Voice of Anderson Cooper (over animated map of the United States, with a black stain spreading relentlessly): It started in Bedford Glen, but soon reports came from one town after another as parents and teachers discovered to their horror that their teens were infected with culture.
In New York, a theatre class declined to perform Urinetown, instead choosing to stage Shakespeare's Coriolanus.
In Oregon, an art class abandoned community organizing and learned how to draw.
Students in several states dressed nicely for school.
Lisbeth Whipple-Poodle is a sophomore at Bill Gates High School in Connecticut. She is active in cheerleading, student government and sex. We interviewed her at an underage drinking club.
Cooper: What do you think of the KulturPunks?
Whipple-Poodle: Um, they are, like, you know, wierd, you know, and stuff. Umm....I knew this one girl, like, one of them, you know, and she actually buys her clothes at JCPenney, can you believe it? I mean, she shops with her mom and stuff.
Cooper: Why does that bother you?
Whipple-Poodle: Um, you know, like, it makes the rest of us look bad, you know. I mean, if some teens actually study and stuff it makes it harder for normal teens like me to, you know, get into a good college. Um, I have, like, a right to get into a good college without working hard. Why should these KulturPunks get good grades just because, like, they do their homework?
Wherever the KulturPunks surfaced, they terrorized their schoolmates. Writers ruthlessly parodied athletes in student literary magazines. Musical theatre troupes targeted student government with adaptations of Gilbert and Sullivan, cleverly substituting the names of their victims for the original lyrics in "As Some Day It May Happen". Artists created unflattering caricatures of rich and stupid students. And geeks published the sexual activities of their peers, together with pictures and ratings.
Mary Mackle-Thwopple is a Junior at Barack Obama High School in Snoot, New York. She is a varsity athlete, class president, rich, stupid and relentlessly promiscuous. We interviewed her at an undisclosed location:
Cooper: What was it like to be targeted by literary magazines, musical theatre, unflattering caricatures and teen sexpose websites?
Mackle-Thwopple: It was horrible. (Sobbing).
As the KulturPunks phenomenon spread, it morphed and split. While KulturPunk purists continued to believe passionately in Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (and his sister, Fanny), others advocated a broader acceptance of Early German Romanticism so long as the spirit of Bildung was upheld. "We don't want reality, we want Bildung!", they chanted.
In California, an even more relaxed form of KulturPunkism took hold, which celebrated the Pre-Raphaelites. This is the crowd Natasha fell in with. And when she fell, she fell hard.
