In the beginning doctors had beepers. Practical. They could still have a sort of life, go to the grocery store, a movie and get beeped if there was a medical emergency. But they looked so cool. So important. Excuse me. Can I use your phone? Could be life or death. The rest of us felt a little petty and small staying at the party, hovering by the crab dip and the Pepperidge Farm crackers while the doctors ran off to massage a heart. So Lawyers got beepers. Beep. The judge has a ruling. Gotta run. Beep. You say the brief is completely xeroxed? I’m leaving now. Beeper chic. So we all got um. Truckers. Bartenders, Produce managers. Excuse me. We have a Kiwi delivery on loading dock 4. I probably won’t be back. We all wanted to be important enough to be beeped. Um, sorry I gotta go into work. There’s a cup-a soup spill in the microwave. You can finish my dessert.

But that wasn’t snooty enough. They had to make cell phones. A cell phone implies that you are sought after, that you have friends, family, co workers who need your input 24/7. You are entirely too hip to just walk down street. God forbid someone should think you’re just walking down the street. Who is that lonely person walking down the street? Don’t they have anyone to talk to on a cell phone? How many people are really having conversations and how many are faking it so they won’t look like some socially shunned nonstarter with time on their hands? Look, that couple had dinner together and no one called either of them. What losers.

The cell phone also began the privacy posturing trend. Privacy posturing is when you psyche yourself into thinking you are being private like you psych yourself into thinking cheesy fries are good for you because potatoes are vegetables and cheese is like milk. So you airbrush yourself a nice private life while talking out loud on a cell phone in Wal-mart. I can’t find that stuff for a yeast infection… It is so your fault…. If you hadn’t slept with that skank I wouldn’t be scratching myself bald down there. .. Oh bite me. Pity the poor shopper who just wanted a little Neosporin and has to overhear that conversation.

The big kahuna of the privacy posturing trend is of course Facebook. Anthony Weiner just sent me photo of his surname. Don’t tell, ok? Hey everybody… that thing about where I buried the body. That’s just between us, ok? Facebook also allows anyone of any age or gender to act like a snotty 12 year old girl. Well, you can’t be my friend anymore. If you’re not my friend. I’m not your friend. I have TV star friends. I have more friends than you. I have infinity friends. Do I look hot in this? What about this? This?

Of course, thanks to social media (as Narcissistic Personality Disorder is now called) journalism is now as outdated as pants without holes. Newspapers? So last season. What dweeb would read some long boring all researched up story about a tornado in Oklahoma when you can get a live update from Tiffy who says there’s like wind all over and stuff is totally flying around especially stuff that doesn’t weigh much. OMG. A flip flop just hit the window!!! Do I look hot in these Burberry rain boots? What about now?

It does make one wonder how far back techno-snooty goes. When cavemen communicated, did poor troglodytes with decaying ant-infested banging sticks feel inferior to the guys with long hard really vibrating clubs? Do I look buff in this hide/sinew cape? How bout the loin cloth only? Boar tusk up or down?

– Margaret Baker, LBSPY 35 (June 17 – July 1)