New Media

It's been a long time since I was in college, running the student newspaper and feeling the excitement that comes from being clueless about the world and yet in charge of the information flow for a campus full of fellow students. I remember smoking cigs in the men's room with a friend in the wee hours of the morning as we rushed to get the paper out, and smoking yet more cigs and saying fuck a lot at the swell alt weekly I worked at right after graduation.

Well today I talked with someone my age who's involved with a tres-popular and trendy journo-esque company and, swear to God, it was like talking to a 22 year old -- you know the drill, fresh out of college, cocksure, and glamorous.

Only he was older than me.

I will say he was a great interview -- he gave me a lot of good material with little prompting, information that's hard to get from most of the folks I talk to -- there's big concern with image control and all that -- but at the same time he both mentioned his girlfriend (hello darling, not hitting on you, just interviewing you) and was very snarky. Oh and he wanted me to dish on people to him. I have no dish save one piece of information I learned about someone very high up some years ago that was never confirmed, and I told that to him off the record, because even though he wasn't a journo himself, he was manipulating, or trying to manipulate, me for information. And good for him because he's a sales guy and it's a commodity.

People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones so I'm not going to judge him. It was yet another interesting slice of a lifestyle I don't currently lead and I am glad to have had the glimpse.