen drama, at its helm. The shallow angst of the era was so exemplified by a tearful Dawson that Van Der Beek’s mug became the go-to FWP meme, with that decade touting its own generation-defining issues-of-no-particular-import:

  There was a brief moment in the early 2000s when the chaos of the developing world (where the bulk of humanity actually lives) threatened to invade places like suburban America, and groups like the Taliban loomed large in the Western psyche. For a dizzying spell, the rest of the world’s problems suddenly became our problems. Americans frantically searched South America and Africa for a place called Baghdad and wondered where the “u” went in Al-Qaeda.

  That didn’t last long. After planes flying into buildings became a distant nightmare and protracted wars were once again someone else’s fight, the insularity of our everyday lives became punctuated once more by the most tedious of concerns.

  But it really wasn’t until the age of the financial meltdown and Occupy Wall Street that First World Problems really took root, and even gained their own Twitter hashtag and Tumblr accounts. Somehow, it became funny for the millenials to poke fun at themselves. Privilege thus became post-modern, as skepticism about the way elites lived their lives increased, along with the popularity of posting about it. In the Obama years, television gave us gems like Gossip Girl, Keeping up with the Kardashians and even PBS’s Downton Abbey, which all held up magnifying glasses to the troubles of the rich and feckless and somehow made them feel important, even as we understood they were not. The Internet responded with classic summations of the terrifying burdens we First Worlders face.

  Problems in the First World often seem as important to those suffering from them as actual world problems. It is, as ever, a question of degree. This is why FWPs are not, as some posit, purely a 21st century invention. No, trivial concerns have tormented the pampered elite for centuries. The Emperor of China legendarily once had 320 dishes served to guests over three days, yet surely some in his court must have lamented the lack of food choices. The British upper crust have for time eternal suffered the ignominy of unpolished silver and mismatched cutlery. But it is America that has taken FWPs to a whole new level. It is only when such great material wealth combines with stunning spiritual poverty, reaching not only the upper classes but across once-aspirational middle and now even lower classes, that the true obnoxiousness of the FWP is evident. The art of the whine has never been more perfected.

  Even their triumphs seem trifling:

  (This “nailed it” baby has had his fifteen minutes of fame at such a young age, it is easy to imagine that the rest of his life will be spent trying to achieve even a modicum of fame.)

  The FWP works as a shorthand device because young people in the G-7 are often painfully self-aware of their privileged state relative to the rest of the world, yet remain completely powerless to do anything about it — and frankly appear to
have no interest in trying. The gap between their status and the plight of the desperately poor across the world has widened, but to their minds it’s not their fault. Wanting for little by way of material needs, their struggles become spiritual ones, but lacking in spiritual direction, they simply spin in place. Someone they met didn’t accept their friend request. There isn’t free wi-fi in the coffee house. They’ve wasted half an hour choosing among too many movies on Netflix.

  The phrase “First World Problems” itself is uttered by these privileged folk either to scorn or dismiss someone else’s whining — or more curiously, by the whiners themselves to concede that they understand that their petty problems pale in comparison to the real troubles of the world. But does that understanding extend beyond mere acknowledgement? Do those erstwhile kvetchers suddenly feel ashamed and straighten up, shake off their grumbling and resolve to dedicate themselves to righting the world’s wrongs? Do they at least stop griping about their insignificant woes?

  No, they do not. Why should they? They have now generously shown that they understand where their grievances fall in the line-up of world issues; they’re not like those callous, unfeeling protesters of yore, who clearly thought their problems outweighed anyone else’s. No, this is the new generation of caring, sensitive, global-minded would-be millionaires. Now that we understand that they understand how fortunate they are to even have such problems, they’re free to openly grouse. It is as though by merely uttering the words “First World Problem” they get a get-out-of-jail-free card, and may now continue to do nothing more than bear witness to injustice and inequity simply because they’ve demonstrated perspective.

  Every now and then, something breaks through the haze, but inevitably sinks back into the social quicksand. In early 2012 the world ignited behind a viral idea to rid the planet of one of its worst criminals, the warlord “Kony” in Africa, whose practice of recruiting child soldiers was exposed by the STOP KONY YouTube campaign. I admit, even I was inspired by the very idea that an idea, shared often enough, could change the world. How bizarrely that campaign fizzled, after the fellow behind the movement allegedly suffered some kind of mental breakdown (or perhaps he was simply drunk) and wound up arrested for public masturbation and vandalism in the suburban town of Pacific Beach, San Diego. Months later, he naturally appeared on Oprah, the confession booth of our times, to seek absolution for his sins. Apparently it doesn’t take much to entice us into a quick interest in the rest of the world, but it takes even less for us to turn from it.

  Perhaps it is our very ease with social interaction these days that grants us a sense of connection and involvement, when in fact, as with FWPs, there is no real significance to our actions. Watching a KONY video and sharing it with our network is not difficult, but does it “do” anything? Does social sharing around the margins of a problem simply ease our consciences, just as pointing out that something is a First World Problem somehow excuses the complaint? Is it simply an indulgent exercise that allows us then to slip back into the comfort of Snuggies, Playstation 4s and air purifiers?

  The rest of the world knows and understands the power of social media, and can use it to devastating effect. The Arab Spring of 2012 blossomed out of the social networks of Twitter and Facebook, and that led to a massive reordering of the region’s entire political and social order, including a terrible civil war in Syria — one that now has serious First World implications as Russia re-aligns with its long-standing partner and chemical warfare threatens to engulf our own allies there. Given how many regimes fell in such rapid succession, it’s small wonder that Facebook and Twitter continue to be blocked by the Chinese leadership behind the Great Firewall of China.

  I had my own admitted First World Problem, a “pet peeve” which irked me sufficiently that I decided to do something about it via social media. I travel frequently and use a “Personal Electronic Device” — a Kindle Fire given to me as a gift from a fellow producer of Allegiance. It always seemed silly to me that, long after the plane had taken off, or long before it was set to touch down, we were made to turn off these devices and stow them. I understood the initial conservatism behind this policy, as no one had really ever studied or understood the effect that wireless devices might have on cockpit controls. But after years of use, and studies that showed that these devices emitted such negligible signal as to be of no issue to air safety, the FAA had not eased up on its rules. “I’ll need you to turn that off, sir,” was their constant refrain. I’d sigh, resigned to picking up the airline magazine I’d read it three times already, or browsing through the Catalog of Ridiculous Items that, no doubt, they’d hoped we’d peruse for lack of anything better to do during those first and last fifteen minutes of flight.

  So I did what any deeply burdened American would do: I took to my blog and bitched about it. I understood that this was a FWP and that I’d get called out on it. (#FirstWorldProblems was in fact the top comment to my post.) Like other FWPs, there are indeed much larger problems to worry about than whether travelers can have their PEDs on during the entire duration of the flight. “Why don’t you put your Kindle down for 10 minutes, George?” “Is it too much to ask that we, I don’t know, meet the person sitting next to us instead of burying ourselves in our devices?” “Surely you can use your celebrity in the service of higher causes, Takei.”

  But still, it irked me because this was an inefficiency, a useless regulation that was plainly a chestnut from an earlier paranoia long since disproven. It turned passengers into grumps and flight attendants into scolds, all for no reason. So I began an online petition to ask the FAA to review its regulation. Happily, other forces were also already at work, including efforts by Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri to have the rule revisited.

  My timing could not have been better. My petition garnered over 20,000 signatures from other First World Problemers, and we presented it right as the FAA went into deliberations over the new rule. Lo and behold, in the late fall of 2013, my prayers were answered, and the rule was relaxed so that I could now keep my Kindle on throughout the flight. FWP solved! Every time you hear them tell you that you can now keep your device on, I hope you’ll think of me and the 20,000 people who bitched along with me. (Some have suggested that in reality, my petition and my blog post did nothing to move the ball forward, that the wheels of justice were already turning and that I and my legion of petitioners had merely been shouting into the wind. I like to think that we were heard, and that our government is responsive to us and to common sense. Well, that last part is probably wishful thinking, I admit.)

  The truth is, most FWPs don’t really have a solution — at least not one readily apparent. What do you do when your boss at work is buying you lunch so often that your food at home is going bad? Or when your iPhone receives a Facebook notification even though you are already on Facebook on your computer? Or when you put food in the microwave and it’s popping and sizzling like it’s hot, and then you check and it’s still cold?

  Social media celeb Ryan Higa put out a fascinating PSA on this very question. He suggests that, if you know someone suffering from FWPs, you get them three things: a bridge, a straw, and a full cup with a cap.

  Signs of the Times

  Back in the days before “talkies,” people in moving pictures communicated solely with their facial expressions, except for the occasional explanatory placard. Often, these placards were entirely unnecessary, underscoring what was readily apparent to the audience.

  Indeed, some were convinced that words would never be needed to convey the emotions and the stories set in film. As sung by Glenn Close, who played silent movie star Norma Desmond in the musical Sunset Boulevard, truly great actresses could break your heart “with one look.”

  How strangely ironic that, nowadays, with all of the magic of surround sound, auto-tune and Dolby stereo, some of the most powerful messages are still delivered without a single spoken word. We have come full circle in a sense, and we have returned to the days of the placard.

&
nbsp; One of the most stirring examples of this came from someone who plainly lacked the ability to speak his pain aloud. Eighth grader Jonah Mowry touched a nerve with his video, where he stared into the camera and held up card after card, on which he’d scribbled his story and his pain.

  Somehow this young boy had managed to capture the essence of those silently suffering the torments of bullying, and his heartfelt tears and pleas for understanding, backed only by his cramped, handwritten words and a soundtrack, broke through to millions. He’d made the video originally only as a private soul-searching, until a friend encouraged him to post it to Facebook, where miraculously it was shared and reshared until it reached over 10,000,000 people. (Unsurprisingly, it didn’t take long for the “haters” on the Internet to suggest that he’d faked the whole affair for attention, but as Jonah and his parents have themselves attested, the video and its anguish were very real. As far as I’m concerned, the trolls on the Internet need to go back beneath their bridges and leave children alone—they are no worse than the bullies that tormented young Jonah in the first instance.) You can watch Jonah’s video here: http://xrl.us/JonahMowry

  Jonah’s signs were not the only viral hits using signs as a device. People with pets got into the action, hanging signs on their dogs in a series of “Dog Shaming” photos reminescent of how capitalists were humiliated with neck-hung placards during the Cultural Revolution of China. Thankfully the dogs were wholly unaware that they were being shamed. Here is one of my favorites: