RUSH: As you know, ladies and gentlemen, I constantly use the phrase “on the cutting edge of societal evolution.” One of the things I mean by that is that if you are a regular listener to this program, in many cases, you will hear things discussed long before they reach the mainstream, long before they reach the popular culture. One of those areas that I have been — I don\u2019t know if “warning” is correct, but at least I\u2019ve been — highlighting, is the phenomenon of social media.<\/p>\n
One of the things that always bothered me about it was the pop culture\u2019s temptations. People, young kids, are desperately wanting fame, doing anything they can to get noticed or to become famous, thinking that it\u2019s glamorous, that it\u2019s fun, that it will make them rich. It has, in fact, given rise to all kinds of gossip networks, television, newspaper columns, you name it. Even though gossip\u2019s been around for a long time, it\u2019s now become mainstream.<\/p>\n
Entertainment programs, starting actually with Entertainment Tonight and Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, were programs that created an impression that, if you became famous, that the world was your oyster. Everybody wants to be noticed and everybody wants their life to matter, and everybody wants to be cool, and everybody wants to be hip. So with the advent of social networks on computers and mobile devices, it became possible for young people to start connecting in any which way they wanted to do so.<\/p>\n
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It was a phenomenon I noticed many years ago. Young people were just giving up every bit of information about themselves they could. They were violating their own privacy, seeking fame, wanting everybody to know everything about them, publishing nude photos of themselves, lewd photos, you name it. As one that\u2019s concerned about the overall culture, I happen to believe that a society\u2019s culture is a harbinger of what kind of country you\u2019re going to be.<\/p>\n
Now, I\u2019ve always had to avoid and be cognizant of the fact that, as people grow older and then look at other generations, they think, “Oh, my God, this is horrible! It has never been this bad, this raunchy, this debauched. The country\u2019s finished.” You have to avoid that because every generation looking at young people thinks that. So you have to be constantly vigilant that you don\u2019t become an old fuddy-duddy when looking at these things. At the same time, you have to be honest about it.<\/p>\n
I really am governed here by love as I do this show each and every day. When I say these things, I mean them. I want a great country. I want people happy. This has got to be a great country if we are to continue to provide the opportunity, both economic and spiritual, for freedom that this country has always provided, more so than any other country ever. A great country is only as great as its people, and, at some point, people have to get serious.<\/p>\n
At some point when they grow older and mature, they have to get serious, and certain things have to be revered, including certain cultural things. There have to be “guardrails,” to borrow a term that I once saw on a Wall Street Journal editorial about just out-of-control pop culture. Morality, the sense of right and wrong, personal responsibility, all of those things are fundamental. Who teaches that? The schools are not.<\/p>\n
Social media is, of course, obliterating those concepts. It\u2019s just exact opposite. The role is more important now than ever, and it\u2019s really up to parents. If you happen to believe, for example, that the culture is out of control, and, if you would phrase it in a way to say, “the genie is out of the bottle,” how do you put the genie back in the bottle? You don\u2019t. You never can put the genie back in the bottle.<\/p>\n
But what you can do is start anew with a certain generation and try to raise them\/educate them in ways that send them in different directions than the temptations that exist now. And they\u2019re always there. I don\u2019t want to be misunderstood. This kind of thing has gone on as long as the country has. But, however, there are factors now that exist that didn\u2019t. I\u2019ve always been… Without being able to put my finger on it, I\u2019ve been worried about what is going to happen to people who just dive head first into this anything-goes, no-judgment culture where there is no more privacy.<\/p>\n
There is no concern for it, and people just want everybody to know everything about them every minute of the day — what they\u2019re doing, what they\u2019re thinking, where they\u2019re going, when they got there, how long they\u2019re gonna be there, when they\u2019re leaving. There are apps for such things for people\u2019s mobile devices, and one of the things that has been around for a while (I first heard of it way back in the nineties) was the notion of “hooking up,” something that scared particularly mothers like crazy.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s just the notion of having meaningless sex — and not even for the sex, not even for the enjoyment. It\u2019s just to say you\u2019ve done it, just to be able to brag about it and so forth and taking meaning out of it. These kinds of things take place when you\u2019re young, and as you get older and grow up, everybody looks back on things when they were younger. Some people get embarrassed. Some say, “Gee, I wish that didn\u2019t happen. I wish nobody knew that.” That\u2019s gonna be tougher and tougher for people to pull off. Because as young kids get exposed to all the social media, they\u2019re telling everybody everything they\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n
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I mean, we\u2019re getting to the point now where I think it\u2019s gonna be common that candidates for political office will have posted nude photos of themselves (or worse) on social websites. The first known example of that that I can recall is a woman that\u2019s now a co-hostette on MSNBC. Her name is Krystal Ball. She may not be the first, but she\u2019s the one that comes to mind. She ran for office. She lost, but there are nude photos of her that she had posted. Her opponent decided to use them and she was outraged that such things would be used.<\/p>\n
Anthony Weiner — who, by the way, is gonna run for office again. He\u2019s gonna run for mayor of New York, and you ought to see the New York Post. Their Web app, if you have an iPad and you get the New York Post… This is not on their website, and I don\u2019t know that it\u2019s in the newspaper. I don\u2019t read newspapers. It may be in the printed edition, but I know it\u2019s in the iPad version. There\u2019s a column by Andrea Peyser on Weiner, who is the husband of Huma Weiner. Hillary\u2019s Huma.<\/p>\n
She just rakes him over the coals as most everybody\u2019s doing, and then there\u2019s a sidebar called “the Twitterati Response,” and it\u2019s people on Twitter issuing comments about the potential reemergence of Weiner. It\u2019s hilarious, some of these comments. I didn\u2019t print it out. I\u2019ll do it; I\u2019ll share some of it with you. Well, the reception is all across the gamut. He\u2019s getting a warm reception in some places. Everybody\u2019s happy. “Weiner\u2019s rising again!” All the typical things.<\/p>\n
But the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, is lamenting, “Oh, my God! Woe is us if this guy wins. Oh, it\u2019s our bad if this guy wins.” Why is he saying that? Anthony Weiner is a perfect liberal. Anthony Weiner is an ideal liberal. He\u2019s a combative liberal. He will take conservatives to the back alley and beat \u2019em up every day. If he hadn\u2019t posted the nude photos of himself and his member to the babes, he\u2019d be right in there. He\u2019d be on the ladder cruising to the top of liberalism.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
But why do they care? This is the kind of thing that normally launches liberals to great heights. This kind of embarrassment or failure is a resume enhancement for these people. But it isn\u2019t, you see? This is my point. Even for liberals it isn\u2019t. He\u2019s gonna have his problem here. Krystal Ball had hers. It\u2019s gonna become more and more frequent. Folks, look, I\u2019m not an old fuddy-duddy. It just concerns me, only from the standpoint that you want serious people.<\/p>\n
You want at least 5% of the population being serious. That five, 6% of the population carries the rest of the people. You\u2019ve heard that old axiom: 5% of the people pull the wagon; 95% are in it. You need five or 6% of the population serious about things: their jobs, their careers, the country, understanding it. You need that. I\u2019m just all for anything that continues to teach that, and cause people to respect it and to revere it. I cringe… I mean, I laugh, too, but I cringe when I see videos of these man-on-the-street interviews that Leno does. People are clueless. They don\u2019t know diddly-squat about things.<\/p>\n
Anyway, I\u2019ve gotta take a break here. I have a couple of sound bites I want to play because this is finally now reached mainstream media. My point about being on the cutting edge of societal evolution: I\u2019ve been warning, talking about this for at least 20 of the 25 years that I\u2019ve been doing this program here at the EIB Network. I bring to it a certain experience. I have lost my anonymity. I know what it\u2019s like to lose your anonymity and I know what it\u2019s like to have no privacy.<\/p>\n
I know what it\u2019s like to not be able to go anywhere and do anything anonymously. And I\u2019m telling you, when you lose that and you can\u2019t get it back, that\u2019s a huge regret, and there are a lot of people that want that. And I don\u2019t think it\u2019s healthy, and I think it leads to distorted values and distorted decisions that people make about their lives and a number of other things that are not healthy for them and the country the large. Now, again, do not confuse me with an old fuddy-duddy like my parents who thought the world was coming to an end because the Beatles had long hair. That\u2019s not where I\u2019m coming from here.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: A minor correction. And this, by the way, feeds into my point. I got it wrong about Krystal Ball. She did not pose nude. The Krystal Ball photos were not nude. The photos depicted her doing sexually suggestive things at a party. Well, my memory was that the controversy was over nude photos. This is how things get wrong or made wrong, and then amplified as wrong and then, “No, no, it wasn\u2019t a nude photo, gosh, can\u2019t anybody get it right?” You people that want all this fame, get used to everybody being wrong about you.<\/p>\n
At any rate, just a correction here. They were not nude photos of Krystal Ball on her website, for her blog, whatever it was. They were just photos of her doing sexually suggestive things. I have no idea if they\u2019re still online. Literally no idea. You know what? I\u2019m not interested. This is my point. What, are you sitting in there all excited now to find the pictures? Well, I\u2019m not the least bit inspired to go try find them.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
At any rate, this morning on Fox Martha MacCallum had a guest who has written a book about this phenomenon called hooking up, and the guest was Donna Freitas. And I think that\u2019s how she pronounces the name. Her book is: “The End of Sex: How Hookup Culture is Leaving a Generation Unhappy, Sexually Unfulfilled, and Confused About Intimacy.” And Martha MacCallum said, “Where do we go from here? How does this affect, or does it affect, these kids\u2019 relationships as they go through life?”<\/p>\n
FREITAS: One of the things that I think we really need to talk about as a culture is what is the meaning of sex, given hookup culture. You showed those words that students will use, “regretful” and “empty” and “ashamed,” you know, that 41% of students, you know, and how they respond to hooking up. But there\u2019s another middle group, about 30% of students, who are really ambivalent. And I think that group is getting bigger because I think students are getting much better at hooking up, which means they\u2019re getting better at having ambivalent sex. The sex isn\u2019t about fun or even really about pleasure. It\u2019s about getting it done and being able to say that you did it.<\/p>\n
RUSH: That\u2019s right. And that last part is the key. What are you frowning at? Snerdley said, “So what? What\u2019s wrong with this, people having sex, who in the world could be upset with that?” Is that what you\u2019re saying? Well, she went out there and she did surveys of these students. She talked to the students, I guess. (interruption) Well, I don\u2019t know, she did a book on it, Snerdley. She talked to the students and the students told her, and that\u2019s what she based her book on. Anyway, here\u2019s what Martha MacCallum said in response it.<\/p>\n
MACCALLUM: That\u2019s the whole thing, just documenting, \u2019cause we live in this media culture where it\u2019s like, you know, the numbers and just doing something just to say you did it or to take pictures of the event and then put it out there online so you can prove to everybody that you\u2019re having a great time.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/live-rush-limbaugh.pantheonsite.io\/wp-content\/uploads\/DonnaFreitas350.jpg\")
\nFREITAS: They\u2019re getting better at hooking up. You know, when they\u2019re better at being able to walk away and say, “You know what, I don\u2019t feel a thing. I don\u2019t want to see that person again. It didn\u2019t really mean anything to me.”<\/p>\n
RUSH: Now, this has been going on, this hookup business, for years, folks. And it is meaningless, and it is just a belt notch. But you know one of the most dangerous things about all this social media is? And I think it\u2019s gonna be a big challenge for anybody that has to deal with kids and young adults. It\u2019s not just this quest for fame and giving up all the privacy. Most kids are insecure, it\u2019s safe to say. And when they read all of this social media, what they are really seeing is all the stuff they are not doing. They see all the stuff other people are doing and they say, “I\u2019m not doing all that,” and they\u2019re gonna get inferiority complexes over this, which creates its own set of problems. They\u2019re gonna set out trying to fix this. It\u2019s a snowball effect.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: I tell you, all this stuff is not good, folks. Look at what feminism has done for women. Look what feminism\u2019s done for everybody. It\u2019s just confused everybody and made most people miserable. We got more. We\u2019ll be back.<\/p>\n
BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n
RUSH: Now, I want to close the loop here on the hooking-up business, but for me it\u2019s much more than that. The hooking up is just one characteristic of the phenomenon that\u2019s happening. The hooking-up business has been going on a long time. Tom Wolfe wrote a nonfiction book called Hooking Up in 2000. He said a lot of kids that are hooking up don\u2019t know each other\u2019s names. So it\u2019s not just this babe that talked to the students, Snerdley. It\u2019s Tom Wolfe. Are you gonna tell me Tom Wolfe doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about?<\/p>\n
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\nI do think that it\u2019s a phenomenon. I don\u2019t question that it\u2019s happening. Look, Bill Clinton didn\u2019t ask Monica her name \u2019til the sixth date. This hooking up can happen. It\u2019s happened throughout. I know. The sixties, the free love and the free sex. But look what that begot us. That\u2019s my whole point. I mean, we are living some of the trash that happened in the 1960s, and some of those people — many of them — assumed office, political office, high power in the Clinton years. It\u2019s demonstrably problematic. There\u2019s no question that it is.<\/p>\n
The disintegrating values? The idea that the IRS, all these institutions can be used to intimidate political foes? That stuff has roots in the sixties. That\u2019s actually a very good point about this. But I want to bring it down even more locally than that, and not just tie it to what happens when people end up into politics from this. I\u2019m actually more concerned just about their lives in general. I\u2019m telling you, this willingness that these kids have to just vomit everything about themselves to everybody and give up their privacy, and give up their anonymity…<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not so much just that; it\u2019s why they\u2019re doing it. This quest for fame, I\u2019m telling you, it is insidious to me. It\u2019s copycats. You know, fame by itself is how you get Kardashian. Now, people who become famous after having done something — a major achievement, major accomplishment — that\u2019s one thing. But fame for its sake is a pursuit that is empty, and it\u2019s endless, and it\u2019s never satisfying. But the big problem with all of this social media in addition to the obvious, and I think one of the most dangerous things about it…<\/p>\n
Look, I don\u2019t have kids, but I\u2019ve got nephews and nieces. More than that, I really do care. All of this concern for me is about country. When I tell you that I want a great country, I mean I want self-reliant, rugged individuals taking care of themselves and their families. That\u2019s how you get Norman Rockwell communities and neighborhoods and towns. That\u2019s how you get decency and respect and a common, valuable culture. I think that you have that crucially important.<\/p>\n
Yeah, it may sound old-fashioned and it may sound like I want to go back to the fifties and the Donna Reed shows. No, no. That\u2019s not what I\u2019m talking about. The stuff I\u2019m talking about is timeless, and these characteristics are the things that used to be commonly taught. Honor, valor, honesty, integrity. That\u2019s all I\u2019m talking about. It\u2019s things like this that people laugh at today, but people are just willingly abandoning any hope, any chance of having those characteristics about themselves.<\/p>\n
The debasement of the language is part of that; you see that now in prime time TV. The debasement of the language is happening really quickly. Taken in isolated chunks it isn\u2019t any big deal. But the cumulative, year-after-year impact of this is not good for the country. That\u2019s always been my concern. It\u2019s my concern with politics: Its effect on the country and the people. The people of the country are what matter to me. Having the continued opportunity to do what they want, to fulfill their dreams.<\/p>\n
Have the desires and dreams be things of importance and substance, rather than fleeting, fly-by-night things that really don\u2019t offer any substantive satisfaction. It\u2019s a real change for parents today, I would think. I\u2019d think it would be a real challenge, especially for parents of young girls. I just think it would be an absolute nightmare out there today, constant concern, worry. You start talking about hooking up stuff, just one thing. But the biggest danger, I think — or one of the most dangerous things — about all this is not just this quest for fame and the giving up of all privacy.<\/p>\n
Add to this that most kids are insecure, and then add another human characteristic, and it is this: The grass always looks greener. Everybody. I don\u2019t care who you are, you always think everybody else is happier. Everybody else is more normal. Everybody else doesn\u2019t have the problems you do. It\u2019s just a natural thing to think. A lot of people think this way. And when you start reading social media or watching television shows and you see depictions of people in certain ways, and you know that that doesn\u2019t in any way depict you?<\/p>\n
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Then what does that make you feel like if you\u2019re not emotionally secure? I think that all the social media just adds to this. You add up this natural insecurity that everybody has, particularly amplified in kids, and this idea that the grass is always greener and that somebody else\u2019s life — everybody else\u2019s life — is more fulfilling and better than yours or whatever. It\u2019s just a fact of life for most people. When young kids read all of this social media… There\u2019s tons and oodles of it out there.<\/p>\n
When they read all this stuff and they see all the stuff they\u2019re not doing… My dad used to tell it to me this way. He said, “Son, all your friends bragging to you about all the things they\u2019re doing are lying to you. All they\u2019re doing is telling you the things they wish they were doing, and they\u2019re just trying to impress you,” and that\u2019s social media. How many people are lying about where they are every night going to these clubs or whatever it is they\u2019re doing that they think is fun.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve got these kids sitting at home not do all this stuff, reading about it — and, man, all they\u2019re seeing is things that they\u2019re not doing. Compared to everybody else who seems to be really having a ball out there. “Gosh, my life is boring at hell! Look what all these people are doing!” What\u2019s it gonna make \u2019em want to do? Kids lie about their social achievements like everybody else lies about their social achievements: To impress everybody.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve got this wild collection of insecurity and kids reading all this. In addition to the complex they could develop, because they think they\u2019re missing out on all this cool stuff, that creates its own set of problems. Either depression or a madcap desire to catch up and experience all these things that they think are cool, that people really aren\u2019t doing but they think they are. Now, none of this is new in a psychological sense. I\u2019m not saying any of this is new and hasn\u2019t been the case before, but the sheer volume of all this stuff that they can expose themselves to could be overwhelming.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always had a bad feeling about it.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t even have any kids, but I\u2019ve always had a bad feeling about it, knowing in my own limited way what losing your anonymity means, what it really means, and whole business of fame. Nothing is ever what you really think it is. When you\u2019re young — when you\u2019re any age — and you\u2019re imagining a promotion at the job or you\u2019re imagining new place to live or whatever? When you finally get there, it\u2019s never really entirely what you think it is. There are always things about it you didn\u2019t consider. It\u2019s just… I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s a problem for parents, and I think it just becoming more and more intensified.<\/p>\n
In fact, I have call. Let me grab a call on this. This is Jeff in Goshen, New York. Hi, Jeff. I\u2019m glad you called. Welcome to the program, sir.<\/p>\n
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thanks so much for having me on.<\/p>\n
RUSH: You bet.<\/p>\n
CALLER: I heard your comments on social media, and I had to call in. You hit the nail on the head. These kids have no idea what they\u2019re giving up in way of their privacy when you put this stuff out there. I\u2019m actually the director of the IT department for a manufacturing group. So I\u2019ve done a… I thought I did a good job at educating my kids. I have four kids: Two girls, two boys. The girls being the oldest. One\u2019s a teenager, and she dabbled in social media.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
She kinda went around my back a little bit to dabble in it, and when I found out, I showed her with just her e-mail address all the information I can pull up — on her Vines account, her Instagram, her Ask.fm — and I said, “If I can do it, anybody can do it.” These days kids don\u2019t know what they\u2019re giving up, and I think what\u2019s worse is the parents don\u2019t know what their kids are doing or what their kids are giving up. And we\u2019re doing a terrible job in the schools. They\u2019re not educating kids.<\/p>\n
RUSH: Well, that\u2019s another aspect because the kids are so far ahead of parents on what you can do online. Parents have no concept.<\/p>\n
CALLER: No. And Facebook, I know a lot of the teenage kids today, they don\u2019t want Facebook \u2019cause mom and dad are on it. So they\u2019re finding other things, and my only advice to parents is, “Know what your kids are doing. Talk to them about it.” You know, I use the stuff. I like social media for its positive aspects. But Rush, you and I know, you can take the best tool in the world that\u2019s made for good purposes, and turn it for evil things. And that\u2019s what happens with the social media sites.<\/p>\n
RUSH: That\u2019s a good point. I\u2019m not preaching. I don\u2019t want anybody to think I\u2019m preaching, and I don\u2019t want anybody inferring that I think this stuff should be shut down. Far from it. That\u2019s not at all a possible solution, not even something I contemplate. It\u2019s a reality that has to be dealt with. You\u2019re right, it\u2019s a challenge for parents in raising kids. It just gets harder and harder to do. There are just more and more distractions. More temptations, and do what you can to provide a solid moral foundation. And after a certain point, you\u2019re done. There\u2019s not much you can do, and then, it\u2019s true, people have to live. They have to live their lives. They have to make mistakes to learn from \u2019em, and you hope that the foundation you gave \u2019em is sufficient that when they do screw up, have embarrassing things happen or whatever, that there is a foundation from which they can learn from it and not repeat it. Anyway, Jeff, I appreciate the call. I really do.<\/p>\n
When we come back, folks, I just wanted to get into this because it\u2019s finally reached the pinnacle here of the pop culture, the mainstream culture, talking about this, and you\u2019ve been on the cutting edge. We\u2019ve been talking about this for many, many moons now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
RUSH: As you know, ladies and gentlemen, I constantly use the phrase “on the cutting edge of societal evolution.” One of the things I mean by that is that if you are a regular listener to this program, in many cases, you will hear things discussed long before they reach the mainstream, long before they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[12,1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n