THE DAILY BLADE: Does Santa Need An Upgrade?
Brian Campbell, a writer from Cranford, NJ, makes the case that Santa “is outdated in almost every aspect” in this Wall Street Journal op-ed:
For starters, Mr. Claus is painfully simple. Kids have become urbane consumers, and in many ways they are treated like adults by parents and society alike. …
Secondly, Mr. Claus is not cool. Because they have been marketed to like teenagers, young children are acting more and more like teenagers (count the number of 6-year-olds watching Hannah Montana), so a cheerful old man dressed in a red suit and surrounded by elves is no longer agreeable.
Thirdly, Mr. Claus is obese. … Santa's girth presents an image problem for the market-makers in pop culture and those government officials responsible for engineering our behavior.
Fourth, Mr. Claus is not proficient in the employment and/or deployment of technology. … Children no longer play with childhood toys. …Today's toys require computer programming and LCD expertise. …
There are many other things that Santa Claus does that run contrary to our very modern age. His animal rights record is spotty - reindeer were certainly not designed to travel the world in such a short amount of time - and his elven labor practices have little to do with free-market capitalism.
Campbell envisions a 21st Century Santa who Tweets about the triathlon he is competing in, and “who sets trends in fashion and social responsibility.”
Maybe someone like this fellow:
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