The new explorers

A new hip trend is in the news this week.  Now that the Tide Pod challenge is over, our youth have now distinguished themselves by snorting condoms up their noses. They are inhaling the condom up one of their nostrils and then reaching inside their mouths to pull it out. Classy. Of course, the act is posted on YouTube for everyone to enjoy. So far, this activity hasn’t resulted in as many emergency room visits as eating laundry detergent has but give it time.

It is unfortunate that people are criticizing these youngsters for these brave exploits. How is what they are doing now any different than previous American risk takers have done—men like Lewis and Clark or Neil Armstrong? I’m sure that when Merriweather Lewis announced that he was going to trek across 3,700 miles of bear-infested, uncharted wilderness to find CenturyLink Field, he also had detractors. I bet he also had plenty of emergency room visits. Unfortunately, the YouTube videos of this trip were lost long ago. No doubt there were plenty of cruel memes and nagging medical opinions posted on Facebook mocking their efforts at the time.

I’m sure that Neil Armstrong was also derided in 1969 when he announced he was going to walk on the moon. Social media was probably full of statements like, “Don’t young people today have any sense?” and “I’m sorry, but I refuse to take any advice on civil rights from a generation that walks on the moon.” There were probably lots of quotes from doctors claiming that moonwalking causes plantar fasciitis and low testosterone. Fortunately, Armstrong’s famous walk has been immortalized forever on MTV, so we can still share in the moment.

Sure, eating laundry detergent and snorting condoms may not have the same historical, world-changing impact as exploring uncharted wilderness and space, but what is there left to discover for young people today? The entire earth has already been explored with GoogleEarth, and the moon has repeatedly been walked on by Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Jackson and others.

Of course, there is still Mars to explore, but we are still working out the logistics for that trip. Once scientists figure out how to put a Starbucks on the spaceship as well as a nine-month supply of avocados, I’m sure the Tide-Pod generation will be on its way. It can take up to 300 days to make the journey so that the voyage will generate lots of YouTube videos of the astronauts snorting and eating their space equipment.

The Mars astronauts won’t be eating Tide Pods though since astronauts don’t wash their clothes in space. They wear the same underwear for days at a time, and then they jettison it into space where it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere. When you wish upon a falling star, it is probably just Neil Armstrong’s tighty-whities falling back to earth. 

You may remember from the Apollo space missions that Alan Shepard filmed himself hitting golf balls on the moon. So, you see it is not only the current generation that films itself engaged in whimsical and pointless activities. The question is, what will astronauts do on Mars once they get there to top Shepard’s antics? It is too hard to eat or snort things up your nose when you’re wearing a space helmet so they will have to come up with something else.

Whatever they come up with, I’m sure there will be plenty of people cruelly mocking their efforts. Remember though, that person you see snorting a Frappuccino up their nose through a straw may be our next Neil Armstrong.