Have you ever had a really good bowl of cereal? I mean really, really good ones, tasty, crunchy, just right. You have, haven't you? I'm betting you were in your pj's, at home, probably watching cartoons.
When I think about really tasty cereal, I think back to the sleepovers I used to have with my cousins, how we'd all eat cereal and drink hot cocoa in the morning.
Don't you miss those days? Well, worry not, your time has finally come!
There's a place you can go, called the Cereal Crunch Cafe, where they give you all those wonderful, childhood feelings back!
It'll be cutesy, and intentionally baby-ish (but still kinda adorable) and they let you take as many pictures as you want and post them on Instagram and Snapchat....oops, not much like childhood, is it?
I know, I know, but you can at least seem cool to your equally clueless friends!
I discovered this 'wonderful' place, this past weekend, when a friend suggested we go there to catch up. I'd been blisfully unaware of its existence until then. When I first heard the name, I remember thinking 'You've got to be kidding me, it can't just be..'
But yeah, it's just a place where they sell milk and cereal. Correction, they see grossly overpriced milk and cereal.
Not the cheap kind you can buy at the store, either, but the more expensive ones, horribly pumped with sugar and food coloring. And more sugar!
My friend ended up paying 7 dollars for a bowl of cereal, a bottle of green milk (It's cuter on Instagram that way, trust me), and some other crap, like M&M's, Oreos and Kinder Bueno bits jammed in over the cereal.
This whole meal would cost about 2 dollars, if you bought all of these sweets at the store. And who eats that many sweets anyway?
I'm no saint or diet-nut, but my mind's throwing up just looking at the pictures.
Oh, and speaking of pictures – aren't they something?
Just look at the girl with the braid-things – I wonder how much time she spent doing her hair at home, just so she could come to this fraud of a place and take a picture?
Because that's why these kids come to such a place – because it's cool. When we arrived, we were greeted by a very preppy, cheery young girl who started explaining the different types of cereal to us. Dude, it's cereal, not physics.
At some point, she even turned to my friend and went 'I bet you're really confused right now'. And my friend nodded, in that annoying 'I'm so dumb, it's cute' attitude. Why? What's cute about being confused by cereal?
I don't know, but apparently, Instagram thinks it is.
The girl at the counter even told us 'Oh, you must've seen on Instagram that we color the milk' and my friend was super-excited by this. Of course she had!
Naturally, as soon as we sat down, she began taking photos of her bowl of cereal and posting them online. Then, spending the rest of the meeting checking her phone to see what people had said about it.
Seriously?
You know, I often get shocked stares when I tell people I'm 19. Someone even told me that I can't be, since I actually have stuff to talk about and I thought he was exaggerating. Surely, people my age can't be that bad, I thought.
But they are. They're so self-obsessed and dependent on other people's meaningless opinion. Believe me, these girls consider the day wasted if they haven't checked in to some fancy place and posted pics like the ones above.
Why?
You must be wondering. I know I am. Well, I guess it makes sense, given that they spend most of their time packed together, because of their proximity in age. And they have stuff like this constantly jammed down their throats. Since it's so hard to adapt at school, nobody wants to take the chance and be the odd one out, reading a book at breaktime, so everyone does the same thing.
I know, a good question is how they got here in the first place, but let's face it, it's not profitable to peddle books to young minds, is it?
God forbid, they might start having independent thoughts. And we wouldn't want that. Oh no, that just would not do.
Let's push fake smiles down their throats, instead. Let's fill their head with meaningless phrases and bubbly butts that they can twerk to show their value in society. Let's make them think it's cool to pout and make a duck-face, it really shows your beauty to the world. And let's make them all go to the same places and take the exact same pictures, so that their little friends see how cool they are.
Because how can their friends claim they're not cool? They have a picture at this stupid place, see, and it looks like the same stupid picture some minor Instagram celebrity posted only a few days ago.
Seriously, look at the above photos. Do you see a difference? 'Cause I don't.
The first one is some Instagram star, the second is the late Ursula K LeGuin....who do you think young people are likely to recognize?
And I'm sorry. I really wish I could blame it on the government, or on school. It would be easy to say 'well, yeah, the poor victims of brainwash'. Because yeah, there is a huge effort to brainwash young people. But it's not like that. That's just an easy lie. It's comfortable, because it makes them not responsible of their own stupidity.
But they are responsible.
We all are. You can pay to have buckets of sugar and other toxins pushed into your body, just so that you can post yet another selfie online, or you can go read a book.
The choice is yours. It has always been yours.
Insta-fame or brains, because it sure seems like you can't have both. And you know what the sad thing is? It seems like you don't want to have them, anyway.
Thank you for reading,
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Images - Instagram
Well, arguably, it’s just as ridiculous to spend $7 or more on a drink made of cheap well liquor and a spritz of diet soda but I suppose we pay for ambiance. So glad I don’t really like drinking or going out to bars that much! I would way rather pay for some overpriced cereal.
Hmmm I wouldn't pay for either :) I mean, sure, I go out from time to time, but with old friends, I have no trouble just sitting in the park, I don't need to go to some fancy place....
I can feel your frustration in your writing and it brings back some memories of my youth when I felt like I was living in a country I didn't fit in.
At the time I was finding goals and identification through the many books I was reading all the time. With my earphones on and a book in my hands I was navigating the city to and from college thinking the world around me was clueless about the real values of life.
Truth is I felt lonely at the time, swimming around like a fish in a fishbowl and I couldn't wait to finish my studies to get out to new pastures and discover new cultures than my own which i didn't feel a part of.
There are other people like you out there who crave for more than just a stupid bowl of cereal and a like on some social network.
Every now and then our path crosses like minded persons and it brings meaning to our life. That knowledge that the world is not just made of materialism and quick gratifications is essential.
The world is your oyster if you manage to channel all that energy inside you to do something constructive with your life.
Your writing is inspiring and I have no doubt that there are still many people out there who want to be inspired by such honesty and different perception of the world around them.
Through your writing you are bringing a community of like minded people closer together.
As for me I have been struggling with naming my last piano piece but I think your post may have given me some inspiration.
Keep writing.
I suppose I'm lonely too, at times, but recently I've met some really....cool people. Very clever people, and I keep being surprised that they understand what I'm talking about, that we have the same points of reference and a lot of things in common. But then I realize that's how it should be.
I try to surround myself with people who get it...
Thank you so much, really, you're too sweet <3 What can I say, I just write what's on my mind.
Really? Wow, that is so awesome! Might I know what it is? I'd love to hear it.
Thank you :)
Many people who feel lonely in this world. In fact this "connected" world has never created so much isolation.
There was a time when most people knew their neighbours. In cities this is a rarity now.
One can feel when someone is genuine and your honesty shines through your writing.
I've got a title in mind but not 100% sure of it yet, so I'll wait before revealing it. :-)
The piece is almost finished. After that I have to practice it before recording which takes me a little bit of time as I'm quite an average player.
But I'll post the result on Steemit as soon as that's done!
I look forward to it! :)
Well said @honeydue! If you are 19, you have great perception. As for the Cereal Crunch Cafe, I would never go there, they would spoil my favourite food!
Thank you, @leighleigh! I wouldn't either. A family passed us by while we were there and I heard the mother say that that ain't cereal, very scornful. Couldn't help but agree...:/
Oh, @honeydue, I relate to this frustration. Friends have taken to migrating from Facebook to Instagram (for reasons unclear but if it's to escape Facebook, they're not doing so at Instagram.) And while connecting with loved ones is the main reason I'm on social media, I've no desire to see a series of perfectly-staged images that reflect only the most photogenic moments of their lives, often featuring made-for-Insta food props (or worse, human-props.)
I try to offer a slice of life in my social media sharing. Yep, there are cool things in this life. And struggles. And sometimes my lunch looks like an elegantly-layered salad jar. And sometimes it looks like broken tortilla chips. And all of this is okay.
Haha exactly (love tortilla chips!) . Thing is, these people think they can only gain meaning by doing that and it is very sad...
I usually post funny things on social media, stuff that makes me laugh...I don't think it really matters what you post, just as long as you don't live your life out of the Instagram textbook, which these kids are doing.
How I wish and just invite those nowadays kids to steemit maybe they would just have what they would be busy with rather than being out there waste time looking for beautiful places to snap and post on social networks since but this has been part of them, they won't listen but I blame their parents,not the government or teachers cos they shouldn't allow them from the starts
Sadly, I think a lot of young people today wouldn't have anything to say on Steemit. They certainly don't seem interested in politics or books.
I think there are a number of things we can blame, but at some point, it becomes your reaponsibility - your.choice to either go with the herd or make your own way.