Books for Christmas: What the Heck Is That?
December 21st, 2010 | by Matt | Published in Link Bait | 4 Comments
First, please watch the video:
Now, please tell me how to respond to it. I say this because, as a blogger tasked with providing superficially insightful commentary on the e-mailed-around links o’ the day, I’ve been trying to figure out what to write about this child. Other bloggers have said things like “This is why we’re dumb, folks.” And I’m tempted, at first, to agree with them—what kind of idiot kid has such a visceral reaction to getting books as presents?
But I don’t want to be like all other bloggers. I want to say something . . . different. So, I could also write that the kid’s is 100% correct. Books shouldn’t be Christmas gifts. Not because they’re lame, or “not toys,” as the kid says, but because books should be given out all the time, not just as once-a-year- presents. They should be everywhere, filling the house, ubiquitous, bought and traded and borrowed, inhaled like oxygen. I’d love to say that maybe that’s this kid’s point, but . . . it’s quite possible he’s just stupid, and a sign of the stupidity America faces in the not-so-distant future.
What do you think?
December 21st, 2010at 2:20 pm(#)
I’m of two minds. The bookworm, publishing industry me is pained at that video. PAINED. Books should never be spoken of with such disgust, and I weep for the future of our society if this is where we’re headed.
But the me that laughs at kids and their ridiculous nature is very amused. Come on, that bit at the end where he’s pointing down at the other gifts, like hey, these things over here aren’t books either, right? That’s comedy genius.
December 21st, 2010at 2:21 pm(#)
Take the Wii and throw it out.
December 21st, 2010at 6:41 pm(#)
Some of my favorite Christmas presents were books. The best ever, of course, was a Commodore 64, which would be wasted on kids today.
December 21st, 2010at 10:54 pm(#)
I’m with Jack. Just about the time you give your 3-year-old a Wii, that’s the time that everything else in life just becomes something getting between him and his Wii. And I have to say, though they’re surely lovely and level-headed parents, I would have been pissed, even at a three-year-old, but especially at myself as a parent, that this was the reaction.