I’d like to offer a shout out to my seventh- and eighth-grade peeps in Anthony Moreno’s technology classes at Christ the King Catholic School for all the ideas for my new blog.
Alas, to my shame, another correspondent informed me that “‘peeps’ hasn’t been used since the mid-’90s.”
“The saying, along with a slew of others (‘peace out,’ ‘tight’ or ‘the bomb’), are usually left to old Nickelodeon sitcoms,” Erin Rosa said.
So much for the newer, trendier me.
As I try to start a blog that matters as much to young people as it does to baby boomers and Medicare recipients, it seems I am what I have always been:
Hip as a pocket protector.
“I enjoy your column, (even when you are way too socialist for me),” Dave Barnes of Denver wrote after reading my Jan. 2 plea for help in building a blog. “But today’s column … was pathetic.”
If I’m bound to be a 55-year-old nerd, I’m at least going to be one with my own Internet TV channel. That comes compliments of my friends at Mania-TV. This week, I meet with ManiaTV’s Jason Damata to “build, program and embed” the channel into my blog. Then, what one writer called a generation of “digital natives” can speak in the medium that increasingly becomes their language.
For pictures, postings and Web links for my blog, I’m going to rely on the dozens of young people and the handful of geezers who answered my request for suggestions. That includes Joe, the seventh-grader who already has moved from the boring world of skateboard videos to snowboard videos, where “you have to maneuver well on your board while recording someone else.”
Many of the blog suggestions are what you’d expect.
Link to Facebook.com and MySpace.com. Link to the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com).
“Talk about movies,” urged middle-schooler Claire Campbell. “Talk about music. Talk about TV shows.”
Or sports. Or celebrities. Or video games. Or jokes and riddles.
“Fun and gross facts are always loved (in my class at least),” explained Christ the King student Hunter Downing.
So, incredibly, are health and education.
“I know a ton of girls, including myself, and guys are worried about our image,” wrote Madi Owens. “What will happen if I get addicted to drugs or alcohol? Sexual health, puberty, the stress of school and jobs and staying safe throughout our teenage years.”
Madi recommends teenhealth.com.
Kit Brown says teenagers should try teenreads.com “to find recommendations for a good book.”
“I like Google.com and Wikipedia.com for my homework,” added Molly, who didn’t include her last name. “You could also have advice for people going through tough times.”
Like trying to find a job with decent pay, health insurance and a retirement plan.
One of the fascinating links I learned about – unitedprofessionals.org – addresses young college graduates who are, according to Diane Alexander of Buena Vista, “unemployed, underemployed or anxiously employed.”
Speaking of tough times, Denver Water Manager Chips Barry recommended a link to his son’s blog – pennanbarry.blogspot.com. “He is a young epidemiologist writing about treating bubonic plague this past fall in Madagascar,” Barry said.
Jo Hawxby, a college student in Iowa, said I should take a look at the “‘zine scene” of “independently published, nonprofit” magazines (denverzinefest.com).
Jordy Oleson, identified only as “male, 23 years old,” put in a plug for globaltransmissionmedia.com. The site carries a series of short documentaries chronicling the travels of some young guys whom Oleson met in Bolivia. They are traveling around the world.
It is a big world, made, in turns, more intimate and expansive by technology.
“While you may feel you are ‘disconnected’ from the 18-24 demographic,” wrote Rachel Mandell-Rice, a 20-something Boulder native now living in Washington, D.C., “clear, creative and thoughtful writing is not lost on my generation, … although finding it amid the mass quantities of media we encounter daily can prove exhausting.”
When it comes to information overload, Mandell-Rice is on to something.
I got an e-mail from a PR person fronting for a client who helps people build blogs. There were obligatory harrumphs from folks troubled by the political blogs I mentioned in the Jan. 2 column. And, of course, a guy checked in with a baby-boomer blog (boomers.typepad.com).
Suggestions were as vast as the Internet itself.
And they just keep coming.
Or going where you least expect.
On Friday, an e-mail arrived from a former faithful reader of my column in Virginia:
“Imagine my surprise,” she wrote, “when I discovered that spammers have spoofed my e-mail address to send an e-mail with the following subject line:
“Denver Post columnist Jim Spencer needs help with blog ideas for his new blog, including link suggestions.”
There’s the blessing and curse of a cyberspace blog: It is limited only by what you’re willing to dream.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-954-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.
