It seems so obvious to write about President Barack Obama right now, whether you’re a fan or not, that I think I’ve been avoiding doing it. I was in Washington, D.C., on Inauguration Day. I saw the camaraderie of the crowds. I watched in amusement as CVS clerks and CPK waiters tried their best to cope. I hummed along as Wyclef Jean sang a sweet but less than Grammy-worthy freestyle presidential tribute. I applauded the honesty of the Inaugural address, I held my breath as the new President got out of the car, and I thanked goodness that no one had gone tiger, in the words of the immortal Chris Rock, in this capitol circus. And as the first blush of love faded — confirmation hearings will do that to any relationship — and the real work of rebuilding began, I hoped that the young people who’d been so energized by “Yes We Can” wouldn’t be enervated by “Yes We Did That Already, And Now We Have To Do All The Other Way Tougher Stuff For Which There Will Be No Uplifting Slogans.”

Then Superbowl Sunday came around, and President Obama — chatting with Matt Lauer and smiling that easy smile of his — put my fears to rest. As my friend put it, “It’s kind of amazing to have a President who can say ’shoutout’ credibly.” Don’t get me wrong: His vetting game is clearly far from airtight, and I, unlike him, have never been a huge fan of Steeler football. But what stood out about the President that day — and more recently, when he admitted he “screwed up” with the Tom Daschle nomination, and even when he called Wall Street bonuses “shameful” last week — is that he can and will talk to us, about subjects heavy and light, and in a voice we can both relate to and respect. (After all, his shoutout wasn’t to his boys back home; it was to the troops.) It may be calculated — and it probably is — but I for one appreciate a little strategic thinking in my politicians. And if they use it to keep me in the loop, all the better.

What may be even more striking, though, is Obama’s seeming desire to behave both like what I imagine a President ought to be and like the nice, cool, more or less sincere young man about campus I’m always hoping the President was at some long lost time in his life. It’s no small feat to be both youthful and presidential, and it’s even harder when you’re admitting mistakes and promising fixes. But what it communicates, whether the President means to or not, is that — for the generation of young people who will call Obama a role model — you really can do it your way. Yes, we all have to be accountable and work hard, for instance. But who’s going to have to work harder or be more accountable than Obama will? And if he can still tell jokes and enjoy a good game while he’s doing it, well, maybe we can, too.

All of this — the dialogue, the insight, even the inspiration of a grown-up guy with just about the hardest job around laughing like he means it — fosters an inclusiveness that is ultimately more empowering for young people at this moment than “Yes We Can” could ever be. Because now we are part of a conversation that’s happening not on the fringes, but in the most hallowed halls of power. And we’re talking to a man who, whatever you think of his politics, seems willing to listen.

Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you, I’ve always been a nerd. As a child, I read classical myths before bedtime, played viola in the orchestra, and watched more G.I. Joe than could rightly be considered healthy. (Well, that last bit might have been more abnormal than nerdy, but you get the idea.)

And yet–contrary to the tales of social maladjustment and woe that those parents of nigh-seven-year-old kindergartners in our last post might fear–I never once felt bad about it. In fact, it never really entered into my thinking at all. Every one of my friends had a quirk or two, and not because we were some kind of B-movie-esque nerd herd, ostracized from the rest of acceptable classroom society. From the jocks, to the brains, to–yes–the “musicians,” we were for the most part nerdy and cool. And in some cases, even cool because we were nerdy.

Walking to the San Diego Convention Center for Comic-Con 2008 this past weekend, I was reminded of this educational idyll as a departing teenage Con patron explained just that to his apparently confused mom over the phone: “It’s nerdy and cool, you know?” Which was about when the first Batman strolled past me in the crowd, recalling another mob scene of recent memory: The mile-long line I waited in to see a 12:01 a.m. opening night show of Dark Knight a few weeks ago. That, too might have been considered Loserville not long ago, but judging from the box office results for those midnight showings alone (never mind all the pretty girls in line…), the times they are a-changing.

And there’s evidence of it everywhere. Dark Knight’s record-annihilating popularity, clearly. The 150,000 capacity crowd at this year’s Con, which flooded the floor from the usually chill preview night on Wednesday straight through the convention’s close on Sunday. And among the horde, not just obsessed fans, respectable-looking families and giddy comics professionals, but the likes of–no, really–Sam Jackson, Ludacris and Eva Mendes, eager to score a Con boost for upcoming projects.

Then there’s the current Entertainment Weekly cover on Comic-Con and 2009’s Watchmen, based on the celebrated Alan Moore graphic novel of the same name. Fans were treated to special teaser footage at the convention, which EW last year called “one of the most critical industry events on the calendar, as important to Hollywood as any festival in France or Utah.”

Is this mainstreaming of costumed culture a little strange? No doubt. But it’s a better, smarter and all around more exciting world when that’s not only allowed, but appreciated, in all its nerdy and cool glory. And while comics are hardly new, and their entertainment industry ascendancy dates back decades, I especially love the way that they’ve again become true cultural capital for us Yers, minus many of the labels that often came with even casual fandom in the past. We’ve grown up in–and helped grow–what was in recent years a quirky subculture into something we can all support, share, and enjoy without judgment or separation, whether we’re into the whole skin-tight-superhero-outfit-and-plastic-weapon thing or not. (A tad “Kumbaya”? Totally. But I’m feeling warm and fuzzy and drunk with jet lag, and I’m not sorry.)

It’s a cultural shift that a friend first articulated to me after reading David Brooks’ New York Times column, “The Alpha Geeks,” earlier this year. (Thank you, Paul!) Brooks makes a distinction between nerds and “geeks” that I may or may not agree with, but his basic premise–of geek primacy, with the likes of Bill Gates, Tina Fey and even Barack Obama as examples–is hardly debatable.

The challenge, of course, is how to keep all this authentic–something that’s even more important to many Yers than action movies or acceptance. Because there’s a point at which, with more studio executives than comic-book publishers in attendance, events like Comic-Con start to feel like still more icky, obvious marketing. And it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from there to an industry that’s (once again) boring and broke. But it’s a while yet to that. And I for one have the utmost faith in Hollywood.

Right!

But while it’s still charming–and believe me, there’s something about standing in that press of people, surrounded by art and artists and every creature in between, that just makes you giggle–thought you might like a taste…

Icons of my youth. If you don't know, find out.

A Planet of the Apes salute, at the request of Little Spidey and dad.

A very tall, very coordinated (and kind of trippy) Plastic Man.

O brave new world: A perfectly nice normal person, a perfectly nice not-so-normal person, a perfectly *awesome* Lego "person," and the happiest costumed kids ever.

My kind of crowd: Hellboy, Greedy Smurf, Little Bo Peep (we think), and a ton of fans. Best ever.

Ask any of my friends and they’ll tell you, I’ve always been a nerd. As a child, I read classical myths before bedtime, played viola in the orchestra, and watched more G.I. Joe than could rightly be considered healthy. (Well, that last bit might have been more abnormal than nerdy, but you get the idea.)

And yet–contrary to the tales of social maladjustment and woe that those parents of nigh-seven-year-old kindergartners in our last post might fear–I never once felt bad about it. In fact, it never really entered into my thinking at all. Every one of my friends had a quirk or two, and not because we were some kind of B-movie-esque nerd herd, ostracized from the rest of acceptable classroom society. From the jocks, to the brains, to–yes–the “musicians,” we were for the most part nerdy and cool. And in some cases, even cool because we were nerdy.

Walking to the San Diego Convention Center for Comic-Con 2008 this past weekend, I was reminded of this educational idyll as a departing teenage Con patron explained just that to his apparently confused mom over the phone: “It’s nerdy and cool, you know?” Which was about when the first Batman strolled past me in the crowd, recalling another mob scene of recent memory: The mile-long line I waited in to see a 12:01 a.m. opening night show of Dark Knight a few weeks ago. That, too might have been considered Loserville not long ago, but judging from the box office results for those midnight showings alone (never mind all the pretty girls in line…), the times they are a-changing.

And there’s evidence of it everywhere. Dark Knight’s record-annihilating popularity, clearly. The 150,000 capacity crowd at this year’s Con, which flooded the floor from the usually chill preview night on Wednesday straight through the convention’s close on Sunday. And among the horde, not just obsessed fans, respectable-looking families and giddy comics professionals, but the likes of–no, really–Sam Jackson, Ludacris and Eva Mendes, eager to score a Con boost for upcoming projects.

Then there’s the current Entertainment Weekly cover on Comic-Con and 2009’s Watchmen, based on the celebrated Alan Moore graphic novel of the same name. Fans were treated to special teaser footage at the convention, which EW last year called “one of the most critical industry events on the calendar, as important to Hollywood as any festival in France or Utah.”

Is this mainstreaming of costumed culture a little strange? No doubt. But it’s a better, smarter and all around more exciting world when that’s not only allowed, but appreciated, in all its nerdy and cool glory. And while comics are hardly new, and their entertainment industry ascendancy dates back decades, I especially love the way that they’ve again become true cultural capital for us Yers, minus many of the labels that often came with even casual fandom in the past. We’ve grown up in–and helped grow–what was in recent years a quirky subculture into something we can all support, share, and enjoy without judgment or separation, whether we’re into the whole skin-tight-superhero-outfit-and-plastic-weapon thing or not. (A tad “Kumbaya”? Totally. But I’m feeling warm and fuzzy and drunk with jet lag, and I’m not sorry.)

It’s a cultural shift that a friend first articulated to me after reading David Brooks’ New York Times column, “The Alpha Geeks,” earlier this year. (Thank you, Paul!) Brooks makes a distinction between nerds and “geeks” that I may or may not agree with, but his basic premise–of geek primacy, with the likes of Bill Gates, Tina Fey and even Barack Obama as examples–is hardly debatable.

The challenge, of course, is how to keep all this authentic–something that’s even more important to many Yers than action movies or acceptance. Because there’s a point at which, with more studio executives than comic-book publishers in attendance, events like Comic-Con start to feel like still more icky, obvious marketing. And it’s only a hop, skip and a jump from there to an industry that’s (once again) boring and broke. But it’s a while yet to that. And I for one have the utmost faith in Hollywood.

Right!

But while it’s still charming–and believe me, there’s something about standing in that press of people, surrounded by art and artists and every creature in between, that just makes you giggle–thought you might like a taste…

Icons of my youth. If you don't know, find out.

A Planet of the Apes salute, at the request of Little Spidey and dad.

A very tall, very coordinated (and kind of trippy) Plastic Man.

O brave new world: A perfectly nice normal person, a perfectly nice not-so-normal person, a perfectly *awesome* Lego "person," and the happiest costumed kids ever.

My kind of crowd: Hellboy, Greedy Smurf, Little Bo Peep (we think), and a ton of fans. Best ever.

Our layoffs post got such an amazing response that we need to continue that conversation, and in the meantime, it’s also fed some thinking on other parts of the Gen Y “experience,” like this story I did for the Big Idea with Donny Deutsch. Had a chance to do the show on Monday, and the big idea was winning — what it is, what it means, how to be a winner — a concept some think we Gen Yers not only have a unique perspective on, but might even be changing. (Generation Team, anyone?) Thought you’d enjoy taking a look, and as always, tell us what you think…

We pick up our newspapers v. reality TV debate again with part two of all the Gen Y job-hunter needs to know.

For an equally fun, but quicker, photo-filled version, see here.

SCORE SO FAR: Newspapers 2; Reality TV 1
Lesson 4: It’s all in the Networking

Nadira says:
Reality show contestants may form “alliances,” but when it comes to creating a lasting network, nothing’s better than your local paper. That’s where you’ll find your community’s real luminaries, and potentially amass the tools to connect with them (since they’d probably rather bond over a shared love of Dick Cavett’s blog than an unhealthy obsession with The Hills). But my favorite insight from papers is about the art and luck of networking. Read successful people’s stories and it’s easy to see that most weren’t plotting ascendancy from the womb. They found a passion, made some mistakes, met some people, worked hard, and worked it out. And ultimately, that’s a better way to network than the strategies employed by, say, the social-climbing Real Housewives of New York City.

Jake says:
The “art and luck” hypothesis works, but I can’t believe you threw Dick Cavett and The Hills into the same sentence. Are you writing for Ashton or Demi?! Dictionary.com calls networking a “a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest.” Sounds like the Big Brother House to me. Contestants on these shows have to share knowledge and resources skillfully, and they must be supportive of their peers. But while these relationships dominate, competitors who base alliances on utility alone rarely make the finals; the minute it gets tense, their networks fall apart. I ain’t gonna lie: Reality TV isn’t the forum for studying long-term networks, but it does show the value of true personal connections when you’re trying to build one.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because networks should be built, not brokered under penalty of ejection from the Big Brother house.

Lesson 5: Oh, the Pressure

Jake says:
Newspapers dissect drama while reality shows exploit drama. When it comes to office drama – from interoffice conflict to taking criticism – you might want to act impulsively and incite a brawl like a houseguest on The Real World or The Ultimate Fighter. But resist the urge. You’ll be better served looking at every angle and coming up with a measured response, the way a good newspaper story does. That’s always going to trump the emotionally-charged outbursts of reality TV (assuming you want to keep your job). Where drama’s concerned, what’s good for TV is bad for business.

Nadira says:
I’m all for a measured response, but angry coworkers or critical bosses can be as tough as any ultimate fighter, and chances are a well-written story isn’t going to be much help. But what is reality TV for if not dramatic situations? Like you said, once you’ve played “20 questions designed to dissolve you” with Donald Trump or Project Runway’s Nina Garcia, a plain old evaluation from your boss probably won’t faze you. And, hi, if you want to learn how to handle yourself in the midst of unmanageable chaos, look no further than Supernanny Jo Frost, whose workplace, like so many of ours, features huge crybabies, crazy clients, and all kinds of anger management issues. So if you need is a good lesson in confident, creative conflict-resolution, turn on JoJo. No, I mean it. Seriously.

WINNER: Reality TV. Because you have to see crazy people to believe them.

Lesson 6: Who’s Cool Around the Water-Cooler?

Jake says:
In the words (and spelling) of MC Hammer, “U Can’t Touch This”. The water cooler is an inter-office retreat where the stress and pressure of the day are abandoned in favor of gossip and irreverence. Global conflicts and local crime rates have no place near the cooler — and giggling and snickering do. No wonder reality television reigns supreme. But most of all, the water cooler is about circulation. And the combined daily circulation of USA Today, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal is only a fraction of the 30 million people watch every episode of American Idol. If you want to make water cooler friends, Simon Cowell is your best bet.

Nadira says:
This is one place where newspapers simply have to bow to the juggernaut that is reality TV. Because while you may impress a superior or two with your weekend news items, once you’re dealing with people you actually know, they’d probably much rather talk about the latest American Idol or Top Chef than that hot front-page story in the paper that they were too tired to read all weekend. So while you should have a few paper gems in your back pocket, in the unlikely event your CEO drops by the water cooler huddle and doesn’t want to hear your predictions for America’s Next Top Model, I’m probably going to have to defer to Jake on this one…

WINNER: Reality TV. Because 30 million people can’t all be wrong — and even if they are, you want them to like you!

Lesson 7: No Direction, No Hope

Jake says:
(Note: Like Arnold in Terminator 2, I recognize and accept that I am going to get killed in this episode.) The beauty of reality TV is that we get to witness the struggles of young people who are searching for direction. Unlike newsworthy characters in the paper, reality TV characters are not at the top of their professional game. If they were, they wouldn’t have time to flirt with Bret Michaels or kayak around the world on The Amazing Race. (Even the (so-called) celebrities on VH1’s Celeb-reality programming are unsure of their career trajectory.) But we get to learn from and laugh at their mistakes. We learn that it’s okay to be vaguely ambitious. And we learn that it’s not okay to swim naked in a fish tank (on camera) like Isaac did in The Real World: Sydney, as that could affect your chances of landing a job in the future.

Nadira says:
Just watch the Real World Awards Bash ‘08, and it’s clear reality TV can show you which direction not to go. Case in point: your poor, hilarious, aquarium-diving Isaac, who seemed to be only half-joking when he said in his update that he was now living in a friend’s basement, stealing to eat, and grateful to MTV for ruining his life. So please, for the love of all things holy, do not look to reality TV to plan your life. Open instead the pages, be they paper or web, of your favorite newspaper and read it all. Use the real estate listings to plan your future as a homeowner. Transition from college chic to yo-pro appropriate with the style section. Oh, and consider scanning the actual news, since the kind of person you want to become would probably like to know at least as much about American politics as about Celebreality.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because Bret Michaels’ groupies may be relatable, but you should probably be aiming for “respectable.”

FINAL SCORE: Newspapers 4; Reality TV 3

And there you have it, sports fans — the exciting conclusion to The Gig’s first-ever face-off. Those defenders of the written word out there can breathe easy for the time being, as newspapers pulled it out in the end. But we wouldn’t get too comfortable. Reality TV, long maligned as a straight line to procrastination and increased stupidity for young people everywhere, almost squeaked by. And that, combined with that stat from the New Yorker about newspapers going extinct somewhere around 2043 (you laugh, I link), would have me worried, paper-people. But for now, keep reading your Posts, Tribunes, Chronicles, and Times(es). And watching The Hills, of course. Good (job) hunting.

We pick up our newspapers v. reality TV debate again with part two of all the Gen Y job-hunter needs to know.

For an equally fun, but quicker, photo-filled version, see here.

SCORE SO FAR: Newspapers 2; Reality TV 1
Lesson 4: It’s all in the Networking

Nadira says:
Reality show contestants may form “alliances,” but when it comes to creating a lasting network, nothing’s better than your local paper. That’s where you’ll find your community’s real luminaries, and potentially amass the tools to connect with them (since they’d probably rather bond over a shared love of Dick Cavett’s blog than an unhealthy obsession with The Hills). But my favorite insight from papers is about the art and luck of networking. Read successful people’s stories and it’s easy to see that most weren’t plotting ascendancy from the womb. They found a passion, made some mistakes, met some people, worked hard, and worked it out. And ultimately, that’s a better way to network than the strategies employed by, say, the social-climbing Real Housewives of New York City.

Jake says:
The “art and luck” hypothesis works, but I can’t believe you threw Dick Cavett and The Hills into the same sentence. Are you writing for Ashton or Demi?! Dictionary.com calls networking a “a supportive system of sharing information and services among individuals and groups having a common interest.” Sounds like the Big Brother House to me. Contestants on these shows have to share knowledge and resources skillfully, and they must be supportive of their peers. But while these relationships dominate, competitors who base alliances on utility alone rarely make the finals; the minute it gets tense, their networks fall apart. I ain’t gonna lie: Reality TV isn’t the forum for studying long-term networks, but it does show the value of true personal connections when you’re trying to build one.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because networks should be built, not brokered under penalty of ejection from the Big Brother house.

Lesson 5: Oh, the Pressure

Jake says:
Newspapers dissect drama while reality shows exploit drama. When it comes to office drama – from interoffice conflict to taking criticism – you might want to act impulsively and incite a brawl like a houseguest on The Real World or The Ultimate Fighter. But resist the urge. You’ll be better served looking at every angle and coming up with a measured response, the way a good newspaper story does. That’s always going to trump the emotionally-charged outbursts of reality TV (assuming you want to keep your job). Where drama’s concerned, what’s good for TV is bad for business.

Nadira says:
I’m all for a measured response, but angry coworkers or critical bosses can be as tough as any ultimate fighter, and chances are a well-written story isn’t going to be much help. But what is reality TV for if not dramatic situations? Like you said, once you’ve played “20 questions designed to dissolve you” with Donald Trump or Project Runway’s Nina Garcia, a plain old evaluation from your boss probably won’t faze you. And, hi, if you want to learn how to handle yourself in the midst of unmanageable chaos, look no further than Supernanny Jo Frost, whose workplace, like so many of ours, features huge crybabies, crazy clients, and all kinds of anger management issues. So if you need is a good lesson in confident, creative conflict-resolution, turn on JoJo. No, I mean it. Seriously.

WINNER: Reality TV. Because you have to see crazy people to believe them.

Lesson 6: Who’s Cool Around the Water-Cooler?

Jake says:
In the words (and spelling) of MC Hammer, “U Can’t Touch This”. The water cooler is an inter-office retreat where the stress and pressure of the day are abandoned in favor of gossip and irreverence. Global conflicts and local crime rates have no place near the cooler — and giggling and snickering do. No wonder reality television reigns supreme. But most of all, the water cooler is about circulation. And the combined daily circulation of USA Today, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal is only a fraction of the 30 million people watch every episode of American Idol. If you want to make water cooler friends, Simon Cowell is your best bet.

Nadira says:
This is one place where newspapers simply have to bow to the juggernaut that is reality TV. Because while you may impress a superior or two with your weekend news items, once you’re dealing with people you actually know, they’d probably much rather talk about the latest American Idol or Top Chef than that hot front-page story in the paper that they were too tired to read all weekend. So while you should have a few paper gems in your back pocket, in the unlikely event your CEO drops by the water cooler huddle and doesn’t want to hear your predictions for America’s Next Top Model, I’m probably going to have to defer to Jake on this one…

WINNER: Reality TV. Because 30 million people can’t all be wrong — and even if they are, you want them to like you!

Lesson 7: No Direction, No Hope

Jake says:
(Note: Like Arnold in Terminator 2, I recognize and accept that I am going to get killed in this episode.) The beauty of reality TV is that we get to witness the struggles of young people who are searching for direction. Unlike newsworthy characters in the paper, reality TV characters are not at the top of their professional game. If they were, they wouldn’t have time to flirt with Bret Michaels or kayak around the world on The Amazing Race. (Even the (so-called) celebrities on VH1’s Celeb-reality programming are unsure of their career trajectory.) But we get to learn from and laugh at their mistakes. We learn that it’s okay to be vaguely ambitious. And we learn that it’s not okay to swim naked in a fish tank (on camera) like Isaac did in The Real World: Sydney, as that could affect your chances of landing a job in the future.

Nadira says:
Just watch the Real World Awards Bash ‘08, and it’s clear reality TV can show you which direction not to go. Case in point: your poor, hilarious, aquarium-diving Isaac, who seemed to be only half-joking when he said in his update that he was now living in a friend’s basement, stealing to eat, and grateful to MTV for ruining his life. So please, for the love of all things holy, do not look to reality TV to plan your life. Open instead the pages, be they paper or web, of your favorite newspaper and read it all. Use the real estate listings to plan your future as a homeowner. Transition from college chic to yo-pro appropriate with the style section. Oh, and consider scanning the actual news, since the kind of person you want to become would probably like to know at least as much about American politics as about Celebreality.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because Bret Michaels’ groupies may be relatable, but you should probably be aiming for “respectable.”

FINAL SCORE: Newspapers 4; Reality TV 3

And there you have it, sports fans — the exciting conclusion to The Gig’s first-ever face-off. Those defenders of the written word out there can breathe easy for the time being, as newspapers pulled it out in the end. But we wouldn’t get too comfortable. Reality TV, long maligned as a straight line to procrastination and increased stupidity for young people everywhere, almost squeaked by. And that, combined with that stat from the New Yorker about newspapers going extinct somewhere around 2043 (you laugh, I link), would have me worried, paper-people. But for now, keep reading your Posts, Tribunes, Chronicles, and Times(es). And watching The Hills, of course. Good (job) hunting.

When I heard about Whoa! My Boss is Naked: A Career Book for People Who Would Never Be Caught Dead Reading a Career Book from a friend, I wasn’t exactly rearing to read it. While we’ve been planning lots more books coverage on The Gig, there are 50 terrible career books like this for each good one, and this one happened to be written by a Stanford classmate, Jake Greene, who, while I didn’t know him personally, was widely held to be a pretty nice guy with good ideas and access to all my personal contact information through the alumni page.

So while I steeled myself for the brush-off I’d inevitably have to give him, I gave it a flip-through. And found chapter titles like, “Get Up, Get Out, and Do Something: Fold up the futon. It’s time to get your hands dirty,” and, “40-Year-Old Q&A: Lessons in BS from Hollywood’s favorite virgin.” Then there was the “Toolish Tendencies Test” in the appendix. And once I was wooed enough to actually read, the winning opening line: “This is not another ‘Corporate Tools for Corporate Tools’ handbook.”

There was something, it seemed, to this Jake Greene guy’s approach. In fact, the 28-year-old marketing consultant was a little unexpected himself. He’s married, wore a suit(!) to meet me, and would rather talk on the real phone than e-mail or text. And he hasn’t always wanted to write a book to share his wisdom. (Hah.) Whoa! grew out of his observations on the road working for a real-estate development startup, a collection of journal entries that eventually started to look like a book.

So to start us off in our ‘08 books conversation, I thought we’d take a more unorthodox approach with this one and have some fun (before getting back to the serious stuff, of course). In Whoa!, Greene argues that pop culture’s a great prep tool for twentysomethings in the job market, especially since we all for the most part grew up on it — Cosby Show, Full House, everything ever aired on MTV. And that’s even more true today, with the rise of reality TV and all its contrived challenges.

So we decided to put some of Jake’s thinking to the test. He and I spent some time watching reality TV and reading major newspapers, then settled in to argue high-school-debate-style about which wins out in the arenas that matter, from initiative to interviewing skills, and pick winners in each. Of course, being that, as writers and Yers, we love both papers and pop culture, we had a hard time picking sides, so we tried to switch it up in each category, to keep it fair and fresh — and allow us to show all our embarrassing knowledge of the highs and lows of modern media. And when we were done, we tallied the score to crown the king of the Newspapers v. Reality TV smack-down.

So what’s better a primer for the Gen Y job-seeker? Supernanny or the New York Times? Read on to find out…

And see a quick, photo-filled version here

Lesson 1: Building a Better Resume

Nadira says:
What better resume-builder is there than the New York Times? There’s the actual careers coverage, of course, but take something like the Vows section. Every Sunday, it forces dozens of couples to distill their lives into a few hundred choice words, a skill we could all use. And what is a newspaper profile but an inside look at what people remember, how they remember it, and the many ways in which it can be spun. Which, after all, is what a good resume is all about. But perhaps the best part of reading a paper is the collected quirkyness of it—a place where politicians and athletes appear alongside Portishead and the Brooklyn Flea Market, a recent Sunday Times. It’s that kind of energy that makes the best resumes, and nothing captures it quite like a good newspaper.

Jake says:
I like your material and memory argument, but the Vows section? Really? Also, if you want to see writers mingle with washed-up band members, watch The Surreal Life. Reality TV shows viewers what can happen if they don’t take their resumes seriously. Every season premiere of The Bachelor/Bachelorette is full of “customer service specialists” (waiters) and “entrepreneurs” (unemployed slackers). These upgrades are easier to spot than Janice Dickinson’s “cosmetic enhancements.” And what about how your prioritize your experience? My sister reminded me that Erik from Survivor is identified as “Ice Cream Scooper.” My guess is Erik — who’s also an an Eastern Michigan University student and athlete — listed his part-time dairy duties a bit too high on his Survivor application.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because we’d rather be worth a Vows column than end up an ice-cream scooper.

Lesson 2: A Little Initiative Goes a Long Way

Nadira says:
It’s not easy to end up on reality TV. Witness the crazy lines of people hoping to be the next American idol, top model, or Real World, um, star. Never mind the ones who do multiple shows. That takes work! But for true reality initiative, look no further than Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Just about every episode has the sisters taking on some new challenge head-on. Like the time brother Rob wouldn’t introduce them to his new girl. Solution? Steal her number from his phone and interrogate her over coffee, of course. Khloe refuses to get a boyfriend? Secretly sign her up for a dating site. Duh! Even 12-year-old Kendall gets in the act. Offered some cash for chores, she contracts the work out to the local dog-walker at sweat-shop rates. Ethically questionable, for sure, but ingenious nonetheless.

Jake says:
Every issue of every newspaper is filled with people showing initiative, whether in business, sports, entertainment, or at the community level. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find stories in the paper in which nobody showed any initiative. Read about that ambition and it just might rub off. Beyond that, it takes initiative on the part of the reporters to track down stories and sources. (Significantly more initiative, I might add, then it takes Flava Flav to read cue cards.) And it takes initiative to report the news in real-time. And to meet deadlines every day in order to produce a respectable product. Stop every once in a while to appreciate the efficiency and perseverance it takes to (in the words of Project Runway’s Tim Gunn) “Make it Work,” and hope that rubs off on you, too.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because you need to learn the right kind of initiative, not the kind that ends in labor abuses.

Lesson 3: The Art of the Interview

Jake says:
Just turn on Bravo. The “face-the-judges” portion of any Project Runway or Top Chef episode provides both effective and tragic strategies for handling tough interview questions. And the people answering aren’t seasoned industry leaders like the experts in the paper. They’re young, inexperienced, and prone to making mistakes we can learn from. The same goes for dating shows. Many writers (myself included) liken the interview process to dating — both involve anticipation, conversation, humiliation, and (if you get lucky) consummation. And that makes dating shows, with their over-the-top characters doing all the wrong things, like instructional videos for interviewing. Great example: I think Daisy from Rock of Love said “like” and “ya know?” at least 50 times during her video testimonials. Yikes.

Nadira says:
Point taken. What can compete with Daisy’s wide eyes and red lips, whatever the heck they’re saying? Still, the one place a newspaper really can help you is in an actual interview. Because I can’t tell you how many recruiters have told me that they’ve been most put off by candidates’ total lack of current events knowledge — in their industry and in general. And sure you could Google that info, but chances are that Google’d take you to a story that somewhere, sometime, came from a newspaper journalist. And no, cable news is not a viable alternative; you do not want to remind your interviewer of a vaguely interested anchor glossing over the meaningful issues and packaging the rest for maximum sensationalist effect. So read, for crying out loud.

WINNER: Reality TV. Because reading can’t make you sweat like Heidi Klum can.

Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll find out if Bret Michaels really can help you plan for the future…

When I heard about Whoa! My Boss is Naked: A Career Book for People Who Would Never Be Caught Dead Reading a Career Book from a friend, I wasn’t exactly rearing to read it. While we’ve been planning lots more books coverage on The Gig, there are 50 terrible career books like this for each good one, and this one happened to be written by a Stanford classmate, Jake Greene, who, while I didn’t know him personally, was widely held to be a pretty nice guy with good ideas and access to all my personal contact information through the alumni page.

So while I steeled myself for the brush-off I’d inevitably have to give him, I gave it a flip-through. And found chapter titles like, “Get Up, Get Out, and Do Something: Fold up the futon. It’s time to get your hands dirty,” and, “40-Year-Old Q&A: Lessons in BS from Hollywood’s favorite virgin.” Then there was the “Toolish Tendencies Test” in the appendix. And once I was wooed enough to actually read, the winning opening line: “This is not another ‘Corporate Tools for Corporate Tools’ handbook.”

There was something, it seemed, to this Jake Greene guy’s approach. In fact, the 28-year-old marketing consultant was a little unexpected himself. He’s married, wore a suit(!) to meet me, and would rather talk on the real phone than e-mail or text. And he hasn’t always wanted to write a book to share his wisdom. (Hah.) Whoa! grew out of his observations on the road working for a real-estate development startup, a collection of journal entries that eventually started to look like a book.

So to start us off in our ‘08 books conversation, I thought we’d take a more unorthodox approach with this one and have some fun (before getting back to the serious stuff, of course). In Whoa!, Greene argues that pop culture’s a great prep tool for twentysomethings in the job market, especially since we all for the most part grew up on it — Cosby Show, Full House, everything ever aired on MTV. And that’s even more true today, with the rise of reality TV and all its contrived challenges.

So we decided to put some of Jake’s thinking to the test. He and I spent some time watching reality TV and reading major newspapers, then settled in to argue high-school-debate-style about which wins out in the arenas that matter, from initiative to interviewing skills, and pick winners in each. Of course, being that, as writers and Yers, we love both papers and pop culture, we had a hard time picking sides, so we tried to switch it up in each category, to keep it fair and fresh — and allow us to show all our embarrassing knowledge of the highs and lows of modern media. And when we were done, we tallied the score to crown the king of the Newspapers v. Reality TV smack-down.

So what’s better a primer for the Gen Y job-seeker? Supernanny or the New York Times? Read on to find out…

And see a quick, photo-filled version here

Lesson 1: Building a Better Resume

Nadira says:
What better resume-builder is there than the New York Times? There’s the actual careers coverage, of course, but take something like the Vows section. Every Sunday, it forces dozens of couples to distill their lives into a few hundred choice words, a skill we could all use. And what is a newspaper profile but an inside look at what people remember, how they remember it, and the many ways in which it can be spun. Which, after all, is what a good resume is all about. But perhaps the best part of reading a paper is the collected quirkyness of it—a place where politicians and athletes appear alongside Portishead and the Brooklyn Flea Market, a recent Sunday Times. It’s that kind of energy that makes the best resumes, and nothing captures it quite like a good newspaper.

Jake says:
I like your material and memory argument, but the Vows section? Really? Also, if you want to see writers mingle with washed-up band members, watch The Surreal Life. Reality TV shows viewers what can happen if they don’t take their resumes seriously. Every season premiere of The Bachelor/Bachelorette is full of “customer service specialists” (waiters) and “entrepreneurs” (unemployed slackers). These upgrades are easier to spot than Janice Dickinson’s “cosmetic enhancements.” And what about how your prioritize your experience? My sister reminded me that Erik from Survivor is identified as “Ice Cream Scooper.” My guess is Erik — who’s also an an Eastern Michigan University student and athlete — listed his part-time dairy duties a bit too high on his Survivor application.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because we’d rather be worth a Vows column than end up an ice-cream scooper.

Lesson 2: A Little Initiative Goes a Long Way

Nadira says:
It’s not easy to end up on reality TV. Witness the crazy lines of people hoping to be the next American idol, top model, or Real World, um, star. Never mind the ones who do multiple shows. That takes work! But for true reality initiative, look no further than Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Just about every episode has the sisters taking on some new challenge head-on. Like the time brother Rob wouldn’t introduce them to his new girl. Solution? Steal her number from his phone and interrogate her over coffee, of course. Khloe refuses to get a boyfriend? Secretly sign her up for a dating site. Duh! Even 12-year-old Kendall gets in the act. Offered some cash for chores, she contracts the work out to the local dog-walker at sweat-shop rates. Ethically questionable, for sure, but ingenious nonetheless.

Jake says:
Every issue of every newspaper is filled with people showing initiative, whether in business, sports, entertainment, or at the community level. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find stories in the paper in which nobody showed any initiative. Read about that ambition and it just might rub off. Beyond that, it takes initiative on the part of the reporters to track down stories and sources. (Significantly more initiative, I might add, then it takes Flava Flav to read cue cards.) And it takes initiative to report the news in real-time. And to meet deadlines every day in order to produce a respectable product. Stop every once in a while to appreciate the efficiency and perseverance it takes to (in the words of Project Runway’s Tim Gunn) “Make it Work,” and hope that rubs off on you, too.

WINNER: Newspapers. Because you need to learn the right kind of initiative, not the kind that ends in labor abuses.

Lesson 3: The Art of the Interview

Jake says:
Just turn on Bravo. The “face-the-judges” portion of any Project Runway or Top Chef episode provides both effective and tragic strategies for handling tough interview questions. And the people answering aren’t seasoned industry leaders like the experts in the paper. They’re young, inexperienced, and prone to making mistakes we can learn from. The same goes for dating shows. Many writers (myself included) liken the interview process to dating — both involve anticipation, conversation, humiliation, and (if you get lucky) consummation. And that makes dating shows, with their over-the-top characters doing all the wrong things, like instructional videos for interviewing. Great example: I think Daisy from Rock of Love said “like” and “ya know?” at least 50 times during her video testimonials. Yikes.

Nadira says:
Point taken. What can compete with Daisy’s wide eyes and red lips, whatever the heck they’re saying? Still, the one place a newspaper really can help you is in an actual interview. Because I can’t tell you how many recruiters have told me that they’ve been most put off by candidates’ total lack of current events knowledge — in their industry and in general. And sure you could Google that info, but chances are that Google’d take you to a story that somewhere, sometime, came from a newspaper journalist. And no, cable news is not a viable alternative; you do not want to remind your interviewer of a vaguely interested anchor glossing over the meaningful issues and packaging the rest for maximum sensationalist effect. So read, for crying out loud.

WINNER: Reality TV. Because reading can’t make you sweat like Heidi Klum can.

Stay tuned for next week, when we’ll find out if Bret Michaels really can help you plan for the future…

Hello, everybody! Hope your 2008 is off to an amazing start, and despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not in fact fled to a foreign country in an effort to shirk my Gig duties. Actually, I got a nasty flu and decided to spare you guys the NyQuil-induced ramblings. (And hey, I did say I’d be back in January, and technically, it is still January, right? )

But it was lovely to come back to your sweet letters, and Gig reader Juan gets a special shout-out for threatening to seek therapy if I didn’t get back to work. So in the interest of Juan’s mental health — and let’s be honest, my own; I missed you guys! — let’s get to it. We’ve got some new stuff in store that I’ll be excited to get your thoughts on, but in the New Year’s tradition, I thought we’d start with a bit of reflection. By that I mean, it’s been a few weeks since last we spoke, and in my acetaminophen haze, I had a lot of time to think. So today, friends, I’m going to torture you with…

WHAT I LEARNED OVER THE BREAK

(or “5 maudlin semi-epiphanies that are sure to infuriate Yadgyu, which only further motivates me to share them”)

Be forewarned, I really have missed you guys, and it shows in the treatise that follows. So apologies in advance. And in case you don’t make it to the end, we’d love to hear about your recent semi-epiphanies, so comment away.

1. We’re too old to spend two straight weeks at Mom’s.

Remember when you used to come home on a break and, as annoyed as you might’ve been at your parents, you kind of loved vegging at home? Well, I think those days might need to be over, at least for me and all of the other should-be independent twentysomething people we know and love.

Regular readers have probably by now ascertained that my family’s pretty tight (i.e. if we were any closer, we’d be sardines). And yet, when the kids decided that this holiday, we’d kick it old school and spend all our time off at Mom’s, we didn’t really know what we were in for.

Our hearts were in the right place; this was her first Christmas in a new house and we wanted to give her as many opportunities to cook ginormous meals as possible. But seriously, by about Dec. 28, we’d each gained 10 pounds and reverted to our worst, whiniest, most awfully teenage incarnation.

So while it’s true what we’ve often said here — that while for many Yers, there’s often nothing our moms would like better than to have us home — it’s time to have our own homes! And maybe even host our own holiday parties! The kind our parents can come to, with, like, real wine and no passing out. Sheesh.

2. We’re not too old to play Wii till 4 a.m.

The preceding tirade notwithstanding, it turns out that one good thing about regressing to childhood at home is remembering that there are some seemingly childish things that are pretty darn awesome — including, but not limited to, the Wii, hot chocolate, Legos and Animal Planet.

And incredibly, when you indulge (a bit) in these extravagances, you often come to the realization that this stuff is at least as cool as standing around at a cocktail party trying to sound smart and wishing you were home watching Adult Swim. Which is what I for one often found myself doing when I got my first real gig and suddenly started worrying about being taken seriously by my legitimately grown-up colleagues.

But as I get legitimately older myself (officially identified a wrinkle, FYI) and vaguely more secure, I’m finding that my favorite Gen Y “characteristics,” to the extent that those exist, are all our little paradoxes. Love the environment/drive an SUV. Most educated people ever/obsessed with MTV. Grew up too fast/can’t get out of our parents’ houses to save our lives. (And before you letter-writers get going, I am speaking very generally here, folks.)

So yes, sure we want to be — and should want to be — adults, but a little Wii never hurt anyone. At least not if you keep your Wii jacket on, take breaks, and clear all the furniture out of your living room. And more importantly, it does keep you from turning into into Holden Caulfield’s long-lost angstier twin, even if you do spend an eternity at your Mom’s.

3. We’re finally just old enough to learn the good stuff.

There was an upside to the aforementioned eternity, though. When we were small, our mom worked a full day; cooked dinner every evening; sewed, papier-mâché’d, and otherwise “project”ed with us every night; and still found time to be best friends with our teachers and know all our business.

As a kid, you take that good stuff for granted and ask yourself why, oh, why, you’ve been cursed with a mom who won’t just take you to McDonald’s. By the time you go away to school, you appreciate it enough to miss the nourishment, but not quite enough to understand the labor. But once you’re out in the world with a real job and bills to pay, well, then you start to get it. (Forget kids; my fish would file a petition of neglect if they could.)

Talk about your self-esteem killers. My poor sister and I will so never be as anything as our mom. Which is why this break, what with the eternity we spent at home, we actually got the chance to ask some questions and learn some things. And not the encyclopedia factoids and oft-repeated lectures we groaned at in our argumentative youth, either. But some things that are actually worth knowing, like recipes for the West Indian dishes we grew up eating, the patterns for our favorite sundresses, and the full-length versions of family ghost stories we’ve been hearing in snippets for years.

It shouldn’t be all that long before we (gasp) have our own children, and if we want to be even decent approximations of the good older people in our lives, we’d better start asking the right questions now. There isn’t much of a precedent for that in our country, and goodness knows we Yers are sometimes considered the worst offenders when it comes to valuing our elders, but I do know that we value expertise, and more often than not, the people who raised us have some that’s worth sharing.

4. Sometimes, you just have to say, “Look how amazing I am.”

As little as we know, there is something to be said for a little self-affirmation in spite of it all. Consider my brother Kamran, the RIT freshman. We’re all sitting at the dinner table over the holiday, chatting away, and our mom gets a call from one of the engineers at her office, who was dealing with a problem. She hangs up, shares some (general and totally over my head) details with us, and Kam says, “Oh, so he has to replace the filament.” Mom says something along the lines of, “Yes, precisely, exactly, quite right,” our collective eyes glaze over, and somewhere in the ensuing self-absorbed silence, Kam says to himself, and I kid you not: “Look at how amazing I am.”

Laughter, of course, erupts. But he’s so far off in his own world that he seems a tad confused about the reaction, still smiling to himself over his little triumph. Obviously, he suffered merciless derision the rest of the holiday (for this and his sheepish admission that, until this Christmas, he thought Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” was in fact called “Hullabaloo Christmas” — classic).

But my mom rightly pointed out that for a kid who, after getting his first 80-something on an elementary school spelling test, spent the entire afternoon with a sheet over his face, emerging only to cry, “I’m the only one who gets B’s in the family,” some quiet self-regard was a big deal, as it should be. So regard yourself quietly, and remember how amazing you are. Just don’t tell your siblings, if they’re the sort that, you know, live to mock you.

5. A good job is like a good boyfriend.

And that, dear readers, is why I’ve been gone so long. Because, if I’m being honest, I’d tried to open my apartment door with my office key just one too many times. And had even answered my cell phone, “Fortune,” on more than one occasion. Never mind the sad realization that, as far as my brain was concerned, I’d used and abused every word I had to give, and might in fact have had nothing left to say. My work boundaries were so fluid that I was drowning on and off the job, and that does not a good life — or good Gig writing — make.

But as the proverbial “they” say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. And with a few weeks away from you and the real-life boyfriend, I’ve returned excited to see you both, with new and (I hope) interesting things to talk about, and a fair amount of starry-eyed optimism about what this year might hold. If you’ve read this far, you’re feeling pretty optimistic, too (certainly about the outside possibility that this’ll end up being worthwhile reading ). And you can probably also tell that, whatever I might say, as monstrously long as this post has been, I obviously missed writing to and for you. And that’s just the kind of re-discovery I’m hoping is in store for all of us. So here’s to making our work work for us in 2008. It’s going to be fun.

Allrighty then. Guess I did miss pontificating with you guys. But now that we’re done with that, on to the 56 million new posts I’ve been planning. And in the meantime, if my musings got you to thinking, let us know what you learned — or un-learned — since last we blogged…

Hello, everybody! Hope your 2008 is off to an amazing start, and despite all appearances to the contrary, I have not in fact fled to a foreign country in an effort to shirk my Gig duties. Actually, I got a nasty flu and decided to spare you guys the NyQuil-induced ramblings. (And hey, I did say I’d be back in January, and technically, it is still January, right? )

But it was lovely to come back to your sweet letters, and Gig reader Juan gets a special shout-out for threatening to seek therapy if I didn’t get back to work. So in the interest of Juan’s mental health — and let’s be honest, my own; I missed you guys! — let’s get to it. We’ve got some new stuff in store that I’ll be excited to get your thoughts on, but in the New Year’s tradition, I thought we’d start with a bit of reflection. By that I mean, it’s been a few weeks since last we spoke, and in my acetaminophen haze, I had a lot of time to think. So today, friends, I’m going to torture you with…

WHAT I LEARNED OVER THE BREAK

(or “5 maudlin semi-epiphanies that are sure to infuriate Yadgyu, which only further motivates me to share them”)

Be forewarned, I really have missed you guys, and it shows in the treatise that follows. So apologies in advance. And in case you don’t make it to the end, we’d love to hear about your recent semi-epiphanies, so comment away.

1. We’re too old to spend two straight weeks at Mom’s.

Remember when you used to come home on a break and, as annoyed as you might’ve been at your parents, you kind of loved vegging at home? Well, I think those days might need to be over, at least for me and all of the other should-be independent twentysomething people we know and love.

Regular readers have probably by now ascertained that my family’s pretty tight (i.e. if we were any closer, we’d be sardines). And yet, when the kids decided that this holiday, we’d kick it old school and spend all our time off at Mom’s, we didn’t really know what we were in for.

Our hearts were in the right place; this was her first Christmas in a new house and we wanted to give her as many opportunities to cook ginormous meals as possible. But seriously, by about Dec. 28, we’d each gained 10 pounds and reverted to our worst, whiniest, most awfully teenage incarnation.

So while it’s true what we’ve often said here — that while for many Yers, there’s often nothing our moms would like better than to have us home — it’s time to have our own homes! And maybe even host our own holiday parties! The kind our parents can come to, with, like, real wine and no passing out. Sheesh.

2. We’re not too old to play Wii till 4 a.m.

The preceding tirade notwithstanding, it turns out that one good thing about regressing to childhood at home is remembering that there are some seemingly childish things that are pretty darn awesome — including, but not limited to, the Wii, hot chocolate, Legos and Animal Planet.

And incredibly, when you indulge (a bit) in these extravagances, you often come to the realization that this stuff is at least as cool as standing around at a cocktail party trying to sound smart and wishing you were home watching Adult Swim. Which is what I for one often found myself doing when I got my first real gig and suddenly started worrying about being taken seriously by my legitimately grown-up colleagues.

But as I get legitimately older myself (officially identified a wrinkle, FYI) and vaguely more secure, I’m finding that my favorite Gen Y “characteristics,” to the extent that those exist, are all our little paradoxes. Love the environment/drive an SUV. Most educated people ever/obsessed with MTV. Grew up too fast/can’t get out of our parents’ houses to save our lives. (And before you letter-writers get going, I am speaking very generally here, folks.)

So yes, sure we want to be — and should want to be — adults, but a little Wii never hurt anyone. At least not if you keep your Wii jacket on, take breaks, and clear all the furniture out of your living room. And more importantly, it does keep you from turning into into Holden Caulfield’s long-lost angstier twin, even if you do spend an eternity at your Mom’s.

3. We’re finally just old enough to learn the good stuff.

There was an upside to the aforementioned eternity, though. When we were small, our mom worked a full day; cooked dinner every evening; sewed, papier-mâché’d, and otherwise “project”ed with us every night; and still found time to be best friends with our teachers and know all our business.

As a kid, you take that good stuff for granted and ask yourself why, oh, why, you’ve been cursed with a mom who won’t just take you to McDonald’s. By the time you go away to school, you appreciate it enough to miss the nourishment, but not quite enough to understand the labor. But once you’re out in the world with a real job and bills to pay, well, then you start to get it. (Forget kids; my fish would file a petition of neglect if they could.)

Talk about your self-esteem killers. My poor sister and I will so never be as anything as our mom. Which is why this break, what with the eternity we spent at home, we actually got the chance to ask some questions and learn some things. And not the encyclopedia factoids and oft-repeated lectures we groaned at in our argumentative youth, either. But some things that are actually worth knowing, like recipes for the West Indian dishes we grew up eating, the patterns for our favorite sundresses, and the full-length versions of family ghost stories we’ve been hearing in snippets for years.

It shouldn’t be all that long before we (gasp) have our own children, and if we want to be even decent approximations of the good older people in our lives, we’d better start asking the right questions now. There isn’t much of a precedent for that in our country, and goodness knows we Yers are sometimes considered the worst offenders when it comes to valuing our elders, but I do know that we value expertise, and more often than not, the people who raised us have some that’s worth sharing.

4. Sometimes, you just have to say, “Look how amazing I am.”

As little as we know, there is something to be said for a little self-affirmation in spite of it all. Consider my brother Kamran, the RIT freshman. We’re all sitting at the dinner table over the holiday, chatting away, and our mom gets a call from one of the engineers at her office, who was dealing with a problem. She hangs up, shares some (general and totally over my head) details with us, and Kam says, “Oh, so he has to replace the filament.” Mom says something along the lines of, “Yes, precisely, exactly, quite right,” our collective eyes glaze over, and somewhere in the ensuing self-absorbed silence, Kam says to himself, and I kid you not: “Look at how amazing I am.”

Laughter, of course, erupts. But he’s so far off in his own world that he seems a tad confused about the reaction, still smiling to himself over his little triumph. Obviously, he suffered merciless derision the rest of the holiday (for this and his sheepish admission that, until this Christmas, he thought Elvis Presley’s “Blue Christmas” was in fact called “Hullabaloo Christmas” — classic).

But my mom rightly pointed out that for a kid who, after getting his first 80-something on an elementary school spelling test, spent the entire afternoon with a sheet over his face, emerging only to cry, “I’m the only one who gets B’s in the family,” some quiet self-regard was a big deal, as it should be. So regard yourself quietly, and remember how amazing you are. Just don’t tell your siblings, if they’re the sort that, you know, live to mock you.

5. A good job is like a good boyfriend.

And that, dear readers, is why I’ve been gone so long. Because, if I’m being honest, I’d tried to open my apartment door with my office key just one too many times. And had even answered my cell phone, “Fortune,” on more than one occasion. Never mind the sad realization that, as far as my brain was concerned, I’d used and abused every word I had to give, and might in fact have had nothing left to say. My work boundaries were so fluid that I was drowning on and off the job, and that does not a good life — or good Gig writing — make.

But as the proverbial “they” say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. And with a few weeks away from you and the real-life boyfriend, I’ve returned excited to see you both, with new and (I hope) interesting things to talk about, and a fair amount of starry-eyed optimism about what this year might hold. If you’ve read this far, you’re feeling pretty optimistic, too (certainly about the outside possibility that this’ll end up being worthwhile reading ). And you can probably also tell that, whatever I might say, as monstrously long as this post has been, I obviously missed writing to and for you. And that’s just the kind of re-discovery I’m hoping is in store for all of us. So here’s to making our work work for us in 2008. It’s going to be fun.

Allrighty then. Guess I did miss pontificating with you guys. But now that we’re done with that, on to the 56 million new posts I’ve been planning. And in the meantime, if my musings got you to thinking, let us know what you learned — or un-learned — since last we blogged…

So I see no one wants to take the plunge commenting on parents, so while you all ponder that, check out our latest bit of Gig-related video. This one’s on holiday parties, growing out of last week’s post on surviving these affairs.

And actually, since writing that piece, my neighbor has clued me in to another important aspect of navigating the holiday party scene: height. Apparently — and being a tallish person who lives in heels, I hadn’t given this much thought before — people who skew a bit shorter can have a hard time picking their way through the forest of colleagues. So if that’s you, anticipate it — if you can, wear heels, and if not, stake out a vantage point on higher ground. (Laugh if you want, but we talk real, practical issues here!)

As for video itself, it’s been a fun and functional addition to what we do here, and I’m glad to hear that some of you are liking it. I must confess that, being the reclusive writer-type at heart (no, really), it was already a little strange to have not just the formal, feature-length, agonized-over-for-weeks words out there, but also all the informal — sometimes flip, angry, unfair or downright dumb — words I’ve been inspired to blog floating around the universe, too. Add television and video to that, and one can begin to feel, as a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism student put it to me recently, “more like a marketer than a writer.”

Of course, writing’s not worth much if no one ever reads it, so maybe this is the direction things have to go and we just have to get used to it. Thoughts? Will you be less likely to snuggle up to that New Yorker or Harper’s if the superstar septuagenarians aren’t keeping vlogs for your viewing pleasure? Or will you end up respecting the rest of us — those of us who do vlog and the like — a little less?

On the way back from a biz trip to Miami last week, I picked up a copy of Details, enticed by the “Ultimate Guide to Office Etiquette” coverline. Leaving aside for the moment how much of a dork this makes me — after all, I do it for you guys — turns out I probably should have paid more attention to the ones that asked, “Are You Dating a ‘Tweenager’?” and “Are Your Parents Squandering Your Inheritance?”

Before you click off in disgust, a bit of explanation: I’ve been struck recently not so much by how Yers have been acting, but how parents are behaving.

Consider the aforementioned Details stories. “Tweenager” decries the 35-going-on-12 woman, the center of a “Big Girl Epidemic” that has grown women wearing babydolls, “OMG”ing all over the place, and shrieking over The Hills. And the inheritance story sports the somewhat alarming headline, “It’s Time To Cut Your Parents Off: Mom and Dad are living it up well into their sixties. Guess who’ll pay for it?” According to the story, a Fidelity Investments survey in March not only found that the average Boomer has saved “a paltry $45,000,” but also that “one in five households led by 25-to-42-year-olds has either begun providing financial support to their parents or expect to soon.”

And if you weren’t frightened enough, just flip a few more pages to “Totally Blonde,” where the Girls Next Door are joined by 40-something Real Housewives of Orange County Lauri Waring and Tamra Barney in an, um, swimsuit photo essay the cover calls, “The California Blondes Taking Over Your Sexual Fantasies.” (Notably absent were either of the housewives’ grown children. I’ll let you Google this one on your own.)

Yikes. Admittedly, on the right day, I too might be called a Big Girl. I love The Hills, have long favored the empire waist, and abbreviate with the best of them — and you know my feelings about emoticons. But that sort of thing is generally reserved for indulgent conversations with my girlfriends, not the general public, and I think many of my peers would say the same. And even then, at 27 — despite a melding of pop culture and youth culture that to some extent legitimizes this hair-twirling act — I can actually feel myself aging out of this demo.

Why, then, are people our moms’ age trying so hard to be twentysomethings again? And if they were, was it judgmental to begrudge them that? It’s not as if it hurts us. If Housewife Waring wants to look her kids’ age — as she told Details, “I will never look a day older than 32″ — and she can, well, good for her. Maybe.

Even as I was pondering these pressing questions, what should come on but Keeping Up With the Kardashians, featuring another mom gone wild, Kris Jenner, whose necklines, hemlines, naughty mouth, inability to tell the truth, and, oh, everything else often drive even her less than demure daughters to comment. As my friend Jon Caramanica wrote in the LA Times this weekend, “This is a family with severe boundary issues — it is Kris who encourages Kim to pose for Playboy and who cheerily does crisis management about Kim’s sex tape. She seems more interested in the cameras than Kim is.”

And therein lies the problem, right? It does hurt us. Sure, Kim might not have been destined for a Nobel, but with her mom’s expert parenting, she bypassed all the other options and went straight to reality TV caricature and sex object. And the saddest part is, whatever Kim’s feelings about her “career,” she’s obviously living out her mom’s dream. It takes stage-mothering to a whole different place, moving it from behind the scenes to an embarrassing front-and-center.

It isn’t so much that I want our moms to become decrepit hags, rocking away their twilight years over embroidery and weak tea. I appreciate the desire to stay youthful, and the need to build friendships with one’s children — based in part on shared interests and tastes — but surely succumbing to these pressures at the expense of good parenting isn’t the answer. Rather, it’d be awesome if our parents would both take care of themselves and act like adults, so as to, you know, set an example. (Maybe forgo that tanning session for an episode of What Not to Wear; Stacy London would set ‘em straight.) And it’s not to suggest that these parents don’t love their children; in fact, I’d bet that if they really knew how their actions would affect their children in the long-term, they’d be horrified and repentant.

But obviously, they don’t know. And the children (we) do end up paying for it. It’s something we first mentioned on The Gig in our “Gen Y on ‘60 Minutes’” post — the idea that if we’re not acting our age, it might just be because our parents aren’t either. Perhaps our helicoptering parents put too much of their own lives on hold for us, and now, finally able to do their own thing, they’re overdoing it. Clearly, I’m not sure exactly how I feel yet, but I bet some of you are. What do you think? Is this a case of out-of-control parents, or uptight kids? Or is it just a matter of our parents trying to live their best — albeit somewhat irresponsible — lives, which in the end, is exactly what we want, too?

*****

Friend of The Gig Christine Hassler is looking for a few good stories:

The co-authors of “Chicken Soup for the Twenty-Something Soul” are putting together a collection of inspiring, moving, and funny stories to warm the hearts and soothe the souls of twenty-somethings. And they want YOUR story! This is your shot to inspire others AND be published. (And, we pay!) Deadline to submit your Twenty-Something Story is January 1st. For more details, click here.

On the road again talking some Gen Y smack, but wanted to float a few things past you while I have a few minutes.

First, have been meaning to bring up the recent Ask Bing, “I’m worth more than $28K a year,” and get your thoughts. If you haven’t read it, a recent college grad in the throes of a challenging job search wrote in to lament his situation: “Everyone wants experience but no one is willing to give it to me. Not to be arrogant I just genuinely believe that I am worth more than $28,000 a year.” Of course, Bing gives him a talking to and ultimately advises finding a job “that, in a way, you might just do for free,” to make waiting for that big payoff easier.

And he’s right. No matter where you come from and what your expectations are, the realities of the job market don’t really allow for huge salaries and major titles right away. But this is a common area of contention, for both recruiters and recruits. (Bing echoes the refrain of many put-upon recruiters when he says, ” “I can’t tell you how many people I interview these days who, having just gotten out of school, want a vice president title and bag of cash just for showing up.”) While I tend to agree with Bing’s assessment, it’s clear from your own comments on posts like “Money v. meaningful work, the battle continues” that there’s a bit of disagreement on this point.

For me, though, taking the “passion” gig isn’t just about following your heart or any other such hippie-dippy swill; the fact is that if you take a job you love, you’re far more likely to rock it. And that experience will help you get that bigger, better-paying job faster than holding out for what you think you deserve (i.e., filling out endless applications only to have recruiters collapse with laughter at the sight of your salary requirements). My first job didn’t pay much more than that $28,000, but what I learned at that scrappy startup made me a lot more attractive to future employers, and before too long I was able to afford both a shoebox in New York City and dinner.

So when young people stress about their meager paychecks, I say think of that first job not as an insult, but as a chance to prove that you actually are worth more than $28,000; it’ll make your first employer value you — and encourage the second to pay you accordingly.

On another note, thanks to Gig reader Sarah W. for passing along Virginia Heffernan’s hi-larious New York Times story, “Sweeping the Clouds Away,” about the recent release of the earliest episodes of Sesame Street, volumes 1 and 2 of which apparently “may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” If people think we Yers were coddled, heaven help us when today’s preschool child gets old enough for work.

Cookie Monster doesn’t even do his Alistair Cookie bit anymore, mostly because of the pipe. I’m not sure I want to live in a world without Alistair Cookie. But then, I have a friend who won’t even say the word “die” around his child, because he thinks that knowing things die will be too disturbing for her. (We still haven’t told him that, when her fish died, she said not to tell, because talking about dying was too sad for him.)

Anyone who’s read pre-Disney fairy tales knows that kids have been handling hardships much worse than dead fish for centuries. And that’s helped them to grow up — to take responsibility and fend for themselves. In that light, a little adversity mightn’t be such a bad thing for today’s sheltered youngsters. Which is not, obviously, to say that they — we — are all sheltered, or that they haven’t suffered in their own ways. It’s simply to point out that children born into privilege would probably turn out to be better people if they saw some of the other side growing up, be it with an afterschool job, a volunteering stint, or some of those old school episodes of Sesame Street.

And, lastly, check out our latest Gen Y web video if you haven’t already. Hope you like it, and in the meantime, pray for me; I’m in a hotel with no wireless, and it’s murder. (Cue the “spoiled brat” commentary from Yadgyu ;o).

Everybody’s talking about Britney Spears’ MTV Video Music Awards “performance” today, but what struck me most about the whole over-hyped evening wasn’t that predictable debacle, but how oh-so-hard Viacom’s (VIAB) MTV was trying to be down with the Gen Y audience. It felt a little like watching a high-school quarterback struggling to fit in at his first college frat party. Or as New York Times writer Kelefa Sanneh put it in his review: “More than a quarter-century after MTV made radio stations seem old-fashioned, it’s funny to watch the channel’s executives grapple with new media.”

I’m as ADD as the next Yer, but the race to keep up with the 56 million suite parties, random snippets of live song by sometimes unidentifiable artists, and all the usual intrigue left me breathless. Even the traditionally non-traditional nominee packages were stressful — a computerized voice (challenged by such obscure names as Kanye, which it pronounced KEN-yay) read through the nominees over screens of thumbnail videos with some scrolling, abstract images, and techie sound effects thrown in for good measure. Pretty cool, huh? Oh, wait…

Granted, it’s a tough position for the network, as VMA ratings have dipped and increasingly bad reviews have become the norm. But the answer might just have been to do a better show — from the, you know, performance perspective — than to do the television equivalent of flailing around in hopes of distracting us from the fundamental awfulness. And while I appreciate the conceptual appeal of creating that real party atmosphere, there are parts of the party — bored people who don’t know the songs dancing off the beat, for instance — that I’d just as soon not watch. Especially if it’s at the expense of actual performances of whole songs. (But then, maybe this is just another example of the direction things are going at MTV, which prompted that paragon of activism, Justin Timberlake, to comment last night, “Play more damn videos.”)

If this is what the network thinks we want, then, as a Yer, I’m insulted. Just because we like YouTube doesn’t mean we don’t want or expect quality. One look at the crowd confirms it; as discombobulated as the show was, the starlets and rockers never looked more stylish and put-together. And while, orchestrated properly — i.e., in such a way that it wasn’t painfully obvious no one knew what was going on much of the time — the night-at-the-club VMAs might have worked, this particular one made me want to go home. It’s just bad business. Or maybe, despite my love of The Hills, it’s just that I’ve officially aged out of the MTV demographic. You?

Another story about the death of news — I was starting to miss these! — but unlike the usual Internet-kills-newspapers stuff, this New York Times article focuses on the fact that 18-to-30’s in general aren’t engaging with the news in any meaningful way, Web-based or otherwise. Which, to me, indicates yet another way in which we aren’t going to be able to relate to — or, let’s be honest, impress — many of the people around and above us in the workplace.

Citing a report released last week by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the article points out that, “despite the popular belief that young people are flocking to the Internet, the survey found that teenagers and young adults were twice as likely to get daily news from television than from the Web.”

So not only are we not reading newspapers — only 16% of 18-to-30’s said they read a paper everyday — we’re not actually reading much at all. Instead, we’re relying on the likes of Katie Couric and Jon Stewart — my love for him aside — for our current events updates. And even then, with just a few soundbites and voiceovers to process, our interaction with these stories is still essentially superficial. That might have been all right when everyone assumed we were going to the Web for our hard-hitting stuff, but if Jon’s all we’ve got, well, no wonder the world’s in the state it’s in.

Still, I can’t say that I’m surprised; even I found myself getting dressed to the news on the road last week, rather than trek out in search of a paper or  wireless connection. (If I’m being really honest, I should also confess that by “news,” I mean Good Morning America, the local weather, and whatever happened to be on CNN after those were over.) And I’m a writer.

What does that mean for us, then? In the post-Peter Jennings era, I can hardly stand to sit through an evening news broadcast. And while one of my favorite things to do on Sunday is go back to all the great, long, analysis pieces I haven’t had time to read over the week, I’m not so sure that’s the standard for all those kids growing up with televisions — and XBoxes, and laptops, and whole home entertainment systems — in their own rooms. How are we ever going to succeed in work and life if our world’s getting so small that, at least as far as we seem to be concerned, we’re the only ones in it?

Another story about the death of news — I was starting to miss these! — but unlike the usual Internet-kills-newspapers stuff, this New York Times article focuses on the fact that 18-to-30’s in general aren’t engaging with the news in any meaningful way, Web-based or otherwise. Which, to me, indicates yet another way in which we aren’t going to be able to relate to — or, let’s be honest, impress — many of the people around and above us in the workplace.

Citing a report released last week by the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, the article points out that, “despite the popular belief that young people are flocking to the Internet, the survey found that teenagers and young adults were twice as likely to get daily news from television than from the Web.”

So not only are we not reading newspapers — only 16% of 18-to-30’s said they read a paper everyday — we’re not actually reading much at all. Instead, we’re relying on the likes of Katie Couric and Jon Stewart — my love for him aside — for our current events updates. And even then, with just a few soundbites and voiceovers to process, our interaction with these stories is still essentially superficial. That might have been all right when everyone assumed we were going to the Web for our hard-hitting stuff, but if Jon’s all we’ve got, well, no wonder the world’s in the state it’s in.

Still, I can’t say that I’m surprised; even I found myself getting dressed to the news on the road last week, rather than trek out in search of a paper or  wireless connection. (If I’m being really honest, I should also confess that by “news,” I mean Good Morning America, the local weather, and whatever happened to be on CNN after those were over.) And I’m a writer.

What does that mean for us, then? In the post-Peter Jennings era, I can hardly stand to sit through an evening news broadcast. And while one of my favorite things to do on Sunday is go back to all the great, long, analysis pieces I haven’t had time to read over the week, I’m not so sure that’s the standard for all those kids growing up with televisions — and XBoxes, and laptops, and whole home entertainment systems — in their own rooms. How are we ever going to succeed in work and life if our world’s getting so small that, at least as far as we seem to be concerned, we’re the only ones in it?

Remember Emerging Adulthood, the book by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett which explores the fairly recent trend of twentysomething people living in a kind of extended adolescence, supported in part by our parents and our relative lack of responsibility? If you still happen to be on the fence about this one, a few episodes of Reunited: The Real World Vegas might be useful research.

I’m embarrassingly familiar with this cast of characters. While I was bouncing off the walls at college, they were bouncing off the walls on MTV. We had Real World parties to revel in the madness; they were our (admittedly crazy) friends. And they were our age.

Sadly, they’re still our age. And watching the now “grown-up” bunch fight, get plastered, and hook up — which invariably leads to the trashing of suites, hurting of feelings, and rejoicing of producers — makes me more than a little apprehensive about attending my five-year college reunion this fall. I already knew better than to expect lots of spouses and new babies, but falling-down drunks and casual encounters? Yikes. Guess we really aren’t ready for the party to end. So much so that our shenanigans make for better television than those of the actually college-aged people.

Come to think of it, this sort of speaks to the whole Paris (Hilton, duh) issue, too. For all the people who thought she was mildly amusing/ridiculously sad/a harbinger of cultural doom before, she sure has picked up some high-profile supporters in the wake of her legal woes. Christopher Hitchens likens Paris’s treatment by the public to child abuse, and our own Stanley Bing asks, “Aren’t we all having way too much fun with this? And why?”

Of course, they’re not so much defending Paris as objecting to our collective relishing of her unfortunate situation. And that’s fair. Sitting through a Sarah Silverman set is punishment enough without having to be the butt of her weirdly bad jokes. (I know boys love her — a dollar to the one who can explain why!)

But the fact of the matter is that Paris is 26 years old — i.e., hardly a newborn babe. And there comes a time in all our lives when we kind of sort of have to take responsibility for ourselves and our actions, no? It certainly isn’t nice that so many people are cheering in less than good-natured glee at this particular fall from “grace,” but Paris chose some shaky ground for her pedestal — reality TV, red carpet antics, some supremely annoying pop songs — so this backlash shouldn’t come as a total shock. And if watching her go through it convinces a few of her young female fans that taking the Paris path is so not hot, well, then, I’m all for it. Really, I blame the parents. Then again, at least she has parents.

Are we ever going to grow up, guys? Or are we just in a culture that’ll let us behave this way as long as we’re able? Even as I was conceiving this post in my crankiness yesterday, I was suddenly distracted by the sound of my own voice; VH1’s Fabulous Life of Filthy Rich Billionaires had come on in the background, and I was saying something only vaguely intelligible about Bill Gates’s billions. Sure, I may not be in rehab, but I’m as caught up in this surreal culture as the next guy. Let he who is without sin…