I’ve always been a trendsetter. For instance, I started telling people about how I’m getting old before it was cool to start telling people about getting old.

The search box here at #ScaiaBlog reports I have written no fewer than 12 blogs using the exact phrase, “I’m not an old man.” And I defend that position.

Wired reports the first generation of digital natives is now getting older, which Loyal Scaiaholics will recall, beats the alternative.

The punk kids of today, though, are realizing that maybe it’s not ideal to always be connected. They’ve rediscovered the flip phone. Back in 1993, the only thing you could use your phone for was making phone calls. And if you were calling someone far away, you had to wait until 9 p.m. because it was “long distance,” and that cost more.

Now, my phone considers Snake a “retro game.”

And because I’m nothing if not clued into current pop culture trends, I was recently screening Head of the Class. Even Brad Pitt understood the influence of a guest starring turn there.

Here’s why I’m hip [or “with it,” if you will]: I never had the MySpace even though my associates were all getting into it, talking about their “Top 8” and what not. I thought social media was a racket even before it was cool to think social media was a racket. I set the trends.

Sure, I tweet… but only grudgingly. Imagine me rolling my eyes as I type out each tweet.

As the leading voice for America’s youth, perhaps I can help them rediscover AM radio.

“Kids,” I’ll explain in a fatherly, Bob Saget voice. “Imagine a podcast that broadcasts information live while it’s happening!”

“Does it have popping sounds and constant technical difficulties?!” the children sitting around me will ask, leaning forward with interest.

Everything is cyclical. Even the hashtag first became #trending 300,000 years ago!

“Grog discover fire today. #Blessed” he might have tweeted onto that stone.

My decision to link to a video game from the 1980s shows how I’m keyed into pop culture. The good news is that article a couple paragraphs up tells us we only need a brain the third of its current size to use social media.