Tag: guns

In 1991/1992, ‘Jeremy’ by Pearl Jam captured a specific distillation of American culture. Anxiety, youth, pop culture, parental responsibilities, and guns.

Because it’s so easy to sit and watch. Let the world slip by. See the images on the screen and scream along with the words, nevermind what they mean. We were already afraid. A few years before, we had watched the Satanic Panic sweep the nation, along with a fear of Dungeons & Dragons and serial killers, but it seemed we had not yet learned anything about fear and how it gets inside us. How the 24-hour cycle gives us no respite from the news. Turn to any channel any time of day for breaking news, and now with the internet and social media, we have instant access to stories from around the world, all the killings and kidnappings, all the bullets and bombs.