Being like-minded with those who sought a fitness renaissance in the New Year, I went to a sporting goods store last week and purchased a dorky pair of running shoes. The half-off marking, coupled with the promise of a more efficient and healthy respiratory system, had my head and hopes high. Leaving the store, box of Asics in hand, I passed by a panderer who was making his last pleas before the night set in. It was less empathetic and more in the spirit of karmic rectification that I gave the man a few dollars in spare change. During the rummage I happened upon a pack of Marlboro 27’s in my pocket and, once again being altruistic, opted to donate the rest of my rather full pack to the strip-mall nomad who wanted for so much.
Much to my surprise, he grinned a yellow-toothed response saying, “Oh, thank you, but I don’t smoke.” Immediately after, he produced an e-cigarette from the torn and tattered coats that kept him from the evening’s cold.
I knew I had to get out of there immediately, before this king of uncool offered me a hit from his e-cigarette.
I bid him farewell, and in the hopes of reclaiming some cool points I lost in his presence, I threw a cigarette in my mouth and met it with the flames of a Zippo lighter.
I don’t want to profess to know and be all things cool. I sport dorky sneakers more befitting of a 40-year-old dad far too often throughout the week. I just heard Hozier’s “Take Me To Church” two months ago and rushed to tell my friends how great of a song it is. A stuffed Ewok doll on my nightstand sees me to bed every night. But I can definitively say, as a man who knows uncool culture all too well, vaping is decidedly not cool.
Though idiocy is timeless and will always abound, I was under the impression that regarding white America’s culture of the late ‘90s and early 2000s (yes, I’m talking about you, Heelys, JNCO jeans, Korn, Limp Bizkit and Papa Roach), we as a society agreed to try to keep it classier going forward.
Class, that thing which makes one forego the tank top for the dress shirt when going to a family dinner at grandma’s house. That is, unless your grandma is also a classless “vaper,” in which case I say good riddance.
Putting aside the possibly flawed notion of class for a moment, the contrivance of the gadgetry and large clouds of smoke represent the focal point of why vaping is for nerds: It is a spectacle for the sake of spectacle.
It’s a sort of “Look what I can do,” when the truth is, nobody really cares what you can do. Bleak, I know, but the smoker lives his or her life knowing this. The smoker’s ploy for attention is a simple one, primarily involving, well, smoking. There are no beeps, buttons or fancy tricks necessary to keep the ennui at bay.
It’s a more dignified means of succumbing to the pressures of coolness, and that’s what kids today don’t seem to understand.
Though it may be a net positive that teenage smoking is on the decline, the rise of vaping is downright shameful.
Justin Ford is a UF journalism junior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
