Wheel of Existentialism

In this adapted version of Wheel of Fortune, the host (Franz Kafka) asks the three contestants how much money they’d like to walk away with at the end of the game. After completing the first two rounds, Kafka will take the contestants aside to play the “Hubris Round,” in which they will be asked questions like, “How confident are you that you will win this game?” and, depending on their responses and how confident they are, two of them will be drowned/ shot/ eaten. The winner goes home with the money, and his life.

Pyramid

New World Order conspiracy theorists compete to see who among them is the most mentally unstable/ lives in their mom’s basement “most intensely.”

Is It Organic?

This show would air on the Food Network or that one Food Network spinoff channel that tries to appeal to young people. Typical contestants would be vegans, foodies, “progressive soccer moms” who put organic apple juice in their kid’s lunches, the children of the “progressive soccer moms” (probably named Ethan), and also homeless people. The contestants would have to discern whether or not the food presented to them is organic or not, bonus points if they can determine what level of organic certification the food has.

Hotspot Hunter

This thirty-minute show would air either before or after Jeopardy. It would consist of 2-5 contestants running around an urban area with laptops in search of working and unprotected WiFi hotspots. The show’s host will be a Scandinavian bro named Sven.

Televised Monopoly

Great Monopoly players join together to play a televised version of this classic board game (occasionally featuring celebrities or prolific bankers). It would basically just be regular Monopoly, except played in a darkened Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?-esque chamber and scored to dramatic music.

So You Think You Can Refinance

The contestants on this show are couples who need to escape from under their adjustable-rate mortgages for something more secure that won’t lead them into foreclosure. While the contestants will change from episode to episode, the show will have two permanent fixtures playing the show’s villains, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. The contestants will rarely win, and most of the episodes will end in a segment endearingly referred to by Freddie and Fannie as “Economic Collapse!”

Let’s Make a Deal

A lot like the original Let’s Make a Deal, except that contestants will compete to win illicit drugs instead of money. People will still dress up in crazy costumes, except this time it’s because they’re all high.

El Precio Es Correcto

Spanish version of The Price is Right. This is probably already a thing.

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1. Constant validation

It might seem like we all live in different places but we actually all reside in the same area code: The Internet, duh! Otherwise known as Narcissist Nation (population: us). Thanks to Twitter, Facebook, and our parents, we are now unable to survive without constant validation and accolades. We’ve been told we’re special from day one and that has been blown up via social networking sites. Every time you sign online, you set yourself up either for rejection or acceptance. People “like” our thoughts every day, write on our walls, tweet at us and Follow Friday our Twitter handles. People/borderline strangers are telling us we’re great all day long and that  praise becomes addicting. Twentysomethings need to have their feelings validated by their BFF’s and sometimes a random stranger in Singapore. Otherwise, ashes to ashes, we all fall down.

2. Talking about the healthy, expensive, and complicated food they eat

Twentysomethings are REALLY into food. If they’re not eating it, chances are they have an eating disorder, which is chic too, but most of us are “foodies” who take note of everything that enters our bodies. “OMG, look at this tempeh stir fry I made all by myself! Jealous?” Um, no. It looks like poop. Literally. We like to show that we eat healthy and spend six dollars on organic cereal rather than a name brand at a corporate store because, ew, preservatives. My body, my rules, my VERY expensive grocery store bill.

3. A cellphone

This is so obvious I almost decided not to include it but I knew people would call me out for excluding it. So here it is! Twentysomethings (and everyone else) need cell phones. Without them, we would just wander aimlessly to strangers’ doorsteps and knock. Someone would answer and look at us blankly. Unsure of what to do, we would “HOO” at them like an owl, before malfunctioning like a robot and dissolving into a puddle of burnt wires. Surprise! We’re cyborgs. Byeeeee.

4. Have a #dark period in their lives

As twentysomethings, we always feel like delicate fragile feathers clicking REFRESH on that one New York Times article about us (you know the one) and writing vague emo things on our blog. “FML FML OMG FML IS MERCURY IN RETROGRADE?”. We always like to refer to dark times in our lives with a renewed sense of clarity. “I’m past that now. It’s hard to believe it actually happened.” And you have to bite your tongue to refrain from saying, “Honey, that dark time you’re referring to happened last week!” But you know, metamorphosis or whatever. Caterpillar to a butterfly. Kafka. You’re totally a different person now. That was when you were 22 and now you’re 24 so, you know, a lot has changed.

5. Stuff we don’t need

To be fair, this isn’t really our fault. We were born into a consumer culture and it has only intensified with the advances in technology. But on the real, if you can’t pay your rent, don’t spend five hundred dollars on a phone. Don’t sit here and talk to me about not having any money while showing me the cool things Siri can do. Here’s an idea. How about you ask Siri how you can make $$$? It’ll respond probably with, “IDK LOL.”

6. Articles about themselves on Thought Catalog

I mean……

Honorable mentions: Telling themselves that they’re NOT a hipster, a computer to hide behind when things get real, pills, TV shows/movies/books about their generation, pop music so they can love it ironically, their parents’ money, their parents’ love, ignoring their parents’ phone calls, complaining about never getting laid but never actually trying, saying “I HATE DRAMA!” when you are the drama queen, being jealous of everyone who isn’t you, flaking on someone at least once a week, not saying what you actually mean, and thinking you’re crazy.

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Being a grown up means making a home for yourself. Having a first aid kit in the bathroom and a spice rack in the kitchen. “You know what this dish needs? A splash of oregano! Let me consult my spice rack that’s made specifically for adults!”

Being a grown up means throwing dinner parties at your home for your grown up friends. People will get drunk, secrets will be revealed and someone will be having an affair in the guest bathroom! For dessert, people will pass around a joint and listen to MGMT (#dark) while talking about the old daze. There’ll be a swimming pool and people will be jumping in while still wearing their evening gowns. We’ll all be laughing hysterically. There might even be an orgy.

Being a grown up means buying exclusively organic foods. Wandering around Gelson’s or a Farmer’s Market aimlessly while clutching a bag of red peppers. “If anyone needs to know where the fresh produce is, you can ask me. I’m an adult.”

Being a grown up means having children but only when it’s fun and convenient for you. Walk around your suburban neighborhood with a bourgie stroller and be like, “Hey girl! There’s a baby in this thing!” Leave the baby on the front lawn while you drink a glass of wine and think really mature thoughts.

Being a grown up is all about wearing fashion-y clothes 24/7. A ballerina bun and a casual black cocktail dress. Guys can wear boat shoes, polos and short shorts. Chic, chic, chic! Possible looks include: This Is The Dress I Have My Affair In, Where Are My Car Keys, Where Is The Baby, Where Is The Vodka, Where’s My Period, Is This The PTA, Are These Cheetos Organic, I’m On Vacation, Bitch!

Being a grown up means marrying your soulmate and screwing it all up by having sex with the hot person at your gym. It’s all about sneaking around town, being incognito, and just generally destroying everything you’ve worked so hard to build for some illicit sex.

Being a grown up means being stressed out about where to go on vacation. You’ll go to Maine unless you go to San Francisco. But maybe San Francisco is not exotic enough so you’ll go to Cabo. I don’t know, you can’t really talk  about it because it gives you serious anxiety.

Being a grown up means screaming “No more wire hangers ever!” to the guy at the deli for forgetting to put the honey mustard on your sandwich.

Being a grown up means being friends with at least one lesbian couple.

Being a grown up means being in a really good place and like really healthy and happy and getting a dog and looking back at the things you did in your twenties and being like, “Wowwwwww. I don’t miss that at all. Being a grown up is so much better.”

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One of the perks of living in San Francisco is the ready availability of good food — freakishly delicious coffee, quality meats and fish, local organic produce. I don’t need to drive to find any of these things. I simply walk out my door and stroll my merry way to one of, I don’t know, a dozen farmer’s markets — or to one of five local produce shops that sell beautiful fresh local organic fruits and vegetables. I can meander to one of three local butchers where I find local grass fed beef, free range chicken, locally made cold cuts.

Yes, San Francisco may be egregiously expensive and have a conspicuous problem with so-called homelessness but man oh man, we can eat and drink well. Just look at the bevy of house roasted coffee shops — Blue Bottle, Ritual, Four Barrel, Barefoot.

And yet, for reasons I cannot fathom, there are Starbucks and Pete’s everywhere I look. Now, I know what motivates Starbucks. But for the life of me I can’t fathom what drives my neighbors to go to Starbucks when they could just as easily go to Ritual. Same distance. Same cost. Better coffee. And yet.

This past month saw the grand opening of a Whole Foods, right smack in the middle of Noe Valley — across the street from the farmer’s market, down the block from the local cheese shop, and about three blocks from the butcher. To which I declare: What the fuck?

Whole Foods truly freaks me out. It is such an astounding success in branding that people feel like they are good people just for shopping there, giving their money to an anonymous, global, profit driven company. It’s unbelievable. Shoppers feel privileged — and personally rewarded — for spending money!

As a brand consultant, I am in awe. As a citizen, I am repulsed. This enormous, faceless, global corporation struts into the neighborhood and within days is sucking life from the local merchants.

I don’t blame Whole Foods, just as I don’t blame Starbucks. They are corporations whose goal is to make money. Of course. And I applaud them both for their smart, successful businesses. No, I don’t blame them. I blame my neighbors. I blame so-called liberal San Franciscans for not having the slightest fucking clue about what’s wrong with this civilization of ours. It’s not the lack of organic produce, remedied by the savior, Whole Foods. It’s the relentless homogenization, centralization, and anonymous will to velocity that’s killing us all — every day, in manifold ways.

What’s so egregious about Whole Foods is that it wears the liberal mantle. Those who shop there think they are doing the planet good— for giving their money to a global corporation! This is the Obama Effect: make liberals think something has changed, that they’ve somehow done good, while it’s all business as usual.

Listen, I am attracted to Obama just as I’m attracted to the fine produce of Whole Foods. But I am not so insane as to believe that voting for that guy or shopping at some goofy supermarket changes anything. On the contrary, it repeats the same ills. But what’s so dangerous is that they have us believing that things are different. At least Safeway and Bush are obvious foils, empty, soulless, declaring their life quashing will. Whole Foods and Obama deceive us into thinking things are getting better!

Change happens when change happens, when actual behaviors change. And voting for this guy instead of that or shopping at Whole Foods instead of Safeway changes nothing. It’s the same old thing.

Time to drink some real coffee and wake the fuck up.