FORT WAYNE, IN – Local father Greg Hensley was reportedly “gutted” this week after discovering that his 16-year-old son Tyler’s newfound interest in “piracy” had nothing to do with swashbuckling, eye patches, or commandeering ships on the high seas. Instead, it was about torrenting obscure anime and pirated copies of Call of Duty from sketchy websites.
“I thought we were finally bonding,” Greg, 43, told reporters outside his suburban home, clutching a replica cutlass he’d bought off eBay. “He came downstairs last month and said, ‘Dad, I’m really getting into piracy.’ My heart swelled. I grew up watching Treasure Island and Pirates of the Caribbean. I thought, ‘This is it, my boy’s gonna be a seafaring man!’”
Greg’s dreams of father-son sailing trips and rum-soaked adventures were dashed when he walked in on Tyler hunched over a laptop, downloading a 47-gigabyte file labeled “One.Piece.S01-1080p-DualAudio.torrent.” The only “booty” in sight was a folder full of poorly subtitled episodes and a pop-up ad for Russian mail-order brides.
“I asked him where the boat was,” Greg said, shaking his head. “He just stared at me and said, ‘What boat?’ Then he showed me some site called Pirate Bay. I don’t get it. Where’s the plank? Where’s the parrot? This isn’t piracy, this is just… nerd stuff.”
Tyler, for his part, seemed baffled by his father’s reaction. “I thought he’d be mad about the copyright thing, not the lack of swords,” the teen said, pausing a grainy rip of Naruto Shippuden. “He kept asking if I’d at least stolen the files from a rival crew. I had to explain it’s not like that. It’s just, you know, free stuff.”
Greg’s disappointment only deepened after a quick Google search revealed that modern “piracy” has little to do with the romanticized outlaws of yore. “I spent $200 on that cutlass,” he muttered, gesturing to the blade now propped sadly against a La-Z-Boy. “I even practiced saying ‘arrgh’ in the mirror. For what? A kid who thinks ‘argh’ is a file extension?”
Neighbors report that Greg has since taken to pacing his backyard in a tricorn hat, muttering about “landlubbers” and glaring at Tyler’s bedroom window. “He asked me if I knew how to tie a bowline knot,” said neighbor Cheryl Watkins. “I told him I didn’t, and he just sighed and said, ‘Neither does my son.’ It’s heartbreaking.”
In a last-ditch effort to salvage the situation, Greg offered to take Tyler to a local maritime museum. “I figured we could at least look at some old schooners, maybe talk about Blackbeard,” he said. Tyler declined, citing a need to “seed” his latest torrent to maintain his ratio on some underground forum Greg refuses to understand.
Experts say this kind of generational disconnect is increasingly common. “Parents hear ‘piracy’ and picture Johnny Depp, while kids mean BitTorrent,” said Dr. Laura Henshaw, a sociologist. “It’s a clash of expectations. One side wants cannon fire; the other wants faster Wi-Fi.”
As of press time, Greg was spotted at a local bar, nursing a rum and Coke and telling anyone who’d listen that “kids these days wouldn’t know a brigantine from a broadband router.” Meanwhile, Tyler successfully downloaded Grand Theft Auto V, proving that while he may not be a pirate, he’s at least a petty thief.