Things the media thought were terrible and cruel under Bush have become hip and cool under Obama:
What most people would call unemployment, Smalley embraced as “funemployment.” What other people would dismiss as starvation, he whimsically terms a “starve-cation.”
“Economic Depression” once conjured images of tent cities and desperate job-seeking drifters, but for hordes of jobless Gen Xers, there is a silver lining in the new upbeat economic meltdown. These giddily carefree hipsters tend to be single and in their 20s and 30s, happily unencumbered by the obligations of parenthood or teeth.
Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks and free Salvation Army blankets, the nation’s new wave of hip funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings. With no timeclock to punch, they travel on the cheap for weeks, bartering mix CDs or sterno or sexual favors for a fun cross-country boxcar trip. They study yoga and newspaper journalism, or grab a quick al fresco lunch at the neighborhood soup kitchen bistro. They participate in fun dance marathons and pole-sitting contests. And at least till the bank account dries up and the tuberculosis takes hold, they’re content living for today.
That’s satire, of course, but it’s not far from how the media spins for Bambi.
