Even if you haven't caught any of the CNN/YouTube presidential debates, the image of the snowman asking Democratic nominees about global warming is guaranteed to be a pop culture fixture for many years to come. Whether you think it trivialized the process or not, you gotta admit, it had flair.

And it signaled a new era in presidential elections. One in which I hope makes young voters actually get off their tooshies to...(gasp!)...vote.

Now that the Republican debate is over, the debate continues over whether this new format is helping or hindering the presidential election. Some say it's trivializing it while others think its a revolutionary way to not only reach out to young voters, but all voters.

It's impossible to ignore the implications that the recent Internet explosion is having and will continue to have on politics. I mean, old fogey's like McCain are now on MySpace. There is no going back.

But while many young Americans are loving this new YouTube/Myspace/Facebook phenomenon which makes politics and candidates accessible to them in a medium they are comfortable with (I mean, come on, when's the last time a 25-year-old switched the channel to C-Span?) some candidates are less than enthused about it.

According to Susan Davis' blog on the Wall Street Journal Web site http://blogs.wsj.com/washwi...

Mitt Romney suggested that stunts like the snowman question are demeaning to the issues.

Personally, I think it was smart of CNN to pair up with YouTube. Americans have been waxing poetically for years about the need for young voters to get involved and we are the future and blah, blah, blah. But yet, no one ever tried to change the methods of reaching out to young people. Sure, there were those Rock the Vote campaigns, but in my opinion those were geared more toward teens and tweens, who can't technically vote (or so I'm told) and simply irritated us 20-somethings.

But now finally someone has changed the format to how the candidates reach out to voters and they are using the mediums we are extremely comfortable with. You may not like the change, but I have a feeling that ultimately it will have an impact come voting day.

Remember the chubby adolescent sitting at his computer desk, dancing his little heart out to some weird German song? (Oh, come on people, it was only back in 2004). Commonly referred to as the Numa Numa Dance, the homemade video was an Internet sensation and it's estimated to  have been viewed 700 million times.

Along with another homemade video, The Star Wars Kid (in which another chubby adolescent runs around showing off his Star Wars light saber moves) these simply-made videos signaled the explosion of online amateur video.

But it seems the heyday of the geek/funny man/crazy girl amateur is already over. (Well, although it's only been a few years, amateur video makers can take at least some relief in the fact that they lasted longer than most Hollywood marriages).

According to an article in Business Week, in today's "don't blink or you'll miss the upgrade" technology world, user-generated content on online video sites may already be on the way out, replaced by slick, Hollywood produced videos.

According to the story , http://www.businessweek.com...

both viewers and advertisers are becoming more interested in professionally produced content online. Many online video sites are now scaling back their user generated content, if not canceling it all together.

And now Hollywood is flooding the net with their professional content in the hopes to make a buck or nine million.

To me, this signals a sad (and incredibly quick) change. I still remember the day I discovered the Numa Numa guy (linked here for your pleasure if you happened to have been living under a rock for the past three years). I thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. And the reason I thought that was because he was just a regular dude, being goofy, just like all of us are from time to time (some more than others...like say deciding to film a short video of you hunting a chupacabra...not that I would sink that low or anything).  

And yeah sure, Hollywood does come up with some great stuff. But they already control the movies, TV and the souls of more than just a few actors.

Hopefully this doesn't mean the end for people like the Numa Numa guy or the Star Wars Kid. They brightened up the world a bit with their crazy antics and they didn't do it for money. And perhaps that's what made ammeter video so great in the first place.

That's it, I'm done with them. I thought I'd stick it out for a little while longer, but I just simply can't take it any more.

I am boycotting MTV.

I'm pretty sure the last straw for me came in the form of "A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila," a reality show featuring some random bisexual who has men and women compete for her affection. Or maybe it was the Laguna Beach/Hills phenomenon, which features a bunch of white, blonde rich kids with personalities of a brick wall (typical conversation: Girl #1: "Hi." Boy #1: "Hey." ...long pause...Girl #2: "Hey guys, what's going on?").

I'm actually a little sad it has to come to this, considering I used to love the channel back in the day. I was a huge fan of Beavis and Butthead, Daria, the old days of the MTV Movie Awards and oh, yeah, music videos (back when they actually played them and had more on rotation than just the top six).

I even loved the early days of "The Real World" when it actually was a social experiment and not seven, whiny brats giving all young people a bad name.

But now, the channel has absolutely nothing to do with not only music, but real young people such as myself. Watching MTV today, one could easily come to the conclusion that everyone aged 15-25 is a drunken, spoiled, airhead that has more notches on their bedpost than the members of KISS combined.

When MTV started, it was a revolution. It was in-your-face, irreverent, and completely belonging to the younger generations. It was our music, our attitude.

But now, with shows like "My Super Sweet Sixteen" and "Date My Mom," MTV has turned into simply another corporation looking to exploit young people in order to make money. Not to mention that the only good music you hear is...oh wait, you don't hear any good music anymore.

And so, I am boycotting it. And while I fully realize that this will do nothing to change MTV, at least I will no longer feel a crushing depression after watching yet another one of their "reality" shows because I can't believe my generation has really turned out that way.

So last night I went to go see Ailey II at the Welder Center and all I can say is "Wow!" (well, that and is the third guy from the left during the last dance single? Because Wow!, again).

It's not the first time I saw the renown dance company perform but each time they just seem to get better and better. And as a veteran ballet dancer (and by that I mean the year I took it when I was 6 and the one lone college semester I took it to avoid taking a math class) I can honestly say I did not, in fact, know the human body was capable of that kind of movement. Well, at least not this human body (but then again, maybe I should put down the Cheeto's and the remote).

I mean, the Ailey II dancers made their bodies do things I thought was only possible with special effects and CGI animation. And I kept looking for the strings that had to be helping them out, but either David Blaine is on their costume staff or they really are doing those moves on their own.

And the choreography! Dance has come a long way from my 1987 pink tutu ront de jambe. Usually when you think of modern dance, you think of some hippie teacher telling the class to "be a tree...you're a mighty tree blowing in the wind."

But this, these dances were epic tales, an opera with movement.

Oh, and did I mention the beautiful man third from the left? Yummy.

Anyhoo, I know the city has gotten a lot of flack from young people such as myself for there being nothing to do around here and while I agree with them on some points, the fact that we managed to get this NYC dance company to our little city twice is a major accomplishment in my opinion.

Ailey II is simply an experience that is indescribable for the most part (although I could go on and on about the beautiful man third from the left). I don't know if there are any tickets left for tonight's performance, but if there are, I highly recommend you scoot your little behind out the door and purchase them.

But just remember, if the man third from the left happens to be single, hands off. I called dibs.

Just what the world needed. Drunk yet wide awake teenagers.

Have you heard this one yet? The company that makes Rockstar has pulled their alcoholic version of the popular energy drink, Rockstar 21, off the shelves after both kids and parents mistook it for the nonalcoholic version.

According to Earthtimes.org, a bunch of California youth teamed up to get the drink off the shelves after incidences like this:

1. 12 middle school students were found drinking the alcoholic energy drink in plain sight at school. The students claimed they had no idea there was alcohol in the drink.

2. A mom bought her 13-year-old son what she thought was a cool, refreshing beverage, only to discover it contained alcohol right before her son drank it.

3. A young man was found stumbling down the street holding an alcoholic energy drink.

The Earthtimes article also stated that the drinks were sold side by side, didn't look that different, and most adults couldn't tell the difference in taste between the alcoholic and nonalcoholic versions.

Today's lesson, kids? You can thank those stupid California punks for ruining your one easy shot at getting drunk.

Of course I kid. Stop right there with your "Aprill is a horrible person" comments. I don't condone underage drinking (now that I am over the age of 21...ha!...kidding again).

Anyhoo, I think the thing that incidences like these teach us is that modern marketing is ingenious and yet potentially very dangerous. Get the kids hooked on energy drinks and then when they get old enough, give them the option of the energy drinks with alcohol (which are two substances that should not be together in any form...a stimulant plus alcohol equals drunks who just won't pass out then they are supposed to...it's self-preservation, people).

Not to mention, if you've ever seen any sort of ad for Rockstar, there is no doubt who it is marketed for (and it ain't us). It's kids and teens. If that's who you are marketing to, leave the alcohol out of all products (did Camel Joe teach us nothing?).

And lastly, I think this also highlights the absurd influx we've seen of energy drinks. Did you guys know they make one specifically for little kids now called Kid Fuel? And then there is the Pimp Juice and Who's Your Daddy drinks for all the playas out there. There is Sparks energy drink for the college kids and even Gay Fuel for our gay and lesbian friends out there.

Enough is enough. It almost makes me long for the days when Starbucks was the bad guy.

Say it ain't so, TV writers, say it ain't so.

With the recent TV writers strike, insiders and experts are expecting another new influx of reality TV shows. With minimal budgets and no need for writers, it looks like if the strike isn't called off, our Must See TV line-up will look like this:

7 p.m. America's Most Embarrassing Citizen with co-hosts David "The Hoff" Hasselhoff and Michael "Kramer" Richards

7:30 p.m. Who Wants to be a Sperm Donor? (I kid you not, this was an actual proposed show at a network)

8 p.m. Blondes with Orange Tans Get Drunk and Burp

9 p.m. The Ugly, Less Talented, Younger Sister Life starring Ashlee Simpson and Jamie Lynn Spears

9:30 p.m. The Nicole Richie Show (first episode, Nicole agonizes over whether or not to eat a grape).

10 p.m. Rich, White Kids with No Personality Deal with um...Stuff

I implore you TV writers, come back to work. Spare us from this fate worse than death. I need my House, Grey's Anatomy, How I Met Your Mother, The Office, Family Guy.

Save us from this never-ending Reality TV nightmare!

Although this blog is all about what's new in pop culture, every once in awhile it is pertinent to go back to the past just to see how far we've come. And today, one Advocate reader showed me a past that made me cringe while simultaneously made me rejoice that I live in the present.

So what was this oh-so-revealing bit of past?

Well, in today's letter to the editor, Wayne Johns (or as I like to refer to him, Prude McSexist) wrote:

 "Whatever happened to little girls playing with dolls and dreaming of becoming wives and mothers? Whatever happened to young men looking for a good Christian wife and finding a young woman still clinging to her doll? Me, old fashioned? I guess. Me, a male chauvinist pig? To answer that I would have to say, “Oink, oink, oink.”"

And to that I say, whatever happened to old men shutting the hell up?

Seriously, dude? Seriously you believe crap like that? Well, for one, my condolences to your wife and any daughters you may have. And two, I'm sorry you're offended by all of us liberated women flashing our ankles around like a bunch of hussies but um...what can I say? They gave us the vote and then we got all uppity, believing we could think for ourselves and realizing we didn't have to be in a constant state of pregnancy if we didn't want to be.

Oh, and three, don't be surprised if you find all your tires flat because a gang of women slashed them with their stilettos.

And as a young woman, as much as I'd like to be sitting around clinging to my doll as I wait for some good Christian man to find me, I find that unfortunately, God blessed me with brains and common sense.

I guess there aren't too many insults I can sling your way Mr. Johns, considering you already fully realize you are a male chauvinist pig. The only thing really left to say is that I find that most men who are trying to keep women down are inferior to women in almost every way.

But I do agree with one aspect of your particular brand of thinking, Mr. Johns. And that is that women do belong in the house...and the Senate.

Whudda thunk it, folks? If you give people the option of either paying for something or getting it for free, most people will chose to (...wait for it...wait for it...) take it for free.

I know! I'm just as shocked as you are! (Editor's note for the humor challenged: That sentence is dripping with sarcasm...I mean, we're talking Chinese water torture drip).

But believe it or not, some people are still surprised by the fact that when British band Radiohead (or as I like to call them "Whiny College Music Band") offered fans the option of paying whatever price they felt like paying for downloading their latest album, "In Rainbows," most people choose the price of free.

Well, duh. I may not be very good at math, but I do know that in terms of money, 0 is damn good price.

According to YPulse.com, "During the first 29 days of October, 1.2 million people worldwide visited the 'In Rainbows' site...the study showed that 38 percent of global downloaders of the album willingly paid to do so, with the remaining 62 percent choosing to pay nothing."

Well, that answers one question. 62 percent of Radiohead fans are smart.

I'm sorry but in my opinion, why pay when you don't have to? It's not like Radiohead is struggling for money. Chances are our 6-year-old niece could probably pirate it off the Internet for free anyway. And most of us music fans still want to get back at the music industry for quashing the dream that was Napster (ah, the good 'ol days).

That said, however, I applaud Radiohead for embracing the future of the music industry. Offering the music directly to fans at whatever price they deem appropriate (even free), they have sidestepped the traditional music industry way of doing things. And the money goes directly to the band, not to the fat cats chewing on their cigars in their music industry boardroom, which I'm sure is causing a panic among them ("Oh no! We can no longer exploit musicians and their fans and rob them blind! What's next? MTV actually playing music videos?! Oh, the humanity.")

Piracy of music and movies will always be around. In college, I knew dudes who could get copies of albums months before they hit the stores. Radiohead has made one bold move as a band and is trying to work with the changes in how people buy and listen to music. I can only hope other bands break away from the mainstream music industry and follow in their footsteps.

As a 20-something in the news industry, I've seen my fair share of older, supposedly wiser veterans in the business take a stab at my generation. They write their op-eds and columns about how what we, collectively as a group, have achieved falls far short of the glory days of generations gone by.

From the flappers to the lost generation to the 60s rebels, Generation X and Y just simply can't compare with our contributions of the grunge movement, Napster and Myspace.

Now usually I just let these accusations slide down my tattooed and Nirvana t-shirt clad back. Time has a way of skewing the truth and hindsight isn't always 20/20.

But every once in awhile, a commentary comes along that, to put it in my generation's term, disses the youth today in such an unwarranted way, I feel I have to make a rebuttal.

And New York Times' Thomas Friedman's op-ed on Oct. 10 did just that.

In the article, Mr. Friedman calls us the "Quiet Generation," essentially saying that while we are idealistic, we are just sitting on our bums playing on the computer as the whole world comes crashing down around us.

And I quote, "But Generation Q may be too quiet, too online, for its own good, and for the country's own good. When I think of the huge budget deficit, Social Security deficit and ecological deficit that our generation is leaving this generation, if they are not spitting mad, well, then they're just not paying attention."

"America needs a jolt of the idealism, activism and outrage (it must be in there) of Generation Q. That's what twentysomethings are for -- to light a fire under the country. But they can't e-mail it in, and an online petition or a mouse click for carbon neutrality won't cut it. They have to get organized in a way that will force politicians to pay attention rather than just patronize them."

One, it's nice to know that Mr. Friedman fully expects Generation Q to fix the problems the older generations are leaving us, thus successfully taking the responsibility off their shoulders of trying to fix it now.

Two, and much more importantly, I believe Mr. Friedman is mistaking our "quiet" for what is really a generation overwhelmed by the world's problems and constantly being inundated by those problems with a 24/7 stream of information hitting us from all directions.

What should we protest and light a fire about first, Mr. Friedman? The war in Iraq? Global warming? Social Security? The budget deficit? The chipping away of the constitution? AIDS in Africa? The injustices in Darfur? Gay rights? Illegal immigration? Forcing big business to go green? The declining public education system? The rising cost of healthcare?

While my generation may not be marching on Washington with the same fervor as our 60s counterparts did, I know that we care about what is going on in the world, sometimes so much so it brings us to tears. I know classmates who have joined Doctors Without Borders, Teach for America, have devoted countless hours to creating Web sites to raise awareness about Darfur, convinced their parents to buy a hybrid, protest the Iraq war. We do care, we want to make a difference. Except our way is different.

Overwhelmed with the world’s problems, my generation is trying to change the world one small thing at a time because if we look at the overall picture, it’s enough to snuff the spirit even out of the greatest social change warrior. So we join local non-profits. We donate items to soldiers overseas. We tutor underprivileged children. We encourage our generation to vote.

And maybe it’s not enough. Maybe we do need to get organized, gather in large numbers, let Congress hear us. But to say that we don’t care or what we do means nothing in a world that is even scarier and crazier than it was 30 years ago, that’s not fair to us, Mr. Friedman. In fact, I think our problem is just the opposite. I think we care too much and doing our “quiet” little protests is our way of coping. We can’t possibly tackle all the world’s problems right now and so we are taking it one step at a time. We have to believe that we can change the world little by little for the better or else we get overwhelmed with all that is going on around us that we have absolutely no control over. And we simply shut down.

All generations have been handed challenges they had to overcome. Give us time, Mr. Friedman. You’ll see. Slowly but surely we will tackle each of ours.

Much to my chagrin, it seems no one wants to join me in the quest to write a novel in a month, except for sports writer Billy Mau and my boyfriend Ryan "Muffin" Huddle.

But as they say, the book must go on (or something like that). Today, Nov. 1, is the official kick-off day of NaNoWriMo (as those of us in the know call it) and I plan to celebrate it by putting on the coffee, opening a bottle of wine and attempting to write as I slowly become a wide-awake drunk.

It's a hefty task before me, to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, but luckily for me, the point of NaNoWriMo isn't quality but quantity.

There's still time to sign up, my friends. Just go to www.NaNoWriMo.org and create an account. Or you can just live vicariously through me on this journey as I fully intend to keep you updated on my progress (and by "progress" I mean the varied and creative ways I have come up with to procrastinate.

Wish me luck!