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Well, seeing as I have not recently become a parent, I guess the duty of writing our semi-monthly posting falls to me. When ever Something New enters the world, there will usually be someone on the (for lack of a better word) religious right who will Find Fault with it. A certain brand of traditionalist Catholics laments the invention of TV, microwave ovens, automobiles, and electronically powered devices. I find this trend rather obnoxious. They have confused Catholicism with Luddism. There are grave dangers with new technology — just as there are grave dangers with old technology. Some people condemn the Internet because of Internet porn. Does it occur to them to condemn photography too? After all, the Internet would not work so well as a porn conveyor if there weren’t cameras in the world. Maybe we should ban cameras. So I recently read about a priest who lambasted Facebook. Yep, there are a lot of ways to go wrong with Facebook — just as there a lot of ways to go wrong with libraries, taverns, and places of employment. Anyway, this priest, who was no doubt well-intentioned, noted that — apparently, I guess — there is a phrase “pimp my Facebook page.” It means to deck one’s page out with all sorts of features. The priest suggests that this is immodest. Okay, I can see how this expression would shock a priest. But context is important here. The priest may have inferred that this was a direct reference to prostitution, as though the people who used the phrase meant that they aimed to make their Facebook pages somehow more whorish. No. The expression is derived from “pimp my ride,” which means to fit one’s car out with all sorts of accessories. The origin of this is the perception, probably reinforced by exploitation films from the 1960s and 1970s, that black pimps in the ghetto show off their status by driving very swank cars with ridiculous accoutrements. Hence the phrase, “pimp my ride,” a reference to a particular fascination with automobile accessories. From there the phrase becomes more general and applicable to one’s Facebook page. We are now very far removed from prostitution. Most people probably don’t really think of the sexual connotation, and those who do are laughing about their stereotypes of the vain, peacock-feather-in-his-fedora-wearing pimp. Bad? Maybe. Starkly evil and suggestive of Facebook’s whoremongering? No. And I had never heard the expression before I read the priest’s article.
5 Responses to “How not to engage in cultural criticism”
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St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
Hmmm…my initial impulse here is to see how it would fit in with my own family. Do I want my thirteen year old son asking me,”Ah, mom? Mind if pimp my bedroom?”. A resounding no.
Luckily for me my kids don’t know that expression. Why? Because they don’t watch TV or have Facebook pages. Call me a Luddite if you will. :)
By the way – did I miss something – did Clara have a baby?
Here is the article: http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/2009-0815-where-madness-lies.htm I seem to have made a mistake — the priest was referring to MySpace, not Facebook. Now I am on not on MySpace, so maybe sex is a bigger theme there, but at least in the case of Facebook (and the priest criticizes both of them) in my experience people do not set up pages there to engage in sexually immodest behavior. But mutatis mutandis, let’s say this expression did exist in the Facebook world. The priest infers and then implies that the expression “pimping out one’s page” is part and parcel to some sexually degenerate aspect of social networking websites. Well, I rather think it’s a tongue-in-cheek expression derived from the automobile culture, as I said before, and does not refer to making one’s page more “whorish” or sexually stimulating or anything like that. Yes, the phrase does have the capacity to scandalize people and using the expression does take away the moral disapprobation that normally applies to any word connected to prostitution. Thinking of pimps primarily as chic and garish is wrong. But the reference simply is not to sexual immodesty and would not indicate that Facebook itself is sexually immodest — certainly no more immodest than the automobile, which is the area of our culture where this expression arose.
Now, I would not let children have MySpace or Facebook page. But if your son becomes an auto mechanic or takes auto shop one day (or hangs out with people who like cars), he will very probably hear the expression, “pimp my ride.” Once again, to protect ourselves from such expressions maybe we should ban cars or keep our children away from them. But the problem is not with cars, it seems to be with an expression based on pimps’ propensity to equip their cars with accessories. The priest seems to make an inference about the sexual degeneracy of new social networking technology on the basis of a phrase that is not indicative of this. To that extent his problem has to do with the long-range linguistic effects of blaxploitation films of the 1960s and 1970s and (now that I think about it) rap music, not with social networking or cars or anything like that.
There’s a further problem. As I said, the priest does not seem to know — or at least does not acknowledge — what the expression in question actually means or where it comes from. By treating this as some direct reference to prostitution he risks making his argument sound preposterous to people who use the social networking sites he’s talking about.
Btw, for me personally, I see just as much or more real and potential temptation in blogging (on religion and politics!) and reading sites like “The Remnant” (where I found the priest’s article) as in using Facebook.
Twitter, on the other hand, is stupid. :)
I remember this piece – someone forwarded it to me over the summer. When I read it I remember thinking he had some interesting things to say. Upon rereading it, the main point seems to be the idea that “the empty and superficial are a massive roadblock in a man’s journey towards God”. How true.
You’re right – he mistakenly made a direct connection between the old meaning of the word pimp and the new one, like many other adults would who aren’t exposed to current slang. But there was a certain irony seeing it juxtaposed with the quote from the teenage girl as it was. I think he gets it more than you realize.
This priest isn’t lambasting Facebook/MySpace, his words are directed specifically to parents about *teenage* use of Facebook/MySpace, texting, etc. There are many abuses – some are simply obsession with self and tons of wasted money and time, some are much more grave. It’s very important for parents to stay on top of all this and he’s trying to help them do that.
The soul is always in danger but the fact is that technology helps us lose our souls faster and at younger ages than ever before. I wonder what will happen in 20 years to this generation to whom sex is only good when it’s illicit, whose families are broken and whose friendships are fleeting, over with the click of a mouse.
Re: your second post – yes, the whole pimp thing is problematic – it’s not clear whether he really knows the current meaning or not. Awkward.
Absolutely, blogging holds many temptations. And twitter? I think that’s what I did back in the day when guys flirted with me. :)