So, how did you spend your summer vacation?
21-year-old UCLA student Chris Jeon’s answer is different than most: He decided to spend his summer palling around with Libyan rebels. Why? Because he thought it would be cool.
The Internet yesterday went crazy about the story of the rising college senior — and for good reason, because he sounds like a note-perfect imitation of an entitled hipster doofus.
From The National:
Chris Jeon, a 21-year-old university student from Los Angeles, California, shrugging cooly, declared: “It is the end of my summer vacation, so I thought it would be cool to join the rebels. This is one of the only real revolutions” in the world.
… “How do you fire this thing?” he asked on Wednesday as a bearded rebel handed him an AK-47. Locating the trigger of the assault rifle and switching off the safety, Mr Jeon fired it in the air in two short bursts.
“I want to fight in Sirte!” he proclaimed, using hand gestures and pointing west towards Sirte. Whether the rebels understood him was far from clear. “It’s hard to communicate. I don’t really speak any Arabic,” he said.
Jeon fights, the article says, wearing a blue basketball jersey emblazoned with “Los Angeles.” Also, he doesn’t want anyone to tell his parents where he is, because he doesn’t want to get in trouble.
We sort of want to find Chris Jeon so we can scream in his face. Seriously: War is not a fun thing for you to put on tumblr! Luckily, it looks like the Libyan rebels have already done this for us. According to a tweet from Al-Jazeera English producer Evan Hill:
Our team in east #Libya said rebels fed up with Chris Jeon, US kid who tried to join, told him 2 go, last seen on pick-up going 2 Benghazi.
Good going, Libyan rebels. It may have taken you a few weeks longer than the rest of usto realize this kid was incredibly annoying, but at least you made the right decision in the end.
