We flew Qatar Airlines from Hanoi to Bangkok. Only a few dozen passengers sat scattered in plush, roomy seats on our red-eye flight. Anyone who chose to had an aisle to themselves. Sami and I sat across from each other in one and immediately set into thumbing our remote controls, scrolling through the impressive menu of movies, TV shows and games. I passed on old episodes of Mad Men and The Office in favor of The Social Network. Sami picked The Rescuers. I know. All those quality shows and she chooses a thirty year-old animated Disney feature about detectives who are mice. Her selection was met with little more than a halfhearted eye-roll from me though. I have grown accustomed to her head scratch inducing tastes.
It goes without saying that The Social Network was incredible and, if I can be honest, probably one of the highlights of my time in Southeast Asia (and this has more to do with the fact that living in Korea makes it a little more difficult to see new releases or semi-new releases in this case- unless it is in low quality on my small computer screen). However, I am not ashamed to admit that the movie left me pathetically envious of kids around my age who were able to become so successful so quickly. It wasn't the technical skill nor programming prowess I coveted- let's be honest, I have a hard enough time figuring out the buttons on the microwave, and if I did have the tiniest bit of computer knowledge, the first thing I would do would be to retrieve all of the old blog posts that didn't save (nothing frustrates me more!).
No, it was the way that these fellows were able to capitalize on something as simple as the way college students communicate with each other that really got me. I was in school during this same time period where technology was just minutes away from launching into an entirely new frontier. Yes, we all got cell phones our Freshman year, but no one used them to text. It was too slow, clunky and expensive. If we wanted to communicate without talking we used AOL Instant Messenger. Everyone had goofy screen names- I was JBoydstyle. It was much easier to talk to people- especially girls who were out of your league- by typing witticisms. How else do you think I was able to land a date with tigra1341 (aka my future wife Sami)?
Having a child on the way has made me evaluate the world I was born into and how it differs from what will be my daughters birth year. When I was a kid, the years my parents were born in seemed like a foreign country- Korea, Thailand or Vietnam, something out of reach to be seen only in the pages of books. Now that I have traveled and lived abroad, the world is smaller, and I've come to realize that 1960 and '61 were not that different than 1982. I believe an employee from Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price could walk into an ad agency in 1982 and hold his own. Transport him into 2011 and he'd be so overwhelmed he'd drink himself to death.
On our first night in Bangkok, I stupidly left our laptop on the hotel room floor overnight. As I should have envisioned, Sami stepped on it during one of her frequent pee trips. The screen cracked and was rendered useless. We spent the rest of the trip unable to check our Facebook pages, which wasn't such a bad thing. The only person I really needed to talk to was the person who loves me even though I haven't come up with that great business idea. Someone who understands my fear of technology and how it will shape the future. Tigra1341.
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