A week ago, in an Anobium article, I referred to the 'whatever' gesture, which for some people, including Thomas de Zengotita, is the ultimate shibboleth of the Culture of the Shrug, of the modern generation. Zengotita pointed out that “haunting the moment of ‘I can experience whatever I want’ is the moment of ‘What difference does it make,’ because this moment, the moment of the shrug, is essential to our mobility among the options.” In an influential article in the New York Review of Books, novelist Zadie Smith dubbed the modern youth as Generation Why, but I think Whatever fits better.
When the “whatever” floated to the online sphere, it had to adapt. No longer could the sigh or the shrug or the blank expression drive the mindboggling apathy home; no, something else had to be devised. “Whatever” as a word, as a response in a chat window, on a forum or a social network, was no longer good enough. It could be too emphatic, the effort of eight keystrokes to conjure up the word did not gel well with the perceived result. The solution: w/e. A perfectly balanced abbreviation, not only shorter but also featuring a nice slash which might well indicating some sort of wavering, an unsteadiness, even an unwillingness, to take position. In that Anobium article I decided not to breach an interesting and important sidenote to the TL;DR, which is of course that it is itself an abbreviation – as with “w/e”, writing down the whole of too long; didn't read would lessen the effect. TL;DR values the effort of the other user with a mere five keystrokes – a denial as strong and as shrugly (yup, I'm gonna go with that) as the w/e.
A few weeks ago I was cycling around my hometown and suddenly thought of the Arctic Monkeys. I realized, with a shock, that 2006 – the year of their breakthrough – was now eight years behind us! Eight years seemed a monstrous gap in my head. 
It was mostly poignant because I consider their debut record a momentous occasion, a generation-defining thing. Perhaps it did not transcend subcultures like the Beatles, Sex Pistols and Nirvana before them, but it was the best we had. I didn't realize why it served so well to define us back then, probably because I was in the midst of it all. Plus, of course, I was sixteen. Looking at it now from a distance I can see it clearer.
I'm sure it's just a coincidence, but Zadie Smith's article is also from 2006. Slightly less coincidental, Arctic Monkeys are usually credited with being one of the first bands that shot to fame through the internet. They are the Generation Why, but that's not what makes them special. Most of the young bands since then are a part of this generation. No, it is because Alex Turner is both inside and outside of it, because he is extraordinarily tuned to the peculiarities of his mates. He sees the phoniness in Fake Tales of San Francisco, where a band of also-rans plays a gig that only their girlfriends enjoy – from which Turner concludes that “love's not only blind, but deaf,” - he sees our drifting attention in Red Light Indicate Doors Are Secured, whose narrative keeps jumping from the taxi to a review of the night out, but he sees it most of all in the inability or unwillingness to go through with anything at all, an unwillingness to care and get involved. “What do you know?” he asks, then straightways answering “Oh, you know nothing. But I'd still take you home.” Whatever. When they go to a night club in From the Ritz to the Rubble and are held up by some bouncers, they just turn and go home. Whatever. After a while he is just spelling it out: “Thinking about things, but not actually doing the things.” Whatever. Most of the stories of wild nights out on the record are probably only thought of and imagined too. Whatever.
The title says it all, really: Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not. Personalities as slippery as eels, refusing to be pinned down, changing gears only for reactionary reasons. We don't want to be pinned down because we don't want to seem like we care, and perhaps the Internet's faultless memory also contributes. One strong stance of the past can haunt you forever. Better to just muddle in the middle.
Turner is not a poet, or a “spokesperson for a generation” or any of that baloney. He is simply a person, capturing that which is going on, being honest about it. Because – and this is my favorite part – in the closing song A Certain Romance, after one long cynical rant, the point of which being “that there ain't no romance around here,” he finally admits that all these annoying habits are not quite the same when it concerns friends of you. “They might overstep the line, but you just cannot get angry in the same way.” If only for this observation, Alex Turner has added something of value. Everyone can moan and complain about “modern times,” but we are all a part of it. I cannot think of anyone who is truly exempt. It's just that we happily turn a blind eye when our nears and dears are implicated. And that's just fine. Or maybe not. w/e.
