Trainspotting's 'choose life' speech, rewritten in 2017 for a competition
Everyone, well, everyone who grew up in the '90s, knows Trainspotting's famous 'choose life' speech. And recently – with the release of sequel, T2 – there was a Creative Review competition to rewrite it. So I entered and came second.... this is basically my 'this one time at Band Camp' anecdote. Anyway, here's what I wrote:
Choose life. Choose your precious smartphone. Choose narcissism and selfie sticks. Choose Uber, Deliveroo and online dating. Choose FitBits and self-improvement. Choose masturbation. Choose the herd mentality, trolling culture and the turgid crap that is reality TV. Choose giving a damn about your privacy. Choose government surveillance, tracking cookies and facial recognition. Choose the police, kettling and racial profiling. Choose isolationism, alleged protectionism and border patrols. Choose turning our backs on Obama and voting for Donald fucking Trump, walling off Mexico and Islamophobia. Choose Brexit. Choose interfering in the Middle East and Africa. Choose trusting the conniving, supercilious banks. Choose escapism, geek culture and unrealistic heroes. Choose Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom bloody Hiddleston. Choose celebrity and becoming obsessed with each new shocking death. Choose being labelled and marketed to in every possible way. Choose being a millennial. Choose Generation Z.
Choose globalisation and losing our way.
Choose life.
