We’ve become the Gilmore Girls as a society: Good or bad?


Let me just state from the outset I love the television show The Gilmore Girls. I am ecstatic that we get four more episodes come this fall and that we finally get to find out what were the intended final four words.  If you understood that sentence you classify as a die-hard fan as well. Now that my love of the show has been established let me move onto my premise. As a society, we have become the Gilmore Girls and I am not too sure that is a good thing.


Stars Hollow, the fictional town in which the television show takes place, is wonderful. It is quirky, kooky and not cookie-cutter in any way. If I could I would live there or in Cabot Cove, the town of Murder She Wrote. Don’t ask. Just go with it. By the way, Cabot Cove is actually Mendocino California. Good thing I now live in California. I would love living in these quaint, fictional towns where everyone is helpful despite being extremely odd. For that matter, I wouldn’t mind living in the town of Northern Exposure, except for that whole being dark for six months out of the year thing. I am not too sure that the quirkiness would compensate for the darkness.  Quirky but depressed? Is it worth it?  I am not convinced that it is. I’d be willing to try for a year.

Now this may all seem random but trust my friend this is all part of the narrative. see, Gilmore Girls made stream of consciousnesses cool. It made fast talking even cooler. The characters were almost always drinking coffee and their dialogue was revved  up accordingly.It was known for its fast-paced dialogue filled with pop-culture references. The tag line of Gilmore Girls, which I don’t know if many people actually know it, is “Life’s short. Talk fast”.  It was an awesome show that despite mediocre ratings lasted for seven years on air and has penetrated everyday life thereafter.


The fast dialogue and stream of consciousness framework that penetrated everyday life means that one has to be witty and punchy. Since I am Puerto Rican, I was born with the fast paced talking  ability. Its second nature to me. My brain can think ahead to 5 or 6 sentences. I also drink about three large cups of coffee a day. That’s the other thing. Yes, Starbucks is ubiquitous and everyone nowadays is familiar with lattes. But I think our coffee obsession is more than just Starbucks having a great marketing plan (which they do disguised in corporate philanthropy).  I believe that characters in television such as the Gilmore Girls made coffee drinking a new cool phenomena tied to being witty. It is seen as a brain engine.

In the workplace, I also see more and more that employees subscribe to the tagline (and now life motto) of “life is short, talk fast.” I see employees sitting around a meeting table just itching to move and take their turn at speaking. They want to speak but barely have any tolerance to sit through others speaking.  Talk fast, work is long. Donald Trump is somewhat in the mold of the Gilmore Girls. Although, ironically enough, at the series finale (spoiler alert) Rory goes on to work for the newly emerging Obama campaign. But back to the Donald. He talks fast, tried to seem quick-witted with his comebacks and nicknames and just says whatever comes to mind for better or worse. Gilmore Girls was about quips. They were good-natured, though. These days, we are all quipping about. However, I don’t know if our quips all -around are necessarily as good-natured. From what I see on the co-called news these days it appears not.


Despite the various Taylor Swift feuds in spite of her squad goals, and despite the Kim Kardashians of the world and despite the political circus arena that our national elections has become, our fats-talk may be a good thing. I’m assuming our brains have been re-wired in some way that allows us to process situations much more quickly. That has got to be a good thing should we ever revert back to the stone age and have to face flight or fight situations more regularly.


Stream of consciousness, folks.



2 replies »

I welcome your thoughts


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s