My editor told me I needed to write you, the reader, an introduction.
I’ll go ahead and admit right off the bat that I’m in unfamiliar territory here. I’m a smartass who likes to have the last word, not the first one. Can I write a conclusion instead, I asked? Wrap this up with a good punchline, borrow some words from Fitzgerald about the green light, the orgastic future that stretches before us, give you a cliché about an end actually being a beginning? How do I appeal to a bunch of people who are wondering how and why I took over David Warner’s job (well, kind of)?
Truth is, that stuff has been done. And done. And done. It’s so overdone it’s the steak I ate last night. So no, I won’t do that to you.
Speaking of overdone, so is prattling on and on about life in or after college and the future of 20-somethings. You don’t give a shit about our education or our student loans anyway, so why beat a dead horse and lament our scary, unpredictable futures and feelings of, “Well, fuck, now what?” It’s nothing new. Why immortalize ourselves in this publication by writing about something so boring and trite? Aren’t we better than that?
Kind of. Maybe.
We, the interns, got together on two little black leather couches and talked about stuff. Coffee culture, rape culture and other kinds of cultures; sharing a joint with Afroman and waking up drunk in a bathtub (we were “in college,” okay?); modern segregation in schools, limited public transportation for people with disabilities, the future of the newsroom. We laughed and we lamented. But as a bunch of liberal communications majors, we always ended up talking about what all liberals love to talk about: progress.
So it was natural for us to take the issue in that direction. Rather than focus exclusively on the future, we wanted to look at the path it takes to get there. We revived conversations about urban exploration; talked to some people about global warming (because sorry but it’s a thing); challenged the fact that body image issues are exclusive to women; talked to some vets who were around when America was truly great; reviewed some bands we’re glad are gone.
(Editor's note: They also looked into the annoying use of phones at concerts, how file sharing changed the world, social media as a conduit for feminism, the ideas behind Ybor City's biggest, most expressive mural, and more.)
I’m not going to use the rest of this space trying to convince you that reading this issue will be worth your time and that we’re not a bunch of punk kids who belong to a misguided generation, who dabble in artsy things and love to spurn sacred institutions left and right. I mean, as millennials, we definitely do, but that’s not what this issue is supposed to be about.
You’ll just have to keep reading and determine what it means to you.
—Carlynn Crosby
Carlynn Crosby is a recent graduate of the University of Florida, where she majored in English and public relations.
