A Seth Pohorence Pop-Ed: Falling Behind the Times

Last week, my dad’s cellphone (or cellular phone) died on him. Now, my dad had one of those awesome burners like phones you see on The Wire. Granted he didn’t buy it from a convenience store in Virginia, but it’s a crappy phone.

As much as I love my dad, he is far from being stylish. He is like most parents of people who are in their twenties. However, my dad has a cooler phone than me.

One part about being a Pohorence is being terribly cheap with certain things. I hate the idea of spending money on a cellphone, so I have a cheap burner phone that is not a smartphone by any means. My dad now has an awesome smart phone, one kids would use as a status symbol to show off how cool they are. (It’s funny what we think is cool.)

The other night, I was enjoying Ice Cube’s 30 For 30, Straight Outta L.A. The film documented social and popular culture that aligned with the then-Los Angeles Raiders. My favorite part was hearing how kids in inner city L.A. schools were being mugged for their Starter satin Raiders jackets. Where I grew up, us kids in the 1990s were all about our Starter jackets, usually emblazoned with an NFL or NBA team logo all over it. I didn’t really have one like that, but I did have a Yankees windbreaker by Starter. They were extremely popular in my time along with L.A. Lights shoes. Granted, this was in elementary school.

The first time I remember electronics being a style symbol was probably in junior high when compact disc players were hot. Take in consideration we were still using America Online and eating our pizza crust first. I was a late adopter to the Discman era. My first one was a free one my parents got for spending over $100 at J.C. Penney. Regardless of where it came from, it could still play my Dr. Dre albums.

It’s so weird remembering that very few people in high school — in a private Catholic high school — owned cell phones. This was ten years ago. I still had my crappy Discman knockoff, but kids were just starting to get cellphones. Texting was invented the next year. Isn’t that messed up?

My cheapness in buying a smartphone with the added charge of a data plan still irks me. Maybe someday I’ll get an iPhone. What number are they up to now? I’ll admit it, covering high school sports, there's a narcissistic part of me that knows high school kids see me with a lame-ass phone but wearing $300 dollar dress shoes and a Brooks Brothers suit. It’s unreal. My girlfriend is way cooler than me. She works for a tech company as a patent attorney learning about new technologies, but her boyfriend has a $10 phone from Target.

I still play a Playstation 2.

 I used to be so cool.

 Now, my dad is cool.

 What happened?