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The post How South Park Season 27 Finally Got Gen Z to Care<\/a> appeared first on Consequence<\/a>.<\/p>\n When South Park<\/a>\u00a0first aired in 1997, I was negative four years old. Suffice it to say, I didn\u2019t tune in. When\u00a0South Park\u00a0dropped its celebrated full-length movie in 1999, I still had yet to take my first breath and, again, I didn\u2019t tune in. Even when I was finally alive and (more importantly) consciously dictating my own media diet, enjoying viral clips<\/a> of Matt Stone and Trey Parker satirizing the 2016 election, I never flipped on the tube and caught an episode. I continued my pre-natal tendency of passively disregarding whatever South Park was up to for 24 long years. This month, I broke that streak.<\/p>\n The hype of South Park Season 27 got to me. Maybe it was the fact that everyone and their mother was talking about it (my colleague Liz Shannon Miller literally shared screenshots of her mom gushing over the season premiere), or maybe it was the ballsiness of taking their own network to task \u00e0 la The Rehearsal<\/a> in a manner that appealed to my Nathan Fielder-loving ass. Also, my news feed had gotten so damn bleak that\u00a0 it was either get a prescription from my physician or watch a couple of naughty television showrunners puppeteer Trump\u2019s tiny pecker. (Let me tell you, it does offer some temporary relief.)<\/p>\n To be clear, I was never explicitly\u00a0anti-South Park. Its trademark brand of hyper-offensive humor never particularly irked me, and while I didn\u2019t always agree with the politics, I could appreciate how they were equal opportunity offenders, taking shots at anyone and everyone. No, despite what some might assume<\/a>, my Gen-Z hang-ups with the long-running animated series had nothing to do with the show\u2019s political incorrectness or late-\u201990s\/early-\u201900s sensibilities. After all, I love shows like It\u2019s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Curb Your Enthusiasm, and I have a soft spot for all those flicks that \u201cthey couldn\u2019t make today,\u201d like Blazing Saddles and Tropic Thunder.<\/p>\n Rather, what kept me away from the iconic program for so long is just that \u2014 its iconic status. Perhaps without even realizing it, the show\u2019s immense popularity, from oft-repeated quotes (see \u201cThey killed Kenny!\u201d or \u201cRespect my authority!\u201d) to the ubiquitous imagery of the main cast, resulted in a certain dissonance for my young mind. For a show that was always pitched to me as counter-culture, controversial, and dangerous, it sure felt pretty established and well-accepted. If I could win a stuffed Cartman at the carnival ring toss booth \u2014 and I could \u2014 it positions South Park\u00a0as not all that different from the intellectual property hanging next to the licensed, smirking plush: Garfield, SpongeBob, and Scooby-Doo.<\/p>\n Which is not a criticism of the actual quality. Surely they were doing something right; millions of people were watching weekly. But if the series\u2019 hook was its edge, it didn\u2019t exactly translate for me or for many of those who grew up alongside me. I mean, if the angst of youth is to rebel against the establishment of the parental generation, South Park felt wholly encompassed within that cultural sphere, not like an avenue to subvert it. It\u2019s kind of like another cultural entity I had to learn to fully appreciate a little later in life, the Beastie Boys. It\u2019s hard to feel cool and rebellious listening to \u201cFight for Your Right\u201d when my Gen-X parents encouraged me to wear my hair long.<\/p>\n Frankly, it felt a whole lot more dangerous to secretly fire up Salad Fingers<\/a> or the pessimistic and<\/a> absurd work<\/a> of FilmCow<\/a> on our family\u2019s brightly colored iMac than to turn on cable and watch South Park\u00a0episode one-hundred-and-whatever. At least the former actually confused and worried mom and pops, while they could still wrap their head around and even enjoy the latter. And that\u2019s all without considering the genuinely bad, uncensored filth that was easily accessible elsewhere on the internet.<\/p>\n Popular Posts<\/p>\n