The Brown Paper Bag

I still remember the Brown Paper Bag. It traveled through many hands, hopping from apartment to apartment. There was intrigue, curiosity, and a forbidden aspect attached to this crumpled, Brown Paper Bag. It was never verbalized what the contents were in the Brown Paper Bag other than you needed to look at it yourself to truly judge it for what it was worth, and at that point it was worth its weight in gold.

One neighbor bought its contents through the Black Market of the World Wide Web. From there, he was courteous enough to pass the goods around to anyone in the complex who wanted to look at it. There was no regard to the other parties involved with the product being discretely passed around.

The parents of the apartment complex had the most interest in it. If the subject was brought on in front of children, it was discussed in hushed whispers, euphemisms, and masked language to make the conversation suitable for children while making said conversation as boring as possible to prevent any additional questions that could not be answered in G-Rated manner.

But we weren’t stupid. We had access to television, newspapers, and spoke with other kids. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what all the hoopla was all about.

It was 1997 and no one could stop the phenomenon of the first Celebrity sex tape.